Page:The State and the Slums.djvu/9

5 And even when all this has been said, the subject is very far from being exhausted. Indeed, the most serious difficulty of all remains behind. Clean, spacious, and well-ventilated lodgings may be provided; but how are they to be kept clean and well ventilated, and how are the occupants to be prevented from overcrowding them in the future? Let the difficulty about wages be waived for argument's sake—though, if Mr. Hyndman is right, it will arise the very moment competition sets in—yet there will remain the cold of the new lodgings, which will be a permanent temptation. The first effort to contend with this will probably take the shape of stopping up ventilators, unless, indeed, these are so cunningly hidden that the occupants of the house cannot get at them. But it will not be very long before people begin to find out that a dozen persons in a room twelve feet square are much more "snug" than three or four, and that the kind of coarse comfort which comes from mere heat is not inconsistent with almost any amount of what fine ladies and gentlemen call "stuffiness." How are people to be hindered from working their will in this way? In many cases the mere increase of families will overcrowd the lodging, without any intrusion from outside. A man and his wife can do well enough in one decent room, and are actually comfortable in two; but when there are five children what is to be done? Be it remembered that in the rank of life we are dealing with, wages do not increase to any great extent after marriage, and certainly not in the same ratio as families increase. Indeed, it might be said, without much inaccuracy, that a working-man would be in receipt of his highest wages about the time of his marriage, or very soon after it. The family resources would not begin to increase until the children in their turn began to earn wages, and that time is now almost fixed by law at a minimum age of thirteen years. In fourteen years an average couple would almost certainly have five children, and might have seven or more. Before the eldest child, therