THE SANITARY DANGER.
The sanitary conditions amid which the great majority of these alien
immigrants labour and live may truly be described as appalling. It is
a remarkable thing that just as the lower organisms of animal life
are capable of living under circumstances which are intolerable to
higher organisms, so can these people exist--and even to a certain
extent thrive--in an atmosphere and amid surroundings which to the more
highly-developed Englishman and Englishwoman mean disease and death.
Cleanliness and sanitation are peculiarities of Western rather than of
Eastern nationalities. When Peter the Great went back to Russia after
his famous visit to London two centuries ago, he left behind him such
a filthy habitation, that the cleansing of it had to be defrayed by an
especial grant from the Exchequer. This is a matter of history; and if
rumour is to be believed, a similar experience in connection with the
visit of an Oriental potentate has occurred in very recent years. If
this sort of thing is incidental to the visit of Eastern Princes, how
much rather then is it liable to accompany the wholesale inundation
of poor and degraded foreigners, who flock into London and our large
cities from every country in Europe?
In treating of this sanitary aspect, in order to avoid any possible
charge of exaggeration, I prefer to quote the statements of
unimpeachable authorities rather than to advance any theories of my
own. The surroundings amid which these people are content to labour and
to live are deplorable and filthy beyond description. To quote from
the Majority Report of the Sweating Committee--a Report which has been
attacked because of the undue moderation of its language, and which
certainly cannot be said to unduly exaggerate the evil:--
"Three or four gas-jets may be flaring in a room, a coke fire burning
in the wretched fire-place, sinks untrapped, closets without water,
and, altogether, the sanitary conditions abominable. A witness told us
that in a double room, perhaps 9 feet by 15 feet, a man, his wife, and
six children slept, and in the same room ten men were usually employed,
so that at night eighteen persons would be in that one room. These
witnesses alluded to the want of sanitary precautions, and of decent
and sufficient accommodation, and declared that the effects of this,
combined with the inadequate wages earned, had the effect of driving
girls to prostitution."
The state of the sweaters' dens in East London is revolting beyond
measure, and resembles rather the description of Dante's _Inferno_,
than the abodes of a professedly civilized people. Here is the
description of one taken almost at random from a mass of evidence
teeming with similar details. A Factory Inspector, who described it,
says it gives a fair idea of all the rest, and he certainly ought to
know, seeing that some 4000 factories and "workshops innumerable" are
under his inspection. He says:--
"You find a filthy bed, on which garments which are made are laid;
little children, perfectly naked little things, lying about on the
floor and on the bed; frying-pans and all sorts of dirty utensils with
food of various descriptions on the bed, under the bed, over the bed,
everywhere; clothes hanging on a line, with nothing more than a large
gas-stove with the ashes all flying about, and the atmosphere so dense
that you get ill after a night's work there; and that is the reason I
am deaf now."
In respect of sanitation, the foreign Jews appear to be the worst
offenders. The Sanitary Committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians
admit in their Report that of 880 houses visited by the inspector, 623
were defective, and below the standard required by the Local Authority.
Of these no less than 341 were in Whitechapel alone. To quote a few
samples:--
"In Whitechapel, some so-called 'Model Dwellings' exist, in which
the drain of a water-closet had been entirely stopped up for three
weeks prior to the visit of the Inspector, while two of the cellars
(inhabited) were flooded with sewage, and had been so flooded for
four days past. At another place, where a noxious odour had prevailed
for years, the refuse which the Committee succeeded in causing to be
removed from the basement room, contained among its various components
the dead bodies of five cats, a dog, and a rabbit. The water-closet
drains of three other houses were discovered on the Inspector's visit
to have remained in a choked condition for three, five, and six
weeks respectively. At a house in St. George's-in-the-East, three
boot-finishers were found at work in a front basement room, while the
adjoining back basement room was flooded with sewage, which forced its
way up a gully supposed to be protected by a bell-trap. The cover of
this trap, as is generally the case with these appliances, was absent,
and thus the sewer had direct and unobstructed communication with the
interior of the house."
This extract is taken bodily from the Report of the Sweating Committee
of the Jewish Board of Guardians. They are writing of their own people,
and are certainly not likely to exaggerate the state of affairs.
The habitations of the Italians are little better; in fact in many
ways they are just as bad. The sanitary arrangements of the cheap
dwellings around Saffron Hill, where the Italians mostly abound,
leave everything to be desired. On this subject I had lately some
conversation with an officer of the Italian Benevolent Society. He
described to me a sleeping-room--it often served as a living-room as
well--in one of the ordinary dwelling-houses in the neighbourhood of
Saffron Hill. In this one room, neither very lofty nor very large,
may frequently be found a dozen persons herded together rather like
cattle than human beings, sleeping promiscuously as follows:--In one
bed, or what serves as a bed, a married couple; in the next, two young
girls; in a third, a single young man; in the fourth, three or four
children of different ages and sexes--and so on. Owing to the lack of
ventilation, and the number of human beings crowded in the room--to
quote the words of my informant--"the stench was awful." The result of
all this upon the victims, both physically and morally, can easily be
imagined. Another instance was that given by Inspector Holland to Mr.
Biron the magistrate.[20] An Italian, who was summoned for sending his
little girl out begging, was traced to his home, and there the police
inspector found the parents occupying a miserably furnished little
apartment in Aldis Mews, with six children. The room, which "smelt
horribly," contained a single bed, under which were kept the appliances
for making ice-cream; and Inspector Holland also found the room to be
inhabited by a dog, a cat, a monkey, and several white mice. The moral
of all this is obvious, viz. that these people are able to live under
conditions amid which it would be impossible for an average Englishman
to exist at all. Therefore it is only one more illustration of the
unfair nature of this unnatural competition.
