The stomach may be out of order; they eat very little solid food, and
of course the action of the bowels will not be very good; but as to
the effect of the tailors’ work on the chest, we do not consider it at
all injurious.”
_M. Patissier._ “I attended a tailor who every time that he applied
himself diligently to his work, was attacked with nausea, colic,
jaundice, and symptoms that denoted irritation of the liver. I have
known, says Stoll, a great number of tailors who have suffered more
particularly from diseases of the lungs.”
_Witness._ “The only complaints I have ever heard are those arising
from the foul air, perhaps the dust arising from cloth is injurious. I
have already said that men coming from the country to a town shop will
faint, and be obliged to leave it in the afternoon.”
_M. Patissier._ “As they are almost constantly in a sitting posture,
the body bent, with the head stooping forward, the blood is unequally
distributed, and too large a quantity accumulates in the lungs, either
because the bowels of the abdomen, compressed by the position of the
body, admit of less blood, and which is therefore forced back into the
vessels situated above, or because the short respirations of those who
are sedentary, prevents the blood which enters the lungs from passing
out with sufficient rapidity, by which local plethora in the heart and
lungs is produced. In short, tailors are very liable to pulmonary
phthisis, hydro-thorax, and hæmoptysis, which often accompanies them
to a very advanced age. M. Corvisart has observed that diseases of the
heart and of the larger vessels are not less frequent amongst this
class of artisans. As the posture of the tailor causes the blood to
flow into the upper part of the body, the circulation in the lower
members is consequently much less active, which explains the
emaciation and feebleness of the legs and thighs of this class of
artisans, and the peculiar walk which distinguishes them.”
_Witness._ “As to the circulation of the blood, I should say that it
was more free than amongst persons sitting at a desk; as soon as the
journeyman tailor begins to feel warm and swell, he loosens everything
that he has on; his coat is off, and his shirt neck is open; if he
wears a handkerchief it is very loose; a tailor wears no garters,
nothing that can stop the circulation of the blood: the only
confinement that arises is from the position, which is certainly
sedentary, but he frequently changes it, and puts one leg over the
other when they are tired; they also stretch their legs out. Their
breathing even in the close shops is not noticed as short.”
_M. Patissier._ “Ramazzini says they are very subject to numbness of
the thighs, neuralgic sciatica, and lameness.”
_Witness._ “The tailors are frequently subject to rheumatism, but that
is from going from a hot to the cold open air in the way described.
Men who are generally emaciated will have their legs emaciated too:
the whole frame goes together, but I have never heard young men or
tailors in the middle of life being remarked as deficient in that part
of bodily capability. Those whom I have known to be emaciated have
been spirit drinkers; the emaciation has been more from
spirit-drinking than from the heat of the shop, though one brings on
the other. Some years ago there used to be much racing at about five
o’clock in the morning in the parks, sometimes amongst the tailors
themselves, and sometimes with other runners who had celebrity. The
tailors were generally good competitors and more active than other
workmen in London. There was one of the country tailors at Faversham
who some years ago was considered the first runner in England for a
hundred yards. The tailors have certainly a peculiar walk, but all
whom I have known to be lame were lame originally. When a lad has
anything the matter with him, which occasions him not to be strong
enough for anything working on his feet, it is a common thing to say,
‘Then we must make him a tailor.’ It is a very frequent thing to send
weakly children to be tailors, though it is a bad choice, for the lad
has little chance of recovering himself in the town shops, and a more
open trade would be better for him. Many tailors go for sailors and
soldiers, and they are always thought to be good men. I should think
there are many tailors in the guards.”
_M. Patissier._ “There is sometimes to be observed on the surface of
their skin a psoriform eruption, which by some writers is ascribed to
the irritation of the woollen cloth which these artisans are
continually handling. Guldner, however, considers that this eruption
is produced by their mode of living.”
_Witness._ “I never saw or heard of any peculiar eruption on the skin
of the tailors, though they perhaps do not attend sufficiently to
personal cleanliness. The dye of cloth is sometimes bad, but I never
observed any effects from it.”
_M. Patissier._ “Tailors are apt to prick themselves with their
needles, and these wounds often bring on festerings.”
_Witness._ “That is certainly the case; the needle may carry with it
some of the dye, and the festering may also be occasioned by the bad
state of the body.”
_M. Patissier._ “They almost all have decayed teeth, which are
destroyed by the habit of biting their thread with them. It is very
rare to see a tailor of advanced age with any front teeth.”
_Witness._ “That is certainly so: they have many of them bad teeth,
but I have not noticed any deficiency of the front teeth.”
_M. Patissier._ “Their sight is soon enfeebled by the fine work which
they have to execute, often at night by the light of candles. When
they work in the evening at open windows, they are liable to be
affected by earache, tooth-ache, cold in the head, and sore eyes.”
