As in England so in Scotland, the most important improvements have been effected through enlightened landlords. The members of the Highland Society, who have made the best exertions for improving the condition of the labouring population in the rural districts, and have offered prizes for the best-constructed cottages and the best plans, competition being open to all parties, got nothing from the lower classes, and only succeeded in exciting the interest of the most intelligent proprietors, and getting improvements effected through their exertions. Mr. Loudon, in an appeal on behalf of the agricultural labourers, lays it down as a primary position that, “In general, proprietors ought not to entrust the erection of labourers’ cottages on their estates to the farmers, as it is chiefly owing to this practice that so many wretched hovels exist in the best cultivated districts of Scotland and Northumberland.”
Preparatory to the exposition of the means of protection of the public health provided by the existing law, and of the modifications that appear to be requisite for the attainment of the object in question, I would submit for consideration practical examples of its partial attainment by means of improved dwellings; combined with examples of other improvements effected in the moral condition of the labouring classes, by the judicious exercise of the influence possessed by their superiors in condition.
Throughout the country examples are found of a desire, on the part of persons of the higher class, to improve the condition of the poorer classes by the erection of dwellings of a superior order for their accommodation. These, however, are generally at a cost beyond any return to be expected in the present state of the habits of the people in the shape of rent, or any return in money for an outlay on an ordinary investment of capital. But the instances about to be noticed, though generally originating in benevolence, and without the expectation of a return, do, in the results, prove that in money and money’s worth, the erection of good tenements affords the inducement of a fair remuneration to the employers of labour to provide improved accommodation for their own labourers.
Wherever it has been brought under observation, the connexion of the labourer’s residence with his employment as part of the farm, or of the estate, or of the manufactory on which he is employed, and as part of the inducement to service, appears to be mutually advantageous to the employer and the employed. The first advantages are to the person employed.
We everywhere find (in contradiction to statements frequently made in popular declamations) that the labourer gains by his connexion with large capital: in the instances presented in the course of this inquiry, of residences held from the employer, we find that the labourer gains by the expenditure for the external appearance of that which is known to be part of the property,—an expenditure that is generally accompanied by corresponding internal comforts; he gains by all the surrounding advantages of good roads and drainage, and by more sustained and powerful care to maintain them; he gains by the closer proximity to his work attendant on such an arrangement, and he thus avoids all the attacks of disease, occasioned by exposure to wet and cold, and the additional fatigue in traversing long distances to and from his home to the place of work, in the damp of early morning or of nightfall. The exposure to weather, after leaving the place of work, is one prolific cause of disease, especially to the young. When the home is near to the place of work, the labourer is enabled to take his dinner with his family instead of at the beer-shop.
The wife and family generally gain, by proximity to the employer or the employer’s family, in motives to neatness and cleanliness by their being known and being under observation; as a general rule, the whole economy of the cottages in bye-lanes and out-of-the-way places appears to be below those exposed to observation. In connexion with property or large capital, the labourer gains in the stability of employment, and the regularity of income incidental to operations on a large scale; there is a mutual benefit also in the wages for service being given in the shape of buildings or permanent and assured comforts; that is, in what would be the best application of wages, rather than wholly in money wages.
In the manufacturing districts there is a mutual and large gain by the diminution of the labour of the collection of rents, the avoidance of the risks of non-payment, and also in the power of control for the prevention of disturbances, and the removal of tenants of bad character and conduct.
Surprise is frequently expressed at the enormous rents ranging up to and beyond 20 per cent. on the outlay, exacted by the building speculators in the towns. But when the experience of these descriptions of tenements is examined, it is found that the labour of collecting the rents, and the labour of protecting the property itself against waste from unprincipled tenants, is such as to prove that accommodation given to the disorderly and vicious is scarcely remunerative at any price. The tenants are loosely attached, and large numbers migratory, partly from the nature of their work; and having little or no goods or furniture, they have no obstacles to removal; they frequently, before absconding, commit every description of waste; they often burn shelves and cupboard-doors, and the door itself, and all timber that can be got at for the purpose.[39] An objection frequently made against laying on the water in houses inhabited by a population addicted to drinking is, that they would sell the receptacles and destroy the pipe, and let the water run to waste, for the sake of the lead. The expense and delay of legal remedies precludes redress for such injuries.
In some of the worst neighbourhoods in Manchester, the whole population of a street have risen to resist the service of legal process by the civil officers. In the course of the Constabulary Inquiry I was informed by the superintendent of the old police of that town, that one of the most dangerous services for a small force was attending to enforce ejectments. This they had often to do, cutlass in hand, and were frequently driven off by showers of bricks from the mobs. The collection of the rents weekly in such neighbourhoods is always a disagreeable service, requiring high payment. This, and the frequent running away of the tenant, and the waste, greatly reduce the apparently enormous rent obtainable from this poorer class of tenants. For all these vices, risks, and defaults of others, the frugal and well-conducted workman who has no choice of habitation, is compelled to pay in the shape of an increased rent; he is most largely taxed in the increased rent, necessary as an insurance for the risks and losses occasioned by the defective state of legal remedies.
All these risks the employer is enabled to diminish or avoid, by selecting his own tenants, and he has the best means of doing so; by reservations of rent on the payment of wages, he saves the labour and risks of collection; nor will the vicious workman so readily commit waste in the house belonging to his employer as in one belonging to a poorer and unconnected owner. The employer has, moreover, the most direct interest in the health and strength of his workpeople.
It is not supposed that these are arrangements which can be universal, or readily made the subject of legislation. At the commencement of some manufactures, the additional outlay may not be practicable. But those manufactures have generally had the greatest success where good accommodation for the workpeople was comprehended in the first arrangements. When, however, a manufactory has been once established and brought into systematic operation, when the first uncertainties have been overcome and the employer has time to look about him, there appears to be no position from which so extensive and certain a beneficial influence may be exercised as that of the capitalist who stands in the double relation of landlord and employer. He will find that whilst an unhealthy and vicious population is an expensive as well as a dangerous one, all improvements in the condition of the population have their compensation. In one instance, of a large outlay on improved tenements, and in provision for the moral improvement of the rising generation of workpeople, by an expensive provision for schools, the proprietor acknowledged to me that although he made the improvements from motives of a desire to improve the condition of his workpeople, or what might be termed the satisfaction derived from the improvements as a “hobby,” he was surprised by a pecuniary gain found in the superior order and efficiency of his establishment, in the regularity and trustworthiness of his workpeople, which gave even pecuniary compensation for the outlay of capital and labour bestowed upon them. He stated that he would not, for 7000l., change the entire set of workpeople on whom care had been bestowed for the promiscuous assemblage of workpeople engaged in the same description of manufactures.