There is, however, another point to be noted in connection with this
sanitary aspect. The conditions under which work is done in the
sweaters' dens, and in their homes by these unfortunate people, largely
assists in the spreading of infectious diseases. I refer of course more
especially to the cheap tailoring trade. Some materials carry infection
very quickly. Dr. Bate, a medical officer of health in the East End
of London, speaks, in his evidence before the Sweating Committee, of
infection being carried far and wide by the garments being often made
up in rooms where children are lying ill with small-pox, scarlet fever,
and other maladies. He had seen the garments thrown over the children's
beds; and a case is mentioned of a child covered with measles being
wrapt up in one of the half-made garments to keep it warm. And yet the
articles made under such conditions are sold in the cheap, ready-made
clothes-shops all over London and throughout the provinces.
Nor are matters in the foreign quarters of the provincial towns much
better. From Manchester, from Leeds, from Liverpool, from Glasgow, the
same tale reaches us, of the filthy habits of these foreign immigrants,
and their neglect of all sanitary precautions. For instance, at Meadow
Bank, an outlying district of Winsford, there is a large colony of
Poles and Hungarians. They are employed in some local salt works, and
were especially brought over to England some years ago in consequence
of a strike in the Salt District, and now fill the places which were
formerly occupied by Englishmen. A description of the way in which
these people live, will best show how impossible it is for decent
English workmen to compete against them. It is best told in the words
of Dr. Fox, the medical officer of the District Board of Health. In his
report he writes:--
"To say that these people are living together like beasts would be an
insult and a libel upon beasts. Beasts would be better provided for
than are those human beings. In the first place the rooms are, without
exception, overcrowded. Again, they are destitute of furniture. The
beds are trays covered with filthy straw; the bed-clothing is entirely
constituted of filthy sacking. The men sleep in their clothes, even in
their boots. The windows are rarely if ever opened; the beds in point
of fact being many of them never empty; one set of workmen occupying
them by day, and another by night. The atmosphere is necessarily foul,
foetid, and pestilential to persons of ordinary susceptibilities;
and yet, in the absence of larders, and kitchens, and separate
living-rooms, in this foetid, stinking atmosphere the food is stored
and cooked. Arrangements for washing there are none, except the outside
taps. In one room six men and one woman are sleeping, unmarried,
promiscuously; and in another, a man, his wife, and daughter--fourteen
years of age--were occupying one bed. Canal-boats are palaces and
temples of cleanliness, comfort, and morality, compared with this
horrible colony of Bohemianism."
It is not possible to say anything which would add to this tale of
horror. The facts speak for themselves. Dr. Fox, though subjected
to a severe examination before the House of Commons' Committee,
maintained that there was not a syllable of exaggeration in his report,
though in consequence of public attention having been attracted by
its publication, a slight improvement had since taken place in some
minor details. There was no necessity, it should be noted, for these
foreigners to live in the way they did. In this instance they were
paid a sufficient wage for them to exist under decent and sanitary
conditions. It was simply that they preferred doing so, and were but
following the instincts of a nature which had become engendered in them
by long years of filthy and degraded habits. Yet it was to make room
for such as these that the English workmen were ousted, and are being
ousted daily, in the great manufacturing centres of Great Britain.
The question is, therefore, how long are these people to be allowed
to pour in upon us unchecked, bringing with them their foreign habits
and customs, and living in conformity with these alone, an outstanding
defiance to English law, and a serious danger to the health and
well-being of the surrounding English community? Is it right or just
that our people should be forced by this unnatural competition to live
and toil side by side with such people, surrounded by bad light, bad
air, bad food, bad water, bad smells, bad and degrading occupations--by
every circumstance which depresses the vital energies, and leaves them
an easy prey to pestilence? But we are told that to shut our doors
upon these aliens would be to reverse England's traditions. I maintain
that we have lavished sympathy enough upon them already, and that it
is now necessary for us to keep a little of our sympathy for our own
flesh and blood. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of
sanitation. Where it is neglected, disease and death surely follow.
Doctors tell us that more human beings are killed in England every year
by unnecessary and preventible diseases, than were killed at Waterloo
or Sadowa, and the great majority of these victims are children.
Preventible diseases, according to Sir Joseph Fayrer, still kill
125,000 per annum, entailing a loss of labour from sickness estimated
at £7,750,000 per annum. "Why then," as the Prince of Wales[21] asked,
"are they not prevented?"
Sanitary legislation is all very well, but it deals with effects and
not with causes. Such dens as those described, not by my imagination,
be it noted, but by unimpeachable authorities, are nothing less than
breeding-houses of pestilence. If we swept them clean to-morrow others
would soon be found as bad, for the filthy and unsanitary habits of
these immigrant aliens are bred in the bone, and wherever they go they
take them with them. It cannot be healthy for a nation to have such a
sore as this existing in its side, yet we allow this plague-spot to
continue in our midst, and to spread its contamination far and wide. If
we wish to perpetuate that healthy, sturdy stock which has made England
what she is, we must prevent the strain from being defiled by this
ceaseless pouring in of the unclean and unhealthy of other lands. "A
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," and nothing is more contagious
than dirty and unsanitary habits. The physical health of the people
should be the first care of the State, for upon it depends not only
the present, but the future, of our race. _Salus populi suprema est
lex_--and before this inviolable law all other considerations must bow.
The Majority Report of the Sweating Committee--from which Lord
Dunraven dissented--complacently recommended the more frequent use of
"limewash" in the sweaters' dens and workshops where these indigent
foreigners chiefly congregate. But it will require a great deal more
than "limewash" to whiten this hideous evil. People who bring with them
filthy and unsanitary habits are a standing source of danger to the
rest of the community. Cattle from an infected district are refused
admission to our ports; surely the health of even one of the meanest of
our people is of more importance than many cattle.