_Witness._ “That is very correct with respect to the tailors in town,
but it is not noticed so much with tailors in the country.”
_M. Patissier._ “The sedentary life which they lead produces heavy,
soft flesh, that has no firmness; they generally are thin in body,
legs are spare and feeble, and their complexion rather jaundiced.”
_Witness._ “Almost all this will be found to be the effect of habits
that have nothing to do with the trade.”
_M. Patissier._ “Tailors ought to walk in the open air every evening
when their work will admit of it, rub their limbs well with flannel,
abstain from all food difficult of digestion, avoid all excesses, and
generally every kind of debauchery.”
_Witness._ “The men when they leave their shop-boards do not begin
rubbing their legs, and do not appear to feel the least want of it.
The appetites of men working in shops being bad, they do commonly take
food that is easy of digestion, as they cannot do with the coarser
food. When a tailor comes from the country he will eat a twopenny loaf
and take a pint of coffee for breakfast; but after three or four
months working in the close shop getting exhausted, then taking beer
and then spirits, his appetite fails him, and I have seen him eat only
a small slice of bread and butter, and take half a pint of coffee for
breakfast, and his appetite generally fails him. The young men on
going back to their work in the country, generally recover their
appetites unless disease has taken such root that they cannot
recover.”
The evidence of Mr. Brownlow was read to Dr. Weber, who has had under
his care between 200 and 300 cases of journeymen tailors who were
treated by him, as physician to the St. George’s Dispensary, which is
much resorted to by those of that class of workmen who reside at the
west end of the metropolis. Dr. Weber confirms the general tenor of the
evidence as to the medical facts, and especially the general conclusion
that the greatest proportion of the diseases to which they are subject
arise from circumstances separable from their occupation. The evidence
as to the personal condition and habits of the workmen is generally
corroborated by several master tailors, who state that the journeyman
tailor in the rural district who works singly, or in a well-ventilated
apartment, is in person commonly the opposite of the one described by M.
Patissier; he is described as being a hard worker, but at times a man
who is in most village foot races, and not unfrequently the foremost
runner, and in games of foot-ball not the last. The journeymen tailors
are found amongst the best men in the life guards. In consequence of a
strike of tailors, one dragoon regiment had a troop chiefly enlisted
from them, and military men state that they greatly distinguished
themselves.
If we thus find the crowding of unventilated places of work injurious—in
which persons rarely pass more than 12 out of the 24 hours, being free
during the remaining time to breathe what air they please—how much worse
should we expect the consequences to be of the same fault in workhouses,
hospitals, schools, and prisons, in which individuals often pass both
day and night in the same apartments, or if in different apartments,
still in the same crowd. Accordingly, since the attention of medical men
has been sufficiently directed to the subject, the explanation has
become complete of many deplorable cases of general ill health and
mortality in such places, attributed at first to deficiency or bad
quality of food, or to any cause but the true one,—want of ventilation.
A striking illustration of this was afforded in the case of a large
school for children during the years 1836 and 1837, as recorded in the
second volume of the Poor Law Reports. Such general failure of health
and such mortality had occurred among the children as to attract public
notice and the animadversions of many medical men and others who visited
the schools; but by most the evil was attributed chiefly to faulty
nourishment; and it was only after the more complete examination, made
by direction of the board, and of which the report is published, as
above stated, that the diet was found to be unusually good, but the
ventilation very imperfect. Suitable changes were then made; and now, in
the same space where 700 children were by illness awakening extensive
sympathy, 1100 now enjoy excellent health. The defective state of
information on the subject of ventilation is frequently shown in reports
which assume that apartments containing given cubic feet of space are
all that is requisite for life and health, whereas if a spacious
drawing-room be completely closed against the admission of air, an
inhabitant confined to it would in time be stifled, whilst, by active
ventilation or change of air, men working in connexion with
diving-machines live in the space of a helmet, which merely confines the
head.
In the majority of instances of the defective ventilation of schools,
the pallid countenance and delicate health of the schoolboy, which is
commonly laid to the account of over-application to his book, is due
simply to the defective construction of the school-room. In the dame
schools, and the schools for the labouring classes, the defective
ventilation is the most frequent and mischievous.
_Mr. Riddall Wood_, an agent of the Manchester Statistical Society, thus
describes some of the crowded schools found in the course of
examinations, from house to house, of the condition of the town
population in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, and York:—
“I may mention that in one school where the average attendance was, I
think, 36, not above eight children were present. Upon my inquiring of
the mistress as to the reason, she stated that the remainder of her
scholars had been taken with the measles. I perceived a bed in the
school-room, upon which lay a child much disfigured by that complaint.
