OVERCROWDING IN GLASGOW. 13 



of 17 per 1000, while those of Liverpool perish in the proportion 

 of 39 per 1000 ? What is the cause of this greatly increased 

 mortality ? I cannot answer this question better than by quoting 

 the words of the accomplished Medical Officer of Glasgow, Dr 

 Russell, to whom I have just referred : " Density," he remarks, 

 " means, in relation to Glasgow, that three-fourths of those human 

 beings live in houses of one and two apartments, that those houses 

 are built in tall tenements, so arranged on the earth's surface as 

 to exclude the sunlight and impede the circulation of the air, more 

 especially that a large proportion of those tenements are arranged 

 in hollow squares. ... It means that inside those boxes there are 

 ash-pits, . . . that planted among those ash-pits we have hundreds 

 of ' back lands/ along with stables, byres, bake-houses, work-shops, 

 washing-houses, and other smoke and effluvia producing erections, 

 that the stairs are often close and badly ventilated, that they are 

 at best vertical streets, with lanes and alleys branching off at the 

 several landings. ... It means that hundreds of factory chimneys 

 and thousands of domestic vents, maintain over all this devoted 

 area a dense canopy of smoke, which in summer cuts off a large 

 proportion of the sun's rays, an extra supply of whose decompos- 

 ing energy ought if possible to be secured to aid in the destruction 

 of the organic particles which are so rife in the air of cities, 

 and which, in the winter, descend upon us with the watery 

 vapour of our fogs. . . . Our rivers and streams are loaded with 

 the foulest refuse, that the subsoil is traversed by a net-work of 

 sewers, drains, and gas-pipes, and is therefore so impure that the 

 ground air is loaded with noxious effluvia, and the ground water 

 is so foul that to drink it would be poisonous, if, indeed, it could 

 be done. 



" Finally, it means that for grassy fields we have stony streets, 

 and in place of trees we have lamp-posts, and altogether we are 

 as far shut out from the ministry of nature as the necessities of 

 the case, combined with the aggravations of human ignorance, 

 perversity, and wilful self-aggrandisement, can place us." 