I would now submit for consideration, with the view to promulgation for voluntary adoption, instances of the arrangements which have been found most beneficial in their operation on the condition of the manufacturing population.
The most prominent of these instances was pointed out to our attention in the course of the Factory Inquiry, in the habitations connected with the mills superintended by the late Mr. Archibald Buchanan, at Catrine, in Ayrshire. Nearly 1000 persons are employed in these mills, the places of work are well ventilated and carefully kept; the village where the workpeople live is advantageously situated, and the houses are well built. They are thus described by his son in answer to my inquiries:—
“The system that has been pursued here, and which was adopted by my father for the purpose of giving the workers a greater interest in the place, at the same time that it gave them an object to be careful and saving, while it raised them in point of standing and respectability, has been different from that generally acted upon at country works. Instead of our company continuing the proprietors of the dwelling-houses and letting them to the workpeople, my father gave the workers every encouragement to save money, so that they might themselves become the proprietors of a house and small garden, either by making a purchase from the company or fencing ground and building a house for themselves. This plan has been very successful, and many of our people are proprietors of excellent houses with gardens attached, which afford them employment and amusement in their spare hours; and among themselves they have a horticultural society and an annual competition. Though many houses have been sold in this way, a considerable part of the village is still the property of our company, and those that have been built by other parties are in accordance with a plan of streets laid down; and I should say are about equal to the others in comfort and conveniences, it being the interest of the person investing his money to get the best return he can for it; and that he may get his house let and a fair rent for it, he must build as good a house as the tenant can get for the same rent from another. The houses are substantially built of stone and lime, and slated, and are generally of two stories, containing four families, occupying two rooms each. They have generally small plots of garden-ground behind, in which are dungsteads and necessaries, with a space between them and the houses. The village is well supplied with water by spring-wells and pumps in various parts of it; and some of the streets have water conveyed to them in pipes from the aqueduct to the water-wheels that give motion to the works. I cannot, however, very well give any distinct plan or drawing of the dwellings of the workpeople, our houses being a good deal mixed with those belonging to others.
“The population of the village, per census taken 30th December last,
is 2699, and the number of families 566, so that the proportion of individuals
to each family is 4435
566, and the number employed in the works
is 936. The proprietors of houses appoint annually a committee of
their number to attend to the repairs of the streets, and the keeping of
them clean; and they have a man constantly in their employment for
this purpose, the expense being defrayed by the feuers assessing themselves
according to the rental of their properties.”
These mills were pointed out to our attention during the Factory Inquiry, by Mr. Stuart, the commissioner, who observed that the workpeople, “more especially the females, are not only apparently in the possession of good health, but many of them (quite as large a proportion as we have seen in any of the extensive well-regulated similar establishments in country districts) are blooming—as unlike as possible to the pale, languid-looking females too frequently to be found in similar works in great cities.”
Mr. Hill, the prison inspector for Scotland, stated that the procurator fiscal, or public prosecutor, reported to him that he had nothing to do in that village; and in his Third Report he thus mentions it:—
“There is little crime here, and very few offences of any kind, and it is reported that there is not a single person in the village who is of a bad character. Indeed no person of bad character, or who is in the habit of drunkenness, is allowed to remain in the mills, on which nearly the whole population of the village is directly or indirectly dependent. The few offences which are committed are almost all by vagrants. The inhabitants of Catrine appear to be in the enjoyment of an unusual amount of comfort; they are well clad, live in neat houses, many of them their own property, and look healthy and cheerful; indeed the only person in the village who has reason to be downcast is the medical man, who complains that he has nothing to do.”
Similar effects are manifested in the mills at New Lanark, at the flax-mills near Cupar. These instances would suffice to establish the fact of the very little sickness that is essential to the occupation itself. Mr. Hill who, by his office, is led to appreciate highly instances of exemption from crime and disorder, exclaims, upon the sight of such establishments,—“Notwithstanding what has been said on the subject of factories, I have no hesitation in declaring that I believe that the workpeople at Catrine, New Lanark, and other similar establishments, form some of the healthiest, happiest, and most moral communities in the world.”
From other examples it appears to be by no means essential to such improvements that the labourers should become proprietors of their occupations. Mr. Buchanan, jun., expresses his concurrence in the general conclusions to which I have arrived of the advantages derived by the labourer from his connexion with his place of work, and says,—
“I perfectly agree that a labouring man will generally be found in a state of greater comfort, holding a tenement from his employer, than when left to provide a dwelling of whatever kind he chooses for himself. In our case the proprietors, in the first place, furnished the house, in which the workmen formed habits of cleanliness and comfort, and when by care and economy he had saved as much as enabled him to purchase it, he was advanced a step higher by becoming himself the proprietor, continuing to occupy part of the house himself, and letting the other parts to his fellow-workmen.
“I believe that our people enjoy as good health, and have as many comforts as any of the same class either in the same or any other employment, as their appearance will testify; and the generally different appearance of the manufacturing population in towns is to be attributed to the habits of the people themselves, and the way in which they are crowded together, and not to anything in the nature of the employment.”[40]
The following account which I have received in answer to inquiries from Mr. Henry Ashworth, of Turton, near Bolton, with relation to the manufacturing population of that place, is so far characteristic of the progress of a population of more extensive districts, and of the means of their improvement, that I submit it at full length:—
“On the early introduction of the cotton manufacture, the parties who entered into it were men of limited capital, and anxious to invest the whole of it in mills and machinery, and therefore too much absorbed with the doubtful success of their own affairs to look after the necessities of their workpeople.
“Families were attracted from all parts for the benefit of employment, and obliged, as a temporary resort, to crowd together into such dwellings as the neighbourhood afforded: often two families into one house; others into cellars or very small dwellings: eventually, as the works became established, either the proprietor or some neighbour would probably see it advantageous to build a few cottages; these were often of the worst description; in such case the prevailing consideration was not how to promote the health and comfort of the occupants, but how many cottages could be built upon the smallest space of ground and at the least possible cost. We find many built back to back, a most objectionable form, as precluding the possibility of any outlet behind.
“People brought together as these were for a living, had no alternative but to occupy such dwellings. Whatever the weekly income, the wife could never make such a house comfortable; she had only one room in which to do all her work; it may be readily supposed the husband would not always find the comfort he wished in such a home. The public-house would then be his only resort. But here the evil does not end; the children brought up in such dwellings knew no better accommodation than such afforded, nor had they any opportunities of seeing better domestic management. Few of the parents in these parts have ever lived as domestic servants, so that it becomes no matter of surprise that the major part should have so little knowledge of improving their social condition even when the pecuniary means are within their reach. It must be allowed that the introduction of manufactures is not justly chargeable with producing the whole of this evil. About this time the old Poor Law was exercising a very pernicious influence upon the labouring classes, by means of inducing both the landowners and farmers to discourage cottage property for fear the inmates should gain parish settlements.
