Page:American Syndicalism (Brooks 1913).djvu/243

Rh. Moreover, the sanitary provisions are often in wretched condition. Outside water-closets, sometimes windowless, connect with the houses; and for purposes of practical economy, the owner of the property occasionally has an arrangement by which he attends to the flushing himself, once or twice a day, as happens to be convenient. This keeps down the water bill, but it can scarcely be expected to lower the tenement house death-rate."

"The hapless condition of the unskilled labor is apparent. Our earlier view is confirmed, that, when the husband is the only wage-earner, he can rarely support a wife and two small children. In his young manhood, he and his little ones are in constant distress from lack of nourishing food, clothing and simple comforts. He is fairly comfortable for a few brief years in middle life, when his children, between fourteen and eighteen years of age, become wage-earners and help to increase the family fund. Often, when his earning capacity has diminished or ended, he is found in a pitiable condition, with his family scattered, and with nothing saved from his scanty wages. All along the way he has met with accident, sickness and unemployment caused by slack work, shut-downs, strikes and lock-outs."

"The standard requirement of 400 cubic feet for each adult for twenty-fours a day, exclusive of the kitchen, is violated on every side in the congested districts named."

"The largest wooden tenement blocks in 'Little Canada,' 'The Harris,' has two shops and forty-eight tenements of four rooms each, and often contains