Page:The English Peasant.djvu/84

 said the occupants, "whenever there is a little wind, the place shakes, and we lie in fear of being smothered by its falling." It was no uncommon thing for seven or eight—in one case as many as eleven—persons of all ages and both sexes to be found sleeping in one room. And then, as would only be too likely, one or more would be ill with fever. In one case, where seven poor children slept on two stump bedsteads, five had been ill with fever for two months. Sometimes the bedroom was approached by a ladder and a trap-door, and the slanting roof was so low that only in the middle could a person stand upright. When there were two bed-rooms, the children's roof was found at times perfectly dark. Fancy five or six little wretches creeping into the horrors of such a hole, and lying huddled up there like so many mice. Sometimes there was too much ventilation—holes in the roof—so that if rain came on, the pillows were, as one woman observed, "as wet as a pit." Who can be surprised "that the average duration of life amongst the industrial classes is scarcely one-half that of the wealthy"!

And this is only the physical side of the evil. With reference to its moral results the Government Commissioner says:—" Mr Clarke, of Norwich, can tell anyone who will ask him tales of things he himself has seen, horrifying enough to make the very hair stand on end."

III.

may say that this question of the Dwellings of the Poor in Agricultural Districts is a passing question of the hour, and that it is not really so great an evil as is represented. I would answer. Go into the country and see for yourself." So writes the Hon. E. B. Portman, and he does it with authority, for this is just what he has been doing himself. He and his fellow-Commissioners have, during the last two or three years, been traversing the country in all directions—calling meetings of landowners and farmers, receiving letters from hundreds of clergymen and other parish authorities, examining persons of all classes and every condition. On the labour question, on the