“Cottages were forbidden to be built; some pulled down when empty, and others fell to decay for want of repair; poor people were banished as much as possible from the agricultural districts on account of the burden of parish settlements; even in this county I saw the ruins of two cottages, which I was informed were the two last cottages in the parish.
“Under such depressing causes it is not to be wondered at that we frequently received families into our employ who did not know how to conduct (with propriety) a decent cottage in such a manner as to conduce either to the health or comfort of the inmates.
“About twelve years ago we had occasion to introduce a considerable number of families into some new houses; in the course of a few months a most malignant fever broke out amongst them, and went from house to house, till we became seriously alarmed for the safety of the whole establishment. We instituted an inquiry into the state of the houses where the fever first appeared, and found that from the low habits of the occupants, and the ignorance of the proper decencies of life, the cottages were in so filthy a state that it was apparent we should not long be free from a recurrence of the same evil unless we took some active means to effect a change in the habits of these people.
“Although we felt very unwilling to do anything which appeared to interfere with the domestic management of our workpeople, still the urgency of the case at the time seemed to warrant such a step. We therefore ordered an examination of every cottage in our possession, both as regarded cleanliness and ventilation, as well as bedding and furniture.
“The striking difference exhibited in the state of these cottages, the neatness and cleanness of some, the gross neglect of others, appearing to have no relation to the amount of income, convinced us that an occasional repetition of these visits would be essential in order to effect any permanent improvement amongst them.
“These periodical visits have now been continued through a series of years; and as no invidious distinction or selection was ever made, do not appear to have been viewed in the light of an intrusion; a week or two of notice being mostly given, a laudable degree of emulation has been excited as to whose house bedding and furniture should be found in the best order; my brother or myself have occasionally joined in these visits. By these means we were made acquainted with the wants and necessities of the various families in our employ. Having had such opportunity of observing the great inconvenience arising from small dwellings where the families were large, both as regards bed-rooms and living-rooms, few cottages having more than two bed-rooms; and where there were children or young persons of both sexes, the indelicacy of this arrangement was apparent; we therefore concluded to build larger cottages, and make them with three bed-rooms in each. These houses were sought after with the greatest avidity, and families allowed to remove to them as an especial favour; the increase rent of 1s. to 1s. 6d. per week was a small consideration in regard to the additional comfort afforded to a family where the income was from 24s. to 50s. or 60s. per week, as is frequently the case with families employed in manufactories.”
But I am enabled to adduce evidence showing that by structural improvements of the places of work as well as of abode which present the bounty on and security for future adoption, constituted by experience of pecuniary saving, the health of the manufacturing workpeople, now amongst the lowest, may be advanced to the average of health enjoyed by any other class.
On my return from Glasgow, I proceeded to visit and examine the cotton manufactory and machine-making works erected and carried on under the directions of Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, near Stirling, the inventor of the subsoil plough, to whose valuable opinion on the subject of drainage I have already made reference.
The principle of the improvement of places of work, which constituted the chief object of attention at Deanston, was the erection of manufactories in one large flat or ground floor, instead of story piled upon story as in the old mode.
Mr. Smith had constructed a new department of the cottonmill in one room or flat, which covered about half an acre of ground. The roof was composed of groined arches in divisional squares of 33 feet 6 inches, supported on cast-iron columns, which were hollow, and through which the drainage of the roof was effected. In order to render the roof of the building water-tight, the outer superficies of the arches were covered with a coat of common plaster, over which, when dried, was laid a coating of coal-tar, boiled to a pitchy consistence, and mixed with sand, laid on to a thickness of three-quarters of an inch. Over this was laid a surface of from 12 to 16 inches of garden-soil, which prevents the injurious effects on the pitch of the frost in winter, and the sun in summer.
The height of this large room was 12 feet from the floor to the spring of the arches, and six feet rise, giving a height to the room in which the operatives were engaged of 18 feet. The height of the ordinary rooms in which the workpeople in manufactories are engaged is not more than from 9 to 11 feet. This restricted space arises from various points of economy (now considered to be mistaken) in the old modes of constructing manufactories, which were first erected in towns where land was dear, and in times when the immediate economy of capital was of more pressing importance. The adverse consequences to the operatives are the restriction of space for air; that the heat and effluvia of the lower rooms are communicated to the rooms above; and that the difficulty of ventilating them is exceedingly great, especially in the wide rooms, where it is found to be practically extremely difficult to get a current of fresh air to pass through the centre. The like difficulties have been heretofore experienced in respect to the ventilation of large ships. There is also in the mills of the old construction the additional fatigue of ascending and descending to the higher rooms, and carrying material. To avoid this, in some instances, machinery is resorted to.
The ventilation through the side windows of large rooms is generally found to be imperfect and inconvenient in many of the processes, and annoying to the workpeople from the influx of the air in strong currents. The arrangements for ventilation through the roof of this room appeared to be highly advantageous. The light was brought in from above, through openings eight feet in diameter at the top of each groin, surmounted by domes or cones of glass, at the apex of which there were openings of about 16 inches in diameter, with covers that could be opened or shut at pleasure, to admit of ventilation. The better distribution of the light for the work from these openings was one advantage they appeared to possess over the ordinary mode of getting light from side windows.
The chief arrangements from below for ventilation were made by tunnels 10 feet distance from each other, carried across and underneath the floor of the building, and terminating in the open air on either side. The covers of these tunnels were perforated with holes of about an inch in diameter and 12 inches apart, disposed through the floor so as to occasion a wide and uniform distribution of fresh air throughout the whole building, on the same principle as that adopted for the admission of fresh air through the floor of the House of Commons. In winter time the fresh air admitted was warmed on the same principle, by pipes of hot water, to prevent the inconvenience of the admission of currents of cold air. The whole building was, from its size and arrangements, kept at a steady temperature, and appeared to be less susceptible than other buildings to atmospheric influence. The shaftings for the conveyance of the power were carried through the tunnels, and straps or belts from the shafts rise through the cover of the tunnels, and, by their motion, aid in promoting the circulation of the air. The possibility of fatal accidents from the persons being caught by the straps and wound round the shafts, was by this arrangement entirely prevented. The tunnelling under this arrangement constituted a boxing off of the whole of the shafting. Another advantage from the removal of the driving-straps from above was that the view over the whole room was entirely unimpeded.
