All experience tends to prove a probable connection between dirt and
vice. There is truth in the proverb, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
We have the warrant of Holy Writ, for stating that men love darkness
rather than light because their deeds are evil. In every attempt to
elevate the inhabitants of a neglected District, respect must be had to
its sanitary arrangements. No exertion ought to be spared to procure for
it water, light, and systematic cleansing; against the demoralizing
overcrowding of single rooms the most stringent clauses of the Lodging
House Act should be rigidly enforced. The following extracts from the
Visitors’ Reports certify how these obstacles impede any permanent
improvement in the physical condition of the poor in the less favoured
parts of the Parish, and bring out in strong relief the existence of
evils requiring the attention of the local authorities, if not the
intervention of the Legislature to ameliorate or remove, as wholly
unworthy of a civilized community.
“In this district there is much and constant illness in consequence of
bad drainage, and the entrance of the court is almost impassable in wet
weather for want of paving.”
“Five out of nine houses in my District are totally unsupplied with
water, and the inmates have either to buy or borrow of their neighbours.
I feel the uselessness, of impressing upon the people the advantages of
cleanliness, when such drawbacks as I have mentioned come to the
assistance of their naturally dirty habits.”
“In this eight-roomed house forty people, men, women and children, live.
Eleven human beings are crowded into a small low-roofed garret; the walls
decaying from want of paint; the mother and children a heap of dirt and
rags. The landlord has been remonstrated with again and again to have
the house cleaned which is in a hopelessly dirty condition.”
“This street has been much improved by being lately paved. It is now
kept clearer by the people, and is quieter than formerly.”