Another child of the mistress had died of the measles. I had reason to
believe that the contagion had been communicated originally from that
child, because the cases of the scholars all occurred subsequently. In
a school in Liverpool, having above 40 scholars in average attendance,
I found the number diminished to somewhere about 10. On inquiring into
this case, I ascertained that it arose from the prevalence of scarlet
fever, and the master made this remark: ‘It is a very strange thing
how this fever should have attacked almost all the children coming to
my school, whilst none of my neighbours have got it.’ I attributed
that to the very crowded state of the school. The room was very low.
When the whole of his scholars were in attendance, it must have been
excessively crowded. There was no thorough ventilation.
“I found that in many of the schools there were from 20 to (in some
cases) nearly 100 scholars crammed into a dirty house or cellar,
without air or ventilation, the effluvia from whose breath and clothes
was exceedingly offensive, and must, I am sure, be very injurious to
the children’s health. In most of these places, too, I have found that
the ordinary household occupations have been carried on by the old
women.”
Another inquirer states, that in the neighbourhood of Bolton he saw 70
scholars cooped up in a badly ventilated room not 12 feet square.
_Bad ventilation and overcrowding of private houses._
The reports from the great majority of the new unions present evidence
of the severe overcrowding of the cottages in the rural districts, and
the tenements occupied by the working classes in towns.
From the returns as laid before the public from the commissioners
appointed to take the last census, it would appear, however, that the
number of houses has more than kept pace with the increase of the
population.
From these returns it would appear that the increase of houses even in
Scotland has more than kept pace with the increase of population. But
this result was so much at variance with the reports and communications
from all parts of the country relating to the dwellings of the labouring
classes, that if any increase of the proportions of houses to the
population had taken place, it must have been in the houses of the
middle and higher classes of the community. I learn, however, the fact
to be, that whilst in obtaining the previous census, merely the heading
was given without any instruction for the officer to fill up the “number
of houses” on the occasion of taking the last census, the commissioners
ordered each separate occupation under the same roof to be returned as a
house. In the Scotch towns, and in many of the English towns where it is
the custom to let off as separate tenements the flats or floors under
the same roof, there will, unless it be explained, appear to have been,
as compared with the numbers in the last census, when the buildings and
not its subdivisions were returned, an increase of accommodation, when,
in reality, there may only have been an increased subdivision of
tenements in consequence of an increased pressure of population. The
evidence received from every part of the country, from rural districts
as well as from towns, attest that the dwellings of large numbers of the
labouring population are overcrowded, and from many districts that the
overcrowding has increased.
For example, the report of _Dr. Laurie_ from Greenock states, that such
is the crowding of the population in the town that—
“Toward the east or old part of the town the amount of population
crowded into a small space can hardly be credited, the rapid increase
of the population has so far overstepped the means of accommodation
that not the meanest outhouse remains without its tenants.”
_Dr. Walker_, one of the senior surgeons to the Greenock Infirmary, also
states that,—
“The rooms are in most instances small, and frequently far too much
crowded. It is not unusual to see ten or twelve human beings occupying
a room not as many feet square. The lower classes in these districts
are grossly filthy in their persons and dwellings; and even many of
our operatives who receive good wages are extremely inattentive to
cleanliness, both in person and dwelling.”
In a paper on the causes of destitution in Scotland, by _Professor
Alison_, read before the Statistical Society of London, it is stated
that—
“From a report on the late census, made to the Lord Provost of Glasgow
by Mr. Strang, Chamberlain, (19th July, 1841,) it appears that in the
most densely peopled part of the town, (Blackfriars’ parish,) the
population since 1831 has increased 40 per cent., while the number of
inhabited houses has not increased at all; and again, in the Gorbals,
‘there is an increase in the population of 20 per cent, since 1831,’
though no new buildings have been erected, and where the great
majority of the houses are of the smallest class.”—(Watt’s Report, p.
11.)
_Dr. Scott Alison_ in his report on Tranent, states,—
“In many houses in and around Tranent, fowls roost on the rafters and
on the tops of the bedsteads. The effluvia in these houses are
offensive, and must prove very unwholesome. It is scarcely necessary
to say that these houses are very filthy. They swarm likewise with
fleas. Dogs live in the interior of the lowest houses, and must, of
course, be opposed to cleanliness. I have seen horses in two houses in
Tranent inhabiting the same apartment with numerous families. One was
in Dow’s Bounds. Several of the family were ill of typhus fever, and I
remember the horse stood at the back of the bed. In this case the
stench was dreadful. In addition to the horse there were fowls, and I
think the family was not under ten souls. The father died of typhus on
this occasion. The families of most of the labouring people are
crowded, in consequence of the smallness of the apartment. Where there
are many children, it is common for 10 or 12 people to inhabit one
apartment, and for four children to lie in one bed, both in health and
sickness. When a collier has few or no children, he sometimes takes
single men and women as lodgers.”