Another structural improvement was in the use of a thin flooring of wood over the solid base of stone floors. The floor so arranged affords the solidity of the stone floor, and inconsiderable danger of combustion, whilst the advantages of the wooden surface to the workers were a diminution of swelled ancles and rheumatic affections of the joints, often produced by working bare-footed on stone floors.
There were no entries made from which I could obtain for comparison an account of the amount of sickness experienced by the workpeople in this new room, but it was obvious that the improvement must be considerable, and it was attested by the rosy and fresh countenances of the females and of the workpeople generally. A considerable improvement was manifest in the health of those workpeople who had previously worked in the older and less spacious rooms.
The improvement of the place of work was combined with improvements in the residences of the workpeople. About one-half of the hands employed in the mills resided in houses near the works, which were well drained; the ashes and other refuse was cleared away from the village every morning between six and seven o’clock, and carried to a general dungstead at a distance, for use on their gardens. On inquiry as to the state of the health of the workpeople living in these improved tenements, it appeared that they had not one-half the amount of sickness experienced by the rest of the workpeople who lived in the common ill-regulated houses about a mile distance. The whole population had fewer diseases than any other class of the population in the surrounding country; they presented fewer cases of rheumatism, and there were scarcely any lung diseases amongst them: their general health was decidedly better than that of the adjacent agricultural population.
The chief advantages of the improved arrangements of the places of work were, on the side of the workpeople, improved health; security for females and for the young against the dangers of fatal accidents, and less fatigue in the execution of the same amount of work. But beyond these the arrangement of the work in one room had moral advantages of high value. The bad manners and immoralities complained of as attendant on assemblages of workpeople of both sexes in manufactories, generally occur, as may be expected, in small rooms and places where few are employed, and that are secluded from superior inspection and from common observation. But whilst employed in this one large room, the young are under the inspection of the old; the children are in many instances under the inspection of parents, and all under the observation of the whole body of workers, and under the inspection of the employer. It was observed that the moral condition of the females in this room stood comparatively high. It would scarcely be practicable to discriminate the moral effects arising from one cause where several are in operation; but it was stated by ministers that there were fewer cases of illegitimacy and less vice observable among the population engaged in this manufactory than amongst the surrounding population of the labouring class. The comparative circumstances of that population were such as, when examined, would establish the conclusion that it must be so.
The first expense of such a building is higher than a manufactory of the old construction; but it appeared to possess countervailing economical advantages to the capitalist, the chief of which are,—this same facility of constant general supervision, the increase of the certainty of superintendence, and the reduction of the numbers of subordinate managers, the increase of efficiency of management, and a diminution of its expense. Another advantage arose to the manufacturer in the superior action of the machinery. In mills of the ordinary construction the machinery is frequently deranged in its structure, and put out of order by the yielding and unsteadiness of the upper floors. The machinery erected on the ground floor has a firm basis, and a steady and more durable action. The other advantages presented were, the saving of labour in transporting the material from one process to another, a labour which is often considerable in expense, as well as in inconvenience, in lifting it into the higher rooms; the reduction of the hazard of fire, and consequently in expense of insurance against it, as fire could scarcely take place, and certainly could not rapidly extend in a manufactory so constructed. These several sources of economy Mr. Smith calculated would more than compensate for any increase of ground-rent, even if the building were erected on land costing 1000l. per acre. Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, on consulting with Mr. Smith, has constructed a new manufactory (on the principle of that in Deanston) in Leeds, where ground is valuable. This manufactory covers more than two acres of ground, and is reported to be eminently successful. Power looms are frequently arranged in buildings of one story, and I was informed of another manufactory in Lancashire, nearly as large as that of Messrs. Marshalls, built on one floor, but it did not appear to possess the arrangements for ventilation and warming, and the other arrangements necessary to the complete action of a place of work on the plan of that at Deanston.
Mr. Smith considered that the principle of arrangement for superior inspection and management of a manufactory was equally applicable to agricultural operations, and that it would be proportionately advantageous in the superior ventilation and equality of temperature for cattle, in the avoidance of labour and wet and cold, in removing from one small separate building to another, and in the transport of produce, to have all under one large roof, where the whole direction and inspection of the homestead farming operations are brought under one view.
Of the manufacturing advantages of such arrangements I have had strong testimony: of the advantages of such arrangements to the health and moral and social condition of the workpeople, I could not entertain the slightest doubt. I feel confident that the more closely it is examined, the more clearly will the coincidence which I have endeavoured to trace, of pecuniary interest with the health and the highest physical and moral improvement of the lowest of the labouring classes, be established. Mr. Smith avowed his confidence in this coincidence from his own experience and observation as a practical principle. The improved health of the workpeople was attended by more energy and better labour; by less of lassitude and waste from relaxed attention; by fewer interruptions from sickness, and fewer spare hands to ensure the completion of work. Under the persuasion of the coincidence of interest, he had endeavoured to direct the structural alterations to the promotion of the health of the workpeople; he believed they might be advantageously carried further, and had it in contemplation to make arrangements to promote habitual bathing amongst them. He had, moreover, retained the services of a medical gentleman to inspect the workpeople from time to time, and give them timely advice, and, as far as possible, to prevent disease. He agreed, and had long considered, that it was in the power of the masters of Britain “entirely to extirpate excessive and habitual drinking. We never,” said he, “permit a man to come near the works who is in the slightest degree intoxicated, and never permit any one to be absent one day drinking. You never can be well or cheaply served by a dissipated workman. The most skilful workman, the man whose services I can the least spare, must, if he takes to drinking, leave the place. It may occasion immediate inconvenience and even immediate loss, but if the rule be steadily applied, it will contribute to the comfort and the profit of the master as well as of the man.”
