Page:The Ethics of Urban Leaseholds.djvu/27

 The slightest ventilation in such little rooms is felt as a cold draught; and doors and windows are, as far as may be, kept hermetically closed. The children either turn into the streets, and live in dirt and license there,—leaseholds provide no playgrounds,—or, if they are retained at home, they sicken, pine away, and die. The woman's health gives way, and as she is alone to do the household work it is not done; the filth accumulates, and then the public-house becomes again a refuge or relief. Both man and woman have lost hope and energy, and home repels them. They have no idea of acting for themselves, or of discovering what would most improve their state at home. The house is not their business but the landlord's, and all houses for the working class are much the same. It is ‘their lot,’ and they accept it listlessly and sink into depravity.

Youths also, of both sexes, are habitually driven from home. They naturally seek society, just as ‘their betters’ do; but in their houses they can never find it. They must wander therefore, and all wholesome family restraint is consequently lost. Parental discipline is scarcely thought of or regarded; parents neglect their duty of command, and the young people, quite untutored in obedience and self-control, find in saloons and ‘schools for dancing’ most efficient schools of vanity and vice.

The great concern that has of late been manifested by the upper classes for the benefit of working men, and the alarm that is so frequently expressed at the increased consumption of intoxicating drinks, together show that the condition of the working classes in their homes is little known or understood. Intoxication as a habit is a common consequence, a natural result, of undersized, unwholesome rooms; and not the lower, but the middle and the upper classes are the fabricators and maintainers of the leasehold system, which denies sufficient home accommodation to the poor. These classes are the real culprits in the case of metropolitan intemperance; and to