_Dr. Keith_ says the—
“Crowding is fearful. I have seen six or eight sleeping in one
apartment, with every crevice stopped, and have more than once been
nearly suffocated by entering the apartment even after several of them
were up and out.”
As the information sought from the medical officers and witnesses in the
course of this inquiry was chiefly as to the sanitary condition of the
population, they might, naturally be expected only to notice the
overcrowding as one of the causes of ill health; and they do frequently
notice the fact in that sense; but the overcrowding is also frequently
noticed as a cause of extreme demoralization and recklessness, and
recklessness, again, as a cause of disease. The following may be given
as examples of the statements in respect to overcrowding in the rural
districts in England.
_Mr. T. P. J. Grantham_, medical officer of the Sleaford union, in
reference to the typhus fever in the family of an agricultural labourer,
gives the following instance of the overcrowding which is frequent in
the rural districts:—
“The domestic economy in this house was deplorable; eight persons
slept in one small ill-ventilated apartment, with scarcely any
bed-clothing; the smell arising from want of cleanliness, and the
dirty clothes of the children being allowed to accumulate, was most
intolerable. Considering the situation of the house, its filthy state,
and the vitiated air which must have been respired over and over
again, by eight individuals sleeping in one confined apartment, it is
not surprising that this family should have been afflicted with fever,
and that of a very malignant type; the mother and one child fell
victims to it in a very short time.”
_The want of separate apartments, and overcrowding of private
dwellings._
The following extract from a communication from the clerk to the
Ampthill union, pourtrays the effects of this overcrowding on the morals
of the population.
“A large proportion of the cottages in the Union are very miserable
places, small and inconvenient, in which it is impossible to keep up
even the common decencies of life. I will refer to one instance with
which I am well acquainted:—A man, his wife, and family, consisting in
all of 11 individuals, resided in a cottage containing only two rooms.
The man, his wife, and four children, sometimes five, slept in one of
the rooms, and in one bed, some at the foot, others at the top, one a
girl above 14, another a boy above 12, the rest younger. The other
part of the family slept in one bed in the keeping-room, that is, the
room in which their cooking, washing, and eating were performed. How
could it be otherwise with this family than that they should be sunk
into a most deplorable state of degradation and depravity? This, it
may be said, is an extreme case, but there are many similar, and a
very great number that make near approaches to it. To pursue a further
account of this family: the man is reported to be a good labourer, the
cottage he held was recently pulled down, and being unable to procure
another, he was forced to come into the workhouse. After being in a
short time, they left to try again to get a home, but again failed.
The man then absconded, and the family returned to the workhouse. The
eldest, a female, has had a bastard child, and another, younger, also
a female but grown up, has recently been sentenced to transportation
for stealing in a dwelling house. The family, when they came in, were
observed to be of grossly filthy habits and of disgusting behaviour; I
am glad to say, however, that their general conduct and appearance is
very much improved since they have become inmates of the workhouse. I
without scruple express my opinion that their degraded moral state is
mainly attributable to the wretched way in which they have lived and
herded together as previously described. I have been thus particular
in my account of this family, knowing it to be a type of many others,
and intending it to apply to that part of your letter inquiring
respecting the comparative character of the female inmates and
children of the two descriptions of cottages in question.”
The _relieving officer_ of the Leighton Buzzard union states that, in
Leighton,—
“There are a number of cottages without sleeping-rooms separate from
the day-rooms, and frequently three or four families are found
occupying the same bed-room, and young men and women promiscuously
sleeping in the same apartment.”
_Mr. Blick_, the medical officer of the Bicester union, states that:—
“The residences of the poor in that part of the district are most
wretched, the majority consisting of only one room below and one
above, in which a family of eight or ten (upon an average, I should
say five), live and sleep. In one of these rooms I have witnessed a
father, mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, lying at
the same time with typhus fever: but few of the adjacent residents
escaped the infection.”
Mr. _L. O. Fox_, the medical officer of the Romsey union, states:—
“There is not only a great want of cottages, but also of room in those
which now stand. In the parish of Mottisfont I have known 14
individuals of one family together in a small room, the mother being
in labour at the time, and in the adjoining room seven other persons
sleeping, making 21 persons, in a space which should be occupied by
six persons only at most. Here are the young woman and young man of 18
or 20 years of age lying alongside of the father and mother, and the
latter actually in labour. It will be asked what is the condition of
the inmates?—Just such as might be expected.”
_Dr. Gilly_, the canon of Durham, whose appeal on behalf of the border
peasantry, and description of the sheds into which they are placed have
been cited, observes, upon the crowding of these small places, 24 feet
by 16, with 8, 10, or even 12 persons:—