considered, be accomplished by means of a proper use of the rain-water;
and that which is here given may be considered as a maximum estimate for
_towns_, if the work be properly done by public contract on a large
scale.
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────┐
│ │ │ │ Weekly │
│ │ │ │Charge to │
│ │ │ │ the │
│ │ │ Annual │Tenant, or│
│ │ Annual │ interest, │increased │
│ │Instalment│commuted at │ Rent, │
│First Outlay per Tenement. │ for │5 per cent. │being the │
│ │Repayment │ on Outlay │ 1/54th │
│ │in Thirty │ charged as │ part of │
│ │ Years. │ Rent on │the sum of│
│ │ │ Tenant. │the annual│
│ │ │ │instalment│
│ │ │ │and annual│
│ │ │ │interest. │
├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
│ │£. _s._ _d._│_s._ _d._│£. _s._ _d._│ _d._ │
│Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │
│ and │10 8 6│ 6 11│ 0 6 8│ 3 │
│ apparatus │ │ │ │ │
│Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 3 9│ 0 3 6│ 1½ │
│Water │ │ │ 0 5 0│ 1 │
├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 10 8│ 0 15 2│ 5½ │
└───────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────┘
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Total Outlay on One-third │
│First Outlay per Tenement. │ (1,148,282 inhabited houses) │
│ │ of the existing Tenements in │
│ │ England, Wales and Scotland. │
├───────────────────────────┼──────────┬──────────┬────────┤
│ │ │ │ Annual │
│ │ │ │Interest│
│ │ │ Annual │commuted│
│ │ │Instalment│at 5 per│
│ │ First │ for │cent. on│
│ │ Outlay. │Repayment │ Outlay │
│ │ │in Thirty │charged │
│ │ │ Years. │as Rent │
│ │ │ │ on │
│ │ │ │Tenant. │
├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ │£. _s._ _d._│ £. │ £. │ £. │
│Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │
│ and │10 8 6│11,970,840│ 399,028│ 379,687│
│ apparatus │ │ │ │ │
│Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 6,430,379│ 214,346│ 203,957│
│Water │ │ │ │ │
├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Total │18,401,219│ 613,374│ 583,644│
└───────────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┘
The above is a maximum estimate, and if the work be executed
systematically by contract for districts, the charge may be so far
reduced that it may be taken to include repairs, but if it were executed
by each occupier or each owner separately, 15 per cent. must be added to
the charge; and if, in addition to the separate charge incurred by
neglect of legislative or administrative arrangements there be also
incurred the ordinary fees of new surveyors of sewers, and new surveyors
of buildings, paid by the ordinary fees, the charge for these structural
improvements will be still further increased.
But the supplies of water for all the household purposes at the highest
water company’s charges, which is 138 pailsful for less than 1¼_d._, is,
in fact, to be considered a reduction of an existing expenditure of
labour of fetching water.
The cost of cleansing privies is estimated as an existing charge in the
metropolis and many towns of not less than 10_s._ per tenement annually.
If the duty were duly performed the cost would perhaps be double that
amount, and be equivalent to the whole of the proposed new expenditure;
and taking the new expenditure as being less that charge, there only
remains the cost of the new sewerage,—1½_d._ weekly, or 6_s._ 6_d._
annually. Supposing this charge of 1½_d._ weekly imposed upon the
landlord, he will have to set against it the preservation of the
tenement from dilapidation by drainage, which of itself would frequently
repay the whole outlay. He has also the circumstance to consider that he
may get better tenants by the improvement of his houses, and that with
such tenants he will have more regular payments of rent. Protracted
sickness and protracted losses of employment, and the frequent mortality
caused by neglect of cleansing, occasion heavy losses to the owners, and
occasion a greater diminution of the returns for such tenements than is
commonly apparent.
One obstruction to any amendment by cleansing is occasioned by the
circumstance that the laying on the water is considered a tenant’s
charge, and the lower the class the more fluctuating the tenantry and
the greater the reluctance of the tenant, and the less indeed are the
means to make any immediate outlay for permanent purposes. To cast any
immediate outlay on occupiers of this class, who have scarcely
self-control to make reserves of the weekly rents, practically amounts
to a prohibition of the work being done. That which will in extensive
districts really be a new charge, _i. e._, sewerage, will fall only at
the rate of the 1½_d._ per week per tenement, and as most tenements are
now occupied in the more crowded districts, this will be a charge to be
divided between two families. If it were properly distributed, it is an
amount not to be spoken of as serious in the weekly charge.[36]
New charges, for improved house accommodation, as well as for sewerage
and house cleansing, may all be submitted as means for the reduction of
the existing heavy charges of sickness, and of the loss of work and loss
of wages consequent upon sickness. To judge of the extent of the
immediate charge of sickness in money and _time_, which is independent
of the charge of insurance against premature death, we may select the
case of an ordinary family, say of a man at 40, a wife at 30, and two
children, who may be represented as equivalent to one child aged 15, the
lowest age estimated in the insurance tables, which for an average
family is an under estimate. Now to insure these a payment of 10_s._ per
week each during sickness, the charges would be as follows, according to
the insurance tables computed by Mr. Finlaison for the guidance of
benefit societies.
┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
│ Age │ For an allowance of 10_s._ per │
│ │week, during sickness, according to│
│ │ the Table constructed by Mr. │
│ │ Finlaison, the Actuary of the │
│ │ National Debt Office. │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│ │Monthly Payment. │ Single Payment. │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ │ £. _s._ _d._│ £. _s._ _d._│
│Man, 40 │ 0 2 11│ 27 5 2│
│Woman, 30 │ 0 1 11½│ 21 0 6│
│Child, 15 │ 0 1 3¼│ 14 18 1│
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total per family │ 0 6 1¾│ 63 3 9│
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total annual charge │ 3 13 9│ │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total weekly charge per family │ 0 1 5│ │
└───────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
In the course of the Factory Commission of Inquiry in 1834, we
ascertained that the wages of upwards of 40,000 employed in the cotton
mills, of whom two-thirds were below the adolescent stage, amounted, on
the average, to 10_s._ 5_d._ per week. Up to the beginning of the
present year the wages of those in work were not lower. Mr. Finlaison’s
table, therefore, will best represent the existing pecuniary charge of
sickness from the loss of wages to a family in such a district in
ordinary seasons of employment. The actual charge of sickness in _time_
lost every year, as represented by the experience of the sickness tables
before cited, would be as follows:—
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│ Age. │Experience of│Experience of│ Mr. │ Experience │
│ │the Wynds of │ Benefit │ Finlaison. │ under │
│ │ Edinburgh. │Societies in │ │ Sanitary │
│ │ │ Scotland. │ │ Measures. │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│ │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │
│Man, 40 │ 15·1│ 6·9│ 9·2│ 2·75│
│Woman, 30 │ 11·0│ 4·2│ 6·33│ 2·10│
│Child, 15 │ 3·5│ 0·2│ 5·18│ 0·17│
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│Total per │ 29·6│ 11·3│ 20·71│ 5·02│
│ family │ │ │ │ │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
The experience of the effect of sanitary measures proves the possibility
of the reduction of sickness in the worst districts to at least
one-third of the existing amount. Amidst classes somewhat better
situated, it were possible to reduce the sickness to less than
one-third; it were an under estimate to take the probable reduction at
one-half. Taking it, however, at one-half, by the new payment of 1½_d._,
or say 2_d._, weekly for drainage, the occupants of the tenements will
save 7½_d._ of the weekly contribution for an allowance of 10_s._ per
week each during sickness. But the allowance insured to be paid during
sickness only replaces the earnings: the sickness, besides its own
misery, entails the expense of medical attendance, which, at the usual
rate of insurance in medical clubs, would be 5_s._ or 6_s._ per annum
for such a family. This would also be reduced one-half, making the total
family saving at the least 9_d._ weekly. But the single payment for
structural alterations is to be regarded as general, and as a means of
affecting the whole of the objects for the whole of the population. For
this 2_d._ each tenement, or 1_d._ each family, then, they will not only
save double the weekly amount, but they will save, in the wear and tear
of shoes and clothes, from having a well-drained and well-cleansed
instead of a wet and miry district to traverse; they will also save the
sickness itself, and each individual will gain a proportionate extension
of a more healthy life. In a district where the wages are not one-half
the amount above stated, the expenditure for efficient means of
prevention would still leave a surplus of gain to the labourer.
These are the chief gains on the side of the labourer; but in general
every labourer over and above what he consumes himself, produces enough
to repay the interest on capital and cost of superintendence or the
profits of the employer. The loss of this extra production is the loss
of the community during the whole time the services of the labourer are
abridged by sickness or death. To this loss is to be added, where the
labourer has made no reserve, the loss of the cost of his unproductive
maintenance as a pauper, and of medical attendance during sickness.
The existing insurance charge, then, represents the existing charge on
the labouring classes from the loss of wages consequent on sickness; to
which charge might be added the existing additional charge denoted by
the insurance on account of the abridged duration of life and more
frequent deaths. The aggregate charge for structural improvements,
though amounting to so many millions as a first outlay, is still, for
the reasons above stated, only a means of obtaining an incalculably
greater gain. But it will be shown that the attainment of that gain is
dependent on securities for the application of science to the efficient
execution of the combined structural means of prevention. If these were
to be no better than those in use in the greater part of the metropolis
and the towns throughout the country, and the outlay for drainage were
to be an outlay for receptacles to serve as the means of accumulating
decomposing deposits, and as latent magazines of pestilential gases, to
be themselves cleansed from time to time of the accumulations at a great
expense, or to be discharged to pollute the natural streams of the
country, then the aggregate expenditure would, to the amount of the
inefficiency, be an aggregate of so many millions of money spent in
waste.
