18 STATISTICS OF EXPENDITURE AND 
the expenditure. The best test, perhaps, would be the cubic feet 
of air space obtained for a given rent.* 
But statistics are lacking in Canada to determine the actual 
space received in return for the payment made. There may be 
more actual air space in a log cabin or a dug out of one room in 
the North-West and British Columbia than in a three or four 
roomed heuse in a back tenement in Montreal ; ard the general 
sanitary conditions are without doubt superior. Mr. Ames has 
taken the provision of water closets as his test, and shews how 
a smaller house with sanitary conveniences may rent for as much 
as a larger without them. But his investigation was confined to 
a section of Montreal only. For the rest of the city, and for the 
Dominion as a whole, we must rest content with a less satisfac- 
tory test, viz., the number of rooms, the material of econstruc- 
tion, the number of stories, the number of families in each 
house, and the number of persons to a house and to a room. 
The average house in Canada is constructed of wood, is of 
one story, or a story and a half, contains probably from 5 to 10 
rooms, more likely 5 than 10, and accommodates under its roof 
1.08 families, or 5.6 persons, and thus gives the standard accom- 
modation—one room one person. The standard of accommodation 
is rising. In 1881 there were 1.10 families under each roof and 
5.8 persons. The one story house seems to be going out of 
fashion, for while 39 per cent. of all the inhabited houses are one 
story buildings, more than 50 per cent. (28,227 out of 46,000 
classified) of the uninhabited houses are of one story only, and 
33 per cent. only (2,704 out of 8,077 enumerated) of the houses 
under construction. (Census Bulletin, No. 6). It is, moreover, 
a well recognized fact that the sanitary conveniences are being 
improved. So that we may conclude that the people of Canada 
are receiving better value for their money, or that through 
increased prosperity they are able to spend a larger absolute 
amount in house rent though, perhaps, the percentage of their 
expenditure on house rent is decreasing. 
*The poor probably pay more for rent, according to this standard, than the rich 
It has been found by comparison in Vienna that in a house in one of the slum districts 
each cubic metre of air space cost 3 fl. 24 kr., while in a house in the most fashionable 
Ringstrasse, and on the first fioor, the cubic metre cost 2 fl. 85 kr. only. (Schénberg’s 
Handbuch, I., p. 700.) 