The importance of such beneficent influence on the health, the moral condition and respectability of the labouring classes, is so little understood, that I beg leave to submit further illustrations of the value of—
The power possessed by extensive employers of labour to influence beneficially their labourers, is not however confined to those who stand in the combined relation of employer and landlord. In the course of another inquiry as to the means of preventing crime, it appeared that a large class of crimes and disorders arose from drunkenness. On carrying the inquiry back into the causes out of which the drunkenness arose, they appeared to be extensively removable, and that by the employers of labour. The important influences that belong to this position will be displayed in the effects of alterations in detail in one point of management, namely, the mode of paying wages. The direct sanitary effects may be best displayed in the following evidence of Mr. Lomax, an army pensioner, which has been corroborated by superior officers:—
“When I was in the Life Guards, 14 or 16 years ago, there was a good deal of ill health prevalent amongst them. Before that time the men received part of their pay weekly, namely, 7s. at the end of the week. With this 7s. they had to provide the food which they required, except their dinner. The ration for dinner was three-quarters of a pound of uncooked meat, a pound of potatoes or vegetables, and a pound of bread. It was found, however, that many of the men spent the whole of the 7s. in a single day in drink or dissipation. During the remainder of the week the men would be on what was called the crib-bite, that is, living only on their dinner rations. I knew many of the men who drooped under this system, partly from the excess of drinking or dissipation, and partly from the privation of the necessaries of life and the work they had to undergo. This, again, led them to much temptation. If anything was lost it was amongst this class of men that we looked for it. The crime-book would speak as to the further bad consequences of these habits.
“The plan was then tried of paying the men 1s. each day. Over and above that the men were provided with coffee. It was universally felt that this change was highly beneficial to their health, and it stopped the dissipation, and the consequences of the dissipation.”
The incapacity to apportion their means for temperate consumption (which is not however confined to the working classes) is extensively shown in the mismanagement of the means for procuring food. It is a subject of complaint which frequently appears in the reports, that the ignorance of domestic economy leads to ill health, by the purchase of unsuitable, and at the same time, expensive food. We have been frequently besought to obtain and promulgate, for popular information, instructions in frugal cookery, and the management of supplies. It is observed by Mr. Brebner, the governor of the Glasgow bridewell, where the cost of maintaining the prisoners in health and increased strength is on average only 2¾d. per diem, that
“The regularity of diet in the prisons here is of vast importance, both as to the quantity and the time of serving it up. If the same persons were to get the same amount of food for a whole week, or for a less time, at their own discretion, they would suffer from surfeit at one time, and from long fasting at another. Irregularity of diet is one of the most fruitful sources of disease that occur in civilized life.”
In further illustration of the beneficial influence which employers may often exercise to assail such vices by regulations in detail, I cite the following instances from a communication I have received from Mr. Edwin Hill, the inspector of stamping machinery for the Government:—
“During a period of nine years (from 1818 to 1827) I was engaged in the superintendence of one of the largest works in the town of Birmingham, consisting of two distinct mills, one employed in rolling copper for the use of braziers and shipwrights, and the other in rolling silver, brass, and other metals. In each mill there was a set of skilled workmen, who undertook the work at fixed prices, and who themselves employed numerous assistants at weekly wages.
“Owing to difficulties in the way of making up the accounts at short intervals, it was the custom for the master to advance weekly to each workman in the silver mill a fixed sum of money (besides advancing a sum to pay the assistants with). The accounts were made up annually, and the balances due to the several workmen then paid. The payments, both weekly and annually, were almost always made not to the men but to their wives. The earnings of the men were considerable, varying from 80l. to 180l. a-year. The men were, almost without exception, highly respectable in their stations, their families were well provided for, their homes cleanly and not without pretensions to some degree of elegance, and their children sent to school at the sole expense of the parents. Some of them had made considerable accumulations of money, and even become proprietors of houses and land. The workmen employed in the copper mill, on the contrary, had been accustomed to receive the full amount of their earnings at the end of each week, and, after paying their assistants, to divide the surplus. These men were much addicted to drinking and feasting at the alehouse; and, although their earnings were nearly as great as those of the other men, their families were in wretchedness, and their wives obliged to eke out a slender pittance by washing and other laborious occupations. There were also several men employed as millwrights and engineers, at regular and good weekly wages. These men were, almost without exception, steady and respectable, and their families well provided for. About the year 1822 the inconvenience and annoyance, and loss, which arose from the unsteady habits of the second set of men, led me to inquire into the causes of their inferiority to the others, and I was soon led to attribute much of the evil to the great irregularity in the amount of their weekly incomes, which varied from about 10s. to 4l. 4s. per man.
“The effects were as follows:—The men were reckless, trusting to their luck to get ‘good work,’ i. e., that which bears a high price in proportion to the required labour. They were enabled to deceive their wives as to the amount of money obtained. They learned the minimum with which their wives could contrive to keep house, and, having learned it, they endeavoured to retain all above this minimum for their own gratifications. Their wives, under the pressure of necessity, picked their pockets, opened their drawers, &c., in search of money believed to be hidden. Their wives actually desired that their husbands might get drunk on Saturday night, because they could the more easily abstract the money from their persons.
“Upon the termination of my inquiries I induced the men, with little difficulty, to receive their money in the way the other men did, viz., by regular weekly advances, rather under their average earnings, with a quarterly or annual settlement; and I took care that the wives should know exactly what their husbands would receive; and from the day the plan commenced, a most decided and permanent improvement took place in the habits of the men, and in the appearance and general comforts of their families. One of the men commenced saving money immediately. This man’s savings, as I have lately been informed, now in January, 1841, considerably exceed 1000l.; whereas, during the five or six years which he passed in the same occupation before the change of plan, he made no saving whatever.”
Another valuable example of the easy means possessed by employers of preventing the formation of habits destructive to the health and prosperity of workmen, is set forth in the evidence of Mr. Peter Fairbairn, the extensive mechanist of Leeds.
Mr. Fairbairn examined.
“You are a mechanist at Leeds?—I am.
“What number of men do you employ?—Between 500 and 600.
“Have you ever observed any effects produced in the habits of the labouring classes in respect to drinking intoxicating liquors by the mode in which they are paid their wages?—Yes, there are two modes in which wages are most frequently paid, and both these modes are prejudicial in their effects. The first effect is connected with the place of payment. Some masters pay at the public-house, others pay the men at the counting-house after the work is completed. The effects produced by payment at the public-house are to oblige the workman to drink. He is kept waiting in the public-house during a long time, varying from two to three hours, sometimes as much as five hours. The workman cannot remain in the house without drinking, even if he were alone, as he must make some return to the landlord for the use of the room. But the payment of a number of men occupies time in proportion to their numbers. We find that to pay our own men in the most rapid way requires from two to three hours. The assembled workmen, of course, stimulate each other to drink. Out of 100 men, all of whom will, probably, have taken their quart of porter or ale, above a third will go home in a state of drunkenness—of drunkenness to the extent of imbecility. The evil is not confined to the men; the destructive habit is propagated in their families. At each public-house a proportion of the poor women, their wives, attend. According to my own observation, full 10 per cent. of the men have their wives and children in attendance at the public-house. The poor women have no other mode of getting money to market with on the Saturday night than attending at the public-house to get it from their husbands. They may have children whom they cannot leave at home, and these they bring with them. The wives are thus led to drink, and they and their children are made partakers at the scenes of drunkenness and riot; for there are not unfrequently quarrels leading to fights between the workmen when intoxicated.
