The Claims of Labour Part 13

The means of ventilating and of warming now referred to, may in different cases be adopted in part or in whole. In the dwellings of the poor of cities, where the same room serves for all purposes,-working at a trade, sleeping, cooking, and is never unoccupied, a brick taken out of the wall, from near the cieling, over the fireplace, so as to leave there an opening into the chimney-flue, removes great part of the evil; and if a simple chimney-valve, which I have described, allowing air freely to enter the chimney, but no smoke to return, be added, and there be an additional opening made in some convenient part of the wall or window to admit and distribute fresh air, where air enough cannot enter by the crevices and joints about the door and window, the arrangement might be deemed for such places complete. Even in a milliner's or tailor's crowded work room a larger opening of this kind into the chimney, with its balanced valve, and with a branching tube having inverted funnel mouths over the gas lamps, or other lights, and conveying all the burned air to the valved opening {287} in the chimney, is so great an improvement on present practice, that many would deem it perfection. To this, however, may be added, at little cost, an opening for admitting, and channels behind the skirting for distributing, the fresh air; and to make the thing really complete, there must be also the means, by a stove or by hot water pipes, of warming the air before its distribution; and there must be the ventilating pump to inject and measure air when such action may be required. During the winter, in many cases the chimney draught would be sufficient to produce the desired currents of air without the pump.

All the means here spoken of have already been and are in satisfactory operation in various places. The chimney-valves have been made by Mr.

Slater, gas-fitter, 23, Denmark Street, Soho, and Mr. Edwards, 20, Poland Street, Oxford Street. The pump by Mr. Bowles, 58, Great Coram Street, and Mr. Williams, 25, Upper Cleveland Street. The stoves by Mr. Edwards, Poland Street, Messrs. Bramah and Co. Piccadilly, Messrs. Bailey, Holborn, and others.

I am, my dear sir, yours very truly, N. ARNOTT.

CHARLES WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.

THE FOUR NECESSARIES.

In fit Kind and In Deficiency. In Excess.

Degree.

1. AIR Suffocation Excess of Oxygen.

Unchanged Air.

2. TEMPERATURE Cold (intense) Heat (intense.)

3. ALIMENT:-

Food Hunger Gluttony, or Surfeit.

Drink Thirst Swilling water.

4. EXERCISE:-

Of the body Inaction or Fatigue or Exhaustion.

Of the mind Ennui Want of Sleep.

Certain depressing Certain exciting pa.s.sions, as fear, pa.s.sions, as anger, sorrow, &c. jealousy, &c.

Of the mixed Solitude Debauchery.

social apt.i.tudes.

THE TWO NOXIOUS AGENTS.

1. VIOLENCE:-

Wounds,-Fractures,-Burns, &c.-Lightning.

9. POISONS:-

Animal, Mineral, Vegetable.

Certain of these, such as _alcohol_ in its various forms, opium, tobacco, &c. which in large quant.i.ties kill instantly, when they are taken in very moderate quant.i.ty can be borne with apparent impunity, and are sometimes cla.s.sed as articles of sustenance, or they may be medicinal, but if taken beyond such moderation, they become to the majority of men destructive slow poisons.

Contagions,-as of plague, small-pox, and measles.

Malaria of marshes, thickets, and of filth.

Footnotes:

{147} See Appendix.

{202} "There are several thousand gratings which are utterly useless on account of their position, and positively injurious from their emanations."-Mr. Dyce Guthrie. Health of Towns Report, vol. ii. p. 255.

{209} "To give an idea of the principle of contour lines, we may suppose a hill, or any elevation of land covered with water, and that we want to trace the course of all the levels at every 4 feet of vertical height; suppose the water to subside 4 feet at a time, and that at each subsidence the line of the water's edge is marked on the hill; when all the water is withdrawn, supposing the hill to be 24 feet high, it will be marked with a set of six lines, denoting the contours of each of the levels, exactly 4 feet above each other."-Mr. Butler Williams's evidence before the Health of Towns Commission.

{214a} See Mr. Toynbee's Evidence. Health of Towns Report, vol. i. pp.

87, 88.

{214b} See Dr. Arnott's Evidence. Health of Towns Report, vol. i. pp.

45, 46.

{215a} See Dr. Guy's Evidence. Health of Towns Report, vol. i. p. 92.

{215b} In St. George's, Southwark, out of 1467 persons who received parochial relief, 1276 are reported to have been ill with fever.

{233} The mischief that may be done by a.s.sociations for benevolent purposes, when ill-directed, is admirably shown in a pamphlet on the subject of Visiting Societies by "Presbyter Catholicus." James Darling, Little Queen Street, 1844. One of the objects of this pamphlet is to show that the command addressed to alms-givers "not to let their left hand know what their right hand doeth," concerns the receiver as much as the giver-that "a man's alms will be converted into a source of almost unmixed evil, if their distribution become a subject of notoriety," which is the case in public charities. This, like most general propositions, is not to be construed over strictly; but there is much truth in it, (especially if we take the word "alms" in its most restricted sense) and it deserves to be weighed carefully by all who wish to render their benevolence most available.

{282} The tabular view has been moved to the end of the letter in this Project Gutenberg transcription.-DP.

{287} The author of this book has tried one of these "valved openings"

recommended by Dr. Arnott, and has found it answer very well.