No. 216.] ' 401 



tionable insects, and dirt of all indescribable colours. The low rooms 

 are diminished in their areas by the necessary encroachments of the 

 roof, or the stairs leading to the rooms above; and behind and un- 

 der them is a hole, into which the light of day never enters, and 

 where a small bed is often pushed in, upon which the luckless and 

 degraded tenants pass their nights, weary and comfortless. 



In these places, the filth is allowed to accumulate to an extent al- 

 most incredible. Hiring their rooms for short periods only, it is 

 very common to find the poor tenants moving from place to place, 

 every few weeks. By this practice they avoid the trouble of cleans- 

 ing their rooms, as they can leave behind them the dirt which they 

 have made. The same room, being occupied in rapid succesfion, 

 by tenant after tenant, it will easily be seen how the walls and win- 

 dows will become broken, the doors and floors become injured, the 

 chimneys filled with soot, the whole premises populated thickly with 

 vermin, the stairways, the common passage of several families, the 

 receptacle for all things noxious, and whatever of self-respect the 

 family might have had, be crushed under the pressure of the degrad- 

 ing circumstances by which they are surrounded. 



Another very important particular in the arrangements of these 

 tenements must here be noticed. By the mode in which the rooms 

 are planned, ventilation is entirely prevented. It would seem as if 

 most of these places were built expressly for this purpose. They 

 have one or two windows, and a door at one side of the room, but 

 no opening anywhere else. A draught of air through, is therefore 

 an utter impossibility. The confined position of the dwelling itself 

 generally, prevents the access of the external currents of air, even 

 to the outside, to any considerable extent. The window sashes, in 

 addition, perhaps are so arranged, that the upper one (if there are 

 two) cannot be let down, being permanently fastened up; hence the 

 external air, poor as it is, cannot visit the upper section of the room, 

 unless by opening the door, by which the interior of the room is 

 exposed to view. If there is a sleeping apartment, it is placed at 

 the extremity of the room farthest from the windows, is generally* 

 but little larger than suflficient to hold a bedstead, and its area is re- 

 duced, for air, by the bed turniture, trunks, boxes, &c., and having 

 no windows, fresh air and sun light are entire strangers to its walls. 

 In this dark hole there is, of course, a concentrated accumulation of 

 the effluvia of the bodies and breaths of the persons sleeping in it, 

 (frequently the whole family, seVeral in number,) and this accumula- 

 tion goes on from night to night, without relief, until it can easily 



[Am. Inst.] AA 