“Do not these late hours, consequent on such a mode of payment, also lead them to the inferior markets, and prejudice the domestic economy of the labourer’s household?—Yes, they have the less money to purchase with, and must purchase an inferior quality of provisions. I have observed that they do so. They are driven to the inferior shopkeepers who keep open late; and they are also driven to make purchases on the Sunday morning. It is only the inferior shopkeepers or hucksters who will sell on the Sunday morning, and they sell an inferior commodity at a higher price. Then the Sunday morning is thus occupied; the husband, and sometimes the wife, is kept in a state of feverish excitement by the previous night’s debauch: they are kept in a state of filth and disorder; even the face is unwashed; no clean clothes are put on, and there is no church attendance, and no decency. Indeed, by the pressure of the wants created by habits of drinking, there is soon no means to purchase clean or respectable clothes, and lastly, no desire to purchase them. The man, instead of cleaning himself, and appearing at church on the Sunday, or walking out with his family on the Sunday afternoon in a respectable condition, remains at home in filth, and in a filthy hovel. Of course there are no contributions to sick-clubs under such circumstances; and if the workman has been previously led to join a club, he is almost always in arrear with his contributions, and is ultimately expelled. On the occurrence of the disease to which such habits predispose him, there is nothing but the most abject and complete destitution and pauperism. I have served the office of churchwarden and overseer in Leeds three years, and, having attended the weekly Board where applications for relief are made, I have seen the end of this train of circumstances in the applications for relief from parties who had previously been in the receipt of good and sufficient wages (and even high wages) to have prevented such applications. I have observed the whole train of these consequences in several large works in London as well as in this town.
“Are there not consequences too to the employers themselves, as well as to the ratepayers, in connexion with the habits of labourers thus created?—One consequence of these habits is the loss of time at the commencement of the week, and the comparative inefficiency of the workmen when they do come. The workman who has been absent from drunkenness comes to his work pale, emaciated, shattered, and unnerved. From my own observation in my own branch of manufacture, I should say that the quantity and quality of the work executed during the first day or so would be about one-fifth less than that obtainable from a steady and attentive workman.
“This deterioration, then, in a large number of workmen engaged in a manufactory, may be noted as an important item of saving for the consideration of a provident manufacturer?—Undoubtedly. Another consideration for the master is the fact that such workmen, the most idle and dissolute, are the most discontented, and are always the foremost in mischievous strikes and combinations.
“You have spoken of the consequences of making the public-house a place of payment; what are the comparative effects of making the payments at the counting-house?—A considerable reduction of the evil. Payments to large numbers at the counting-house is still, however, attended with much inconvenience and evil. The payment of the number of men employed at our works (between five and six hundred) would, as I have stated, occupy between two and three hours. This mode of payment, therefore, implies the keeping of a large crowd together during that time. During that time appointments are made of meetings at public-houses to drink that would not otherwise take place. It also generates discontent: it gives an opportunity, by assembling a crowd, for any discontented or mischievous person to operate upon a large mass of people. Formerly the business of my manufactory, and the welfare of the working people, were very seriously interrupted by strikes; and I could not help observing the facilities which such meetings gave to such mischievous persons.
“What is the mode of payment which you have adopted?—I send the pay clerk into each room in the manufactory immediately after the dinner hour, and he pays each man individually. Each man is scarcely taken from his work half a minute. I may observe, that some masters, to save themselves trouble, so as to avoid the inconvenience of getting small change, will pay several men together. This again leads to the public-house, where the men commonly go to get change to divide the money amongst them; I therefore avoid paying any two men together, and subjecting them to temptation as well as inconvenience and cost. Each of my workmen being paid in the shop, without the loss of a minute, may go at once directly home at the time when the work closes. He is thus afforded an opportunity of going at once to the market at an early hour, and is subjected to no factitious inducements to drink, disorder, improvidence, and destitution.
“What is the average time thus saved to each of the 550 workmen in your manufactory, as compared with the more ordinary mode of payment?—About an hour and a half, or half the three hours of payment.
“Then, by this means, instead of bringing 550 persons to the one person, the pay clerk, sending that one person to the 550 persons, you save to them upwards of 800 hours of inconvenient waiting?—Just so.
“How many persons, on the average, have you absent from work on the Monday morning?—Not more than from four to five, until eight o’clock in the morning; and on the return to work after dinner from one to two persons.
“That is from one to two persons the entire day during the Monday, out of between five and six hundred workpeople?—Yes.
“What number would have been absent on the Monday under the ordinary circumstances?—About 30 per cent., or one-third, would be drunk on the Saturday night; and full 10 per cent. would not make their appearance until the Tuesday morning. Instead of only two absent during the whole of the day, I should have more than 50; or, in other words, more than 50 families not only distressed by what is spent in drink, but losing one-sixth of their earnings, and I as a master losing from their deteriorated work on the days when they do return. I beg leave further to observe, that mere education in reading or writing, precepts or preaching, are of very little avail against the temptations to drink held out to working men; and I am confident that if employers could be made to see and attend to their mutual interests, by a little care in the removal of temptations, they might generally prevent the most fruitful cause of disorder, destitution, and pauperism, at least as extensively as I have prevented those consequences to my workmen and their families by the adoption of the means I have described.”
In the course of a report on the sanitary condition of the labouring classes in the town of Lancaster, received from Dr. De Vitrie, the effects of an amended practice are thus noticed:—
“An excellent example is shown in this neighbourhood by the wealthy manufacturers and tradesmen almost universally paying their men’s weekly wages on a Friday evening (or, what is still better, early on Saturday morning) instead of Saturday, thus putting it into the power of all to spend their money to the best advantage at Saturday’s market, and obviating the great temptation which formerly existed of spending their earnings, or a large proportion of them, in the public-houses and beer-shops after the termination of the week’s labour. It may be said that such parties are as likely to dissipate on a Friday as on a Saturday evening. The propensity I grant may be the same, but there is no intervening day of rest to shake off the effects of intemperance and indulgence, and as workmen must resume their labours on the Saturday, hence it is that such a regulation exercises not only a salutary but a provident influence.”
