THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 153 



his health is broken down ; he himself succumbs. 

 The wife falls into despair; in vain she tries to 

 keep her house clean ; her children increase 

 upon her, and at last they become reckless, and 

 with recklessness comes drinking, immorality, 

 and all the consequences of utter despair." ^ 



Overcrowding means vitiated air, proximity to 

 vice, consequent temptation, and usually indul- 

 gence in evil. Such conditions induce a weak- 

 ened state, morally and physically. When the 

 body is weak, ambition dead, and the gate that 

 looks toward hope closed and barred, the man 

 is already on the verge of despair, and pauper- 

 ism is then almost inevitable. The victims of 

 such conditions are not responsible for them. 

 Their pauperism is not voluntary want. The 

 greed of employers and property owners on the 

 one hand, and the failure of the public in mat- 

 ters of sanitation, education, and the like, on 

 the other, are primarily responsible. Only soci- 

 ety has the power to change them, and on so- 

 ciety therefore rests the duty of making them 

 impossible. An undertaker, who was also a 

 house-owner, was besought by Octavia Hill to 

 improve his tenements, on the ground that they 

 would be more profitable to him. He replied : 



^ " Housing of the Working Classes," Blue Book, p. 5. 



