War! In England,
every year, 500,000 men, women, and children, engaged in the various
industries, are killed and disabled, or are injured to disablement by
disease.
In the West End eighteen per cent. of the children die before five years
of age; in the East End fifty-five per cent. of the children die before
five years of age. And there are streets in London where out of every
one hundred children born in a year, fifty die during the next year; and
of the fifty that remain, twenty-five die before they are five years old.
Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so badly.
That industry causes greater havoc with human life than battle does no
better substantiation can be given than the following extract from a
recent report of the Liverpool Medical Officer, which is not applicable
to Liverpool alone:-
In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, and
the atmosphere within the dwellings was always foul, owing largely to
the saturated condition of the walls and ceilings, which for so many
years had absorbed the exhalations of the occupants into their porous
material. Singular testimony to the absence of sunlight in these
courts was furnished by the action of the Parks and Gardens Committee,
who desired to brighten the homes of the poorest class by gifts of
growing flowers and window-boxes; but these gifts could not be made in
courts such as these, _as flowers and plants were susceptible to the
unwholesome surroundings, and would not live_.
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