1867.] The Artizans 1 and Labourers' Dwellings Bill. 211 



rulers the question is decided. The decree has gone forth that if by 

 any means it can be prevented, water-closets shall not be substituted 

 for privies and ashpits. An attempt at prevention, by laying an 

 extra rate on water-closets, was defeated by the decision of a Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons so long since as 1858. The 

 compulsory re-conversion of the comparatively few water-closets 

 into privies, is now being attempted by an illegal tax for removing 

 the dry ashes. 



Such being the determination of the authorities, ought they not 

 at least to endeavour to make the middens inoffensive ? The modes 

 of doing this, — of to some extent converting them into dry closets, 

 — have been urged upon the council again and again, but with the 

 sole effect of causing them, in some new by-laws recently published, 

 to order that hi all new houses the ashpits shall be roofed over, and 

 their contents kept dry. But these by-laws apply only to future 

 constructions. The fifty thousand ashpits previously existing are 

 to be left in their pristine condition of barbarism ; no change is to 

 be made in the mode of emptying them ; the manufacture of 

 manure at the nightsoil depots is to go on unchecked, and the 

 depots are to remain within the city. And if the sources of atmo- 

 spheric contamination are to remain, the impediments to the removal 

 by currents of fresh air of the polluted atmosphere are also to 

 continue. One of the new by-laws enacts that if any building 

 erected since June, 1865, shall be declared on competent authority 

 to be unfit for human habitation, it shall be shut up until rendered 

 fit. None of the thousands of houses erected before that date, 

 which are unfit for human habitation, are to be closed ; nor are the 

 confined courts in which they stand to be opened to the winds of 

 heaven. The new by-laws will therefore have as much effect on 

 the monster nuisance of Manchester as a teacupful of water on a 

 raging conflagration. 



VIII. THE AKTIZANS' AND LABOUEEKS' DWELLINGS 



BILL.* 



All sections of the governing body of the state, with the exception 

 of a few gentlemen who can hardly be said to belong to the present 

 generation, are agreed upon the necessity of extending the elective 

 franchise to a vast number of artizans and labourers from whom it 

 has hitherto been withheld ; and concurrently with this national 



* " Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings." A Bill to provide better Dwellings 

 for Artizans and Labourers. Prepared and brougbt in by Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens, 

 Mr. Kinnaird, and Mr. Locke. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 

 12th February, 1867. 



P2 