The _immediate_ cost of sickness and loss of employment falls
differently in different parts of the country, but on whatsoever fund it
does fall, it will be a gain to apply to the means of prevention that
fund which is and must needs otherwise continue to be more largely
applied to meet the charge of maintenance and remedies. Admitting,
however, as a fact the misconception intended to be obviated, that the
necessary expense of structural arrangements will be an immediate charge
instead of an immediate means of relief to the labouring classes;—in
proof that they have, in ordinary times, not only the means of defraying
increased public rates but increased rents, I refer to the fact that the
amount expended in ardent spirits (exclusive of wines), tobacco, snuff,
beer, &c., consumed chiefly by them, cannot be much less than from
45,000,000_l._ to 50,000,000_l._ per annum in the United Kingdom. By an
estimate which I obtained from an eminent spirit merchant, of the cost
to the consumer of the British spirits on which duty is paid, the annual
expenditure on them alone, chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be
less than 24,000,000_l._ per annum. If visible evidence of the means of
payment were needed I would point to every gin-palace in the metropolis,
or to similar places throughout the country, which are chiefly supported
from the expenditure of the class of persons who are overcrowded and
lodge most wretchedly, and its duty-paying building materials represents
a portion of the money available as rent for abodes of comparative
comfort. The cost of one dram per week would nearly defray the expense
of the structural arrangements of drainage, &c., by which some of the
strongest provocatives to the habit of drunkenness would be removed. In
illustration of the extent of the means of defraying such expenses, even
in some of the poorer districts, I would cite the following statement of
the minister of the parish of Stevenston, in Ayrshire, given in the last
statistical account from that parish:—
“When the survey by the present incumbent was completed in 1836, the
population stood as follows:—
Number of families 833
Number of population 3681.”
The report further states—
“There are in the parish no less than 33 inns, and public-houses, and
whisky-shops. A few inns are needed for the accommodation of
travellers, and for the transaction of business; but the rest serve as
so many decoys to lure and destroy the thoughtless in their
neighbourhood. The sale of spirits in grocers’ shops has had a most
pernicious influence, especially on the female part of the community,
who, when there is no danger of detection, are tempted to add a dram
to the other commodities purchased. But the most pernicious practice
is that of several families clubbing that they may drink together
cheaply in one of their own houses; for in this way husbands, wives,
and children all share in the debauch, and drunken habits are
perpetuated from generation to generation.
“We are grieved and ashamed to mention the sum annually expended in
this parish for ardent spirits. We have learned from the
excise-officer of the district the quantity sold in it last year; and
without taking into account what is bought at a distance for the use
of private families, and exclusive also of all that is expended for
wine, and ale, and porter, and beer, and calculating at a rate greatly
below the retail price the quantity of ardent spirits sold in the
parish, it amounts to the enormous sum of 4125_l._”
This is nearly at the rate of 5_l._ a-year per family for ardent spirits
alone. To give another example:—
In the town of Bury, with an estimated population of 25,000, the
expenditure in beer and spirits is estimated at 54,190_l._, annually, or
2_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ for each man, woman, and child, a sum that would pay
the rent and taxes for upwards of 6770 new cottages at 8_l._ per annum
each. But on an inquiry made from house to house by the agency of the
Manchester Statistical Society into the condition of the labouring
population of this town, with such an expenditure on one source of
dissipation and ill-health, it appeared that of 2755 of their dwellings
examined, only 1668 were decidedly comfortable; that a smaller number
were well furnished; that the number of families in which there were
less than two persons sleeping in one bed were only 413; that the number
in which on the average there were more than two persons to a bed was
1512; that the number of families who had not less than _three_ persons
in a bed and less than four, was 773; that the number of families in
which there were “at least four persons, but less than five persons to
one bed,” was 207. There were 63 families where there were at least five
persons to one bed; and there were some in which even six were packed in
one bed, lying at the top and bottom—children and adults. Similar
results as to misapplied means and numbers crowded together would be
ascertained from similar inquiries into the state of the population in
other districts.
Any measures must commend themselves to public support that would effect
in the application of the immense fund expended in ardent spirits alone,
a change for assured physical comforts and undoubted moral advantages of
the highest order. Admitting the validity of statements often made and
seldom proved in ordinary times, but which nevertheless may occur, of
classes of labourers reduced to the minimum of subsistence, that their
wages will not admit of any change of application, then another set of
considerations would arise, namely, whether the increased charges for
new tenements, or for improvement of the existing tenements, will not
compel an advance of wages, and thence be charged in the cost of the
commodity produced? And whether if the trade will not allow such
advanced wages, the amount of misery of the labouring classes is not
really increased by exemptions or legislative facilities, which allow
the trade to be carried on only at the expense of the health, the
morality and the comfort of the labourers engaged in it, and also at the
expense of the ratepayers in providing against the casualties of
sickness and mortality?
