CHAPTER XXVII 



THREE STEPS IN RACE IMPROVEMENT 

 CLEANLINESS 



Try to understand why the children were overworked and 

 what their home surroundings were. 



Machinery had been invented during the latter part of the 

 eighteenth century ; manufactures had increased ; factories 

 were built. It began to look as if great prosperity were at 

 hand. Men, women, and children who formerly lived in the 

 country came to town to get work in the factories. Here they 

 were crowded together in small houses on narrow streets. In 

 these places neither parents nor children knew what was 

 meant by clean streets, clean air, clean houses, clean water, 

 or clean food. 



Naturally, therefore, the masses of the people lived in the 

 midst of what we should call unspeakable surroundings. One 

 such place was Bethnal Green, England. A report of con- 

 ditions there was printed in 1848, and on the basis of this 

 report Dr. Ellis tells us that " many of the houses were huts, 

 summerhouses, and sheds, never intended for use as houses "; 

 that " there were thirty-three miles of streets and at least one 

 hundred miles of byways," but that " only a few miles were 

 sewered " ; that " dust bins were unknown, slops thrown 

 from the windows," and that "the streets were the common 

 reservoirs for refuse of all kinds, sometimes accumulated in 

 mountainous and evil-smelling heaps." 



He also says that " the task of scavenging Bethnal Green, 



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