The Rev. Whitwell Elwin observes—
“Where gain was dependant on the growth of better habits, I have seen, with the agency of judicious individuals, encouraging cases of complete reformation: an intelligent engineer in this neighbourhood was about paying off a man whose profligacy had left him without a decent covering, and who often depended for his victuals upon the generosity of his fellow-workmen. He begged hard to be retained, and his master at last consented, on condition that he himself should lay out his wages for the next three months. He provided the man with good lodgings, allowed him tea, sugar, and bread and butter night and morning; meat, and either bread or potatoes, with a pint of beer every day for his dinner; and before the appointed time was up, bought him with the surplus a new suit of clothes. The man was so sensible of the advantage of the change, that he became one of the most thrifty and valuable workmen; and his master has often since tried the same experiment with the same success. If we could collect all the philanthropy and much of the self-interest of the country into wise and profitable channels, we might, I believe in a twelvemonth, do much towards regenerating the most wretched classes.”
One employer of numerous labourers in a well-conducted establishment stated to me that after long experience he found it necessary, for the protection of the workpeople, as well as the efficiency of the establishment, invariably to discharge every workman who was guilty of drunkenness; and that the first visible sign to excite suspicion of the habits of intoxication was the absence of personal cleanliness, then a pallid countenance, on which inquiry was made. Another employer of numerous labourers, Mr. William Fairbairn, of Manchester (the brother of Mr. Fairbairn, of Leeds), who has had between one and two thousand workpeople engaged in the manufactories of machinery in the firm of which he is the first partner, stated, in answer to the question,—
“What are their habits in respect to sobriety?—I may mention that I strictly prohibit on my works the use of beer or fermented liquors of any sort, or of tobacco. I enforce the prohibition of fermented liquors so strongly that, if I found any man transgressing the rule in that respect, I would instantly discharge him without allowing him time to put on his coat.
“Have you any peculiar grounds for adopting this course?—No; but as respects myself I wish to have an orderly set of workmen; and in the next place I am decidedly of opinion that it is better for the men themselves and for their families.
“Are you aware that it is a prevalent opinion that strong drink is necessary as a stimulus for the performance of labour?—I am aware that that was a prevalent opinion amongst employers of labour, but it is now very generally abandoned; there are nevertheless some foundries in which there is drinking throughout the works all day long. It is observable, however, of the men employed as workmen, that they do not work so well; their perceptions are clouded, and they are stupified and heavy. I have provided water for the use of the men in every department of the works. In summer time the men engaged in the strongest work, such as the strikers to the heavy forges, drink water very copiously. In general the men who drink water are really more active, and do more work, and are more healthy than the workmen who drink fermented liquors. I observed on a late journey to Constantinople that the boatmen or rowers to the caiques, who are perhaps the first rowers in the world, drink nothing but water; and they drink that profusely during the hot months of the summer. The boatmen and water-carriers of Constantinople are decidedly in my opinion the finest men in Europe as regards their physical development, and they are all water drinkers: they may take a little sherbet, but in other respects are what we should call in this country, tee-totallers.
“What is their diet?—Chiefly bread; now and then a cucumber, with cherries, figs, dates, mulberries, or other fruits which are abundant there; now and then a little fish.
“Do they ever use animal food?—Occasionally I believe the flesh of goats, but I never saw them eating any other than the diet I have described.
“Did they appear to eat more than the European workmen?—About the same; if anything, more moderate as respects the quantity.”
I have collected much other information to the same effect. In the Appendix, I have given, as a contrast, an instance of arrangements which tend to promote the habit of drinking, and the consequences, a part of which are met and dealt with by the administrators of relief from the poor’s rates, in the shape of claims to relief on the ground of sickness and consequent destitution; and another part of which fall as disorders and crimes to be encountered by the police.
I submit here one important instance of the exercise of a wise influence on the habits of the agricultural population:—
In a form of lease used in leasing the Highland property of the Duke of Sutherland, which appears to be ably devised to ensure progressive improvement, care for the moral welfare of the population is not omitted. The poverty, disorder, and crime engendered by the destructive habit of whisky drinking, fostered by the practice of illicit distillation, is encountered by a clause which provides that if the tenant “distill whiskey, or shall permit any one to distill whisky, or shall sell or permit the same to be sold on the said premises hereby set, or on any part of the said estate, or shall contravene any of the regulations the said proprietors have established for the management thereof, and that if he or they shall be convicted of any of the said offences before the sheriff, depute, or substitute, or any two of his Majesty’s justices of the peace for the said county; then, in either of these events or cases, this agreement shall be, ipso facto, void and null, and the said tenant shall be forthwith removable by summary process before the judge ordinary, whereupon decree shall be pronounced upon relevant proof of the fact.”
The lease ensures the improvement of the tenements, and provides that “no earthen houses or huts are permitted to be built on any consideration.” The one provision is the proper complement of the other; and Mr. Hill gives his testimony to the excellent effect which the support given to the law, and the prevention of whisky drinking, produce on the habits of the population.
I proceed to another instance of the power of the employers to protect the health, as well as the morals of their workpeople, by influencing their habits of personal cleanliness.
But I shall first submit a few instances of the extent and prevalence of personal uncleanliness amongst whole classes of workpeople.
Mr. John Kennedy, in the course of the examinations of some colliers in Lancashire, asked one of them—
“How often do the drawers (those employed in drawing coals) wash their bodies?—None of the drawers ever wash their bodies. I never wash my body; I let my shirt rub the dirt off; my shirt will show that. I wash my neck and ears, and face, of course.
“Do you think it usual for the young women (engaged in the colliery) to do the same as you do?—I do not think it is usual for the lasses to wash their bodies; my sisters never wash themselves, and seeing is believing; they wash their faces, necks, and ears.
“When a collier is in full dress, he has white stockings, and very tall shirt necks, very stiffly starched, and ruffles?—That is very sure, sir; but they never wash their bodies underneath; I know that; and their legs and bodies are as black as your hat.”
One labourer remembered that a particular event took place at Easter, “because it was then he washed his feet.” The effects of these habits are seen at the workhouse on almost every one of the paupers admitted. When it is necessary to wash them on their admission, they usually manifest an extreme repugnance to the process. Their common feeling was expressed by one of them when he declared that he considered it “equal to robbing him of a great coat which he had had for some years.” The filthy condition in which they are found on admission into the hospitals is frequently sufficient to account for the state of disease in which they appear, and the act of cleansing them is itself the most efficient cure. The out-door service of the union medical officers amidst such a population is often most painful and disgusting: e. g.—
Mr. J. F. Handley, medical officer of the Chipping Norton union, states in his report—
“When the small pox was prevalent in this district, I attended a man, woman, and five children, all lying ill with the confluent species of that disorder, in one bed-room, and having only two beds amongst them. The walls of the cottage were black, the sheets were black, and the patients themselves were blacker still; two of the children were absolutely sticking together. It was indeed a gloomy scene. I have relished many a biscuit and glass of wine in Mr. Grainger’s dissecting-room when ten dead bodies were lying on the tables under dissection, but was entirely deprived of appetite during my attendance upon these cases. The smell on entering the apartments was exceedingly nauseous, and the room would not admit of free ventilation.”