These, however, are questions that appear to be less likely to occur
practically to any important extent than may be supposed. The general
difficulty would apparently be with the habits of the adults, who will,
to use the illustration presented in a portion of evidence previously
cited, “prefer the gin” to the best accommodation that can be offered to
them.[37]
Whilst there is such evidence as that above cited to show that there is
in ordinary times no real need, there is much evidence to show the
impolicy of any exemptions from the payment of properly distributed
charges for the requisite public improvement. In general labourers have
been losers by exemptions from charges on their tenements, and scarcely
in any instance have gained even by exemptions from the payment of their
contributions to the poor’s rates.
The effect of administrative proceedings on the condition of the
dwellings of large portions of the labouring classes, and thence on the
condition of the labourers, is, under varied circumstances, adverted to
in the local reports on their sanitary condition, and it is shown that
the former parochial administration has operated mischievously in
degrading the habitations of the labouring classes, or in checking
tendencies to improvement.
The mode by which the condition of the dwellings of the labouring
classes has been most extensively deteriorated in England, has been by
the facility afforded to owners of cottage tenements, usually when
acting as administrators of the Poor Law, to get their own tenants
excused from the payment of rates. The legal ground for exemption was,
not the value of the tenement, but the destitution or inability of the
tenant to pay; but inasmuch as the occupation of a well-conditioned
tenement, or of a tenement in advance of others, would be popularly
considered _primâ facie_ evidence of ability to pay rates, the cottage
speculator would not be at the expense to present evidence against the
exemption by which he would gain. The general tenor of the evidence is,
that the exempted tenements are of a very inferior order, and that the
rents collected for them are exorbitant, and such as ought to ensure
tenements of a higher quality.
Such residences appear to come in competition very rarely, and, viewed
with reference to the place of work, the habitations of the labouring
classes in the manufacturing towns extensively partake of the nature of
monopolies, and hence the landlord is enabled to exact a price for
position, independently of the character or quality of the building, or
of the extent of outlay upon it. Where there is any choice, the
labouring classes are generally attracted to these tenements by the
promise of exemption from the payment of poor’s rates, and are deluded
into the payment of a proportionately higher rent. (See the evidence on
this subject taken before the House of Commons’ Committee on the Rating
of Cottage Tenements in 1838; Questions 1103; 1106; 1222; 1377; 1403;
1504–7; 1637–8; 1594; 2269; 2271; 3124; 2234–5; 2240; 2279; 3106;
3723–4; 3920; 4054; 4071.)
The depressing effect of such exemptions is illustrated by the effect of
their withdrawal, in cases where the inmates were not only excused from
the payment of rates, but from the payment of rents, as in the instance
of the parish cottages. The sales of cottage tenements held by the
parish have formed a part of the business of this Commission since its
commencement. The effects of the removal of the exemption from the
payment of rent consequent upon the sale are generally described as
beneficial. The tenor of the evidence on this subject is conveyed in a
communication from the _Rev. Charles Turner_, the chairman of the
Tenbury union, quoted in Sir Edmund Head’s report:—
“Mr. Turner also says, ‘When the parish property has been sold, a vast
improvement in the external appearance of the cottages has taken
place, and consequently a higher rent is demanded, and frequently
obtained.’ We thus see one proof, among many, that the sales of parish
property which have taken place under the orders of the Commissioners
have been beneficial to the public at large; a vast mass of small
buildings (amounting, for instance, in the Bromyard union only, to no
less than the net worth of 3643_l._) has been withdrawn from a state
of dilapidation and decay and thrown into the market. Money has been
expended on it; it has been put into tenantable and proper repair, and
all parties have found their interest in the change. To the parish it
formerly yielded nothing. The pauper lived on in filth and
wretchedness, in a hovel of which he did not dare to complain, because
he held it by sufferance; and the community at large were deprived of
an opportunity for a profitable outlay of capital on tenements thus
kept in mortmain of the worst kind. Such an outlay would not have
taken place unless it promised a return, that is to say, unless the
class for whose reception the cottages are fitted could in all
probability pay for the improved accommodation. With regard to parties
living in their own houses, Mr. Turner says, ‘There are many poor
persons living in their own cottages, which are of a very inferior
description, wretchedly comfortless, and have only one floor. They are
decidedly worse than those which are rented, both as to accommodation
and state of repairs; but these, for the most part, have been built on
the waste and unenclosed land.’”