THE RURAL EXODUS 71 



that required for the families of agricultural 

 labourers. 



The sanitary arrangements are often 

 deplorable. In one case only three closets 

 were provided for forty-four cottages. In 

 another village I found the blood and other 

 liquid refuse from a butcher's yard flowing in 

 an open gutter within a foot of the cottage 

 door, and the Rural Authority refused to 

 interfere. Rheumatism and pleurisy are the 

 natural outcome of damp walls and floors, 

 and stuffy rooms provide a nidus for the germs 

 of consumption, which sometimes infect an 

 entire family in succession. 



The whole theory of the vigorous health 

 enjoyed by our villagers is undermined by 

 stubborn facts of experience. The agricul- 

 tural labourer often, it is true, lives beyond 

 the normal span of life, but he rarely ends his 

 days as a hale and hearty old man. Constant 

 exposure to the cold and wet, his damp and 

 draughty home, his poor fare, all combine 

 against the labourer's constitution. Rheuma- 

 tism in various forms is widely prevalent, and 

 the stooping posture of the " Man with the 

 Hoe " soon becomes stereotyped. Other 

 diseases which more especially affect rural 

 workmen are bronchitis, pneumonia and heart 

 disease, and owing to disgracefully inadequate 



