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 house in a back tenement in Montreal ; and 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 construc- 

 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. (23,227 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 floor, the cubic metre cost 2 fl. 85 kr. only. (Schonberg's 

 Handbuch, I., p. 700.) 



