390 Original Articles. [July, 



wholesome water ; and when therefore this sanitary element is absent, the 

 Commission does not hesitate to enforce its introduction. Thus, they 

 describe a house in the " Rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevieve, con- 

 taining 200 inhabitants in 80 different apartments, besides a school, and 

 yet this whole structure is without water supply, and the inmates have 

 to seek that commodity out of doors." Consequently the commission 

 " recommended that the proprietor be instructed to place at the dis- 

 posal of the tenants wholesome water sufficient to guarantee the clean- 

 liness of the various apartments and offices." Of course, the " recom- 

 mendation " is law, and it is pleasing to observe, that whilst the Com- 

 mission are inflexible in their determination to reform the habitations 

 of the poor, they have recourse to extreme measures only as a last alter- 

 native. " Thus," they say, " when we decide upon rigorous measures, 

 such as the interdiction of a dwelling, it is only after a searching 

 inquiry, repeated visits, and earnest deliberation," and in all cases they 

 seek first to act as mediators between landlords and tenants, before 

 exercising their legislative functions. 



Wishing our neighbours every success in their sanitary reform, 

 and perfectly satisfied that the spirit in which they are conducting 

 their operations will ensure success, we once more, and for the last 

 time, turn to the sad pictures of wretchedness and to the threatening 

 dangers which present themselves in our own large towns. In his last 

 Eeport for 1864,* Dr. Trench, the medical officer for Liverpool, refer- 

 ring to the causes of disease, attributes it to — 1st, Contagion ; 2nd, In- 

 digence ; 3rd, Overcrowding ; 4th, Emigration ; 5th, Sub-letting rooms ; 

 6th, Filth ; f 7th, Drunkenness. Of overcrowding he gives some ex- 

 amples which are really almost incredible ; and whilst he tells us that 

 it would be impossible to find 40 men sleeping in a cellar, as de- 

 scribed by Dr. Duncan, still we fear our readers will think with us, 

 when they have heard how matters stand at present, that there is 

 much room for sanitary reform. 



Remembering that the minimum cubic space required for each 

 adult (by the Glasgow Police Act, and Liverpool Board of Health), is 

 300 feet, and that the Government Commissioners recommended 700 

 and 800 feet per man for soldiers in barracks, we will now conduct 

 our readers to two or three of the homes visited by Dr. Trench or the 

 Inspectors. 



The first is the lodging-house of Mary Bartley, No. 9, Trueman 

 Street, Liverpool. It contains eight rooms, one of which was found 

 empty, and another was used as a kitchen by the tenant, the remain- 

 ing six rooms constituted dwelling-houses for families, there being in 

 all twenty inmates in the six rooms, and in one of the rooms, 998 

 cubic feet in its dimensions, two young married couples were found to 

 exist, with only one large straw mattress for a bed ! Two couples of 

 young married persons thus herded together by day and by night, in 

 a room measuring less than 10 feet in every direction, breathing the 



* ' Eeport of the Health of Liverpool during the year 1864.' Liverpool : 

 Greenwood. 



t We italicize the words. 