Such conditions of the population, of habitual personal and domestic filth, are not necessary to any occupation; they are not the necessary consequence of poverty, and are the type of neglect and indolence; this is proved by the example of men engaged in the same occupations with improved habits. The medical officers of the Merthyr Tydvill union, in their returns, represent the health of the colliery population to be very good, a circumstance which is ascribed to their habitual cleanliness.
Mr. J. L. Roberts, surgeon, states—
“The colliers in our district invariably, on their return from the pits in the evening to their houses, strip to the skin, and wash themselves perfectly clean in a tub of lukewarm water, and wipe with towels until the cuticle is dry. The miners are not so particular. I firmly believe that the health of other workmen employed generally about the ironworks is not so permanently good as the colliers; they, generally speaking, not undergoing complete ablution as the colliers do. Generally, the colliers are quite free from any cutaneous disease, or at least not so much affected with psora, &c., as the generality of their fellow-workmen. Cutaneous diseases are frequent amongst children from want of cleanliness.”
In the places of work where there is the greatest need for cleanliness, in every place where there is a steam-engine, hot water, which is commonly allowed to run waste, is already provided in abundance for warm or tepid baths, not only for the workpeople, but, where there are numerous engines, for the whole population. If the same hot water arose at the same heat and abundance from any natural spring, baths would be erected, and medical treatises would be written in commendation of its medicinal virtues, which, the better opinion appears now to be, are ascribable, in the majority of instances, simply to the hot water, and to its application in cases where it had not before been used. Hot or tepid baths are deemed of more importance for the labouring classes in winter than are cold baths in summer, and they might be generally provided for the working classes in the manufacturing districts at a cost utterly inconsiderable.
A few years since a gentleman, observing some ditches in London, in the neighbourhood of the City-road, smoking with clean hot water running away from the steam-engine of a manufactory, directed attention to the waste, and suggested the expediency of using that water to supply public warm or tepid baths. After a time the suggestion was acted upon as a private speculation, and large swimming-baths were constructed; one, with superior accommodation and decorations at 1s.; another, with less costly fittings-up, at 6d. the bath. These were luxurious tepid baths, kept at a heat of 84°. The example appears to have been followed in Westminster by the establishment of similar tepid swimming-baths, where only 3d. is charged to persons of the working-class. As many as 2000 and 3000 of this class have resorted to these baths in one day, and the bath at the lowest charge is stated to make the best return for the capital invested in it. Similar establishments are, we believe, in progress in other parts of the metropolis. Mr. Samuel Greg, at Bollington, has formed baths for the use of his workpeople, which he thus describes:—
“The bathing-room is a small building, close behind the mill, about 25 feet by 15. The baths, to the number of seven, are ranged along the walls, and a screen about six feet high, with benches on each side of it, is fixed down the middle of the room. The cold water is supplied from a cistern above the engine-house, and the hot water from a large tub which receives the waste steam from the dressing-room, and is kept constantly at boiling temperature. A pipe from each of these cisterns opens into every bath, so that they are ready for instant use. The men and women bathe on alternate days; and a bath-keeper for each attends for an hour and a half in the evening. This person has the entire care of the room, and is answerable for everything that goes on in it. When any one wishes to bathe he comes to the counting-house for a ticket, for which he pays a penny, and without which he cannot be admitted to the bathing-room. Some families, however, subscribe a shilling a-month, which entitles them to five baths weekly; and these hold a general subscriber’s ticket, which always gives him admittance to the room. I think the number of baths taken weekly varies from about 25 to 70 or 80. We pay the bath-keepers 2s. 6d. and 2s. a-week, and I believe this amount has been more than covered by the receipts. The first cost of erecting the baths was about 80l.”
The feet of the female as well of the male workers in such establishments, who work in the mills without their stockings, are seen coated with the filth of years, for which there is no other necessity than their own habitual indolence. These habits mere admonitions will not always remove from the adult population. A manufacturer in London, who did not care to take this trouble with them, began with his apprentices, and took them several times to the new tepid baths, as a holiday and a reward, until they had experienced the comfort, and had formed a habit, when he left them to themselves, and they paid out of their own pocket-money the small amount necessary to defray the expenses. Where the use of hot or warm water has been given to the workpeople, and baths have been provided, they have frequently been defective in some important point. Dr. Barham states that the miners, on their ascent to the ground, have commonly only the means of using the hot water from a rivulet on a bleak and exposed situation; in other places, as where bath-rooms are provided, the accommodation for dressing was defective, in being cold and chilling instead of being made warm, as it might be at a very trifling expense. It was only at Camborne, the mine already noticed, that anything deserving the name of proper baths had been erected. Dr. Barham observes, in a communication on this subject—
“The security from chill during the ablution, and the abundance and comfortable temperature of the water in the cases mentioned as examples of superior accommodation, have no doubt contributed to a comparative immunity from pulmonary disease and catarrhal affections, which the managers and the men themselves have noticed since this provision has been made.
“The cost of the practice is so inconsiderable as to be unworthy notice. Timber and iron for such purposes are always to be found in our mines among what is no longer fit for its original destination. No charge of any kind is made for the use of these accommodations.
“The owners of steam-engines might always supply hot water, in proportion to the amount of condensation effected, without any extra cost to themselves, when they do not employ the heated water to some purpose of their own. In some mines the warm water is husbanded for the cleansing of the ores, but this is an exceptional case. Generally speaking, there is a great quantity of iron cylinder and other materials convertible to the conveyance of the water, which maybe supplied at a very low rate, as unserviceable for engine-work.
“I have thought that steam-engines are not the only sources for the supply of hot water to the public at an insignificant cost. All works in which great heat is employed, or almost all such works, might supply heat to large bodies of water after the fuel has been most economically applied to their own purposes. Smelting-houses, foundries, glass-houses, for instances, have always heat enough to spare for the warming of extensive thermæ. By the use of brick pipes, surrounded by wood or some bad conductor, such heat, first applied to the bottom of large reservoirs, might be distributed over extensive districts, and buildings might be warmed and workshops supplied with warm water for the thorough purification of the labourers, at a very trifling expense. My own opinion is, that a system of washing is more desirable as a national habit than a system of bathing. The latter is doubtless excellent for bodies of men who are under effectual control, and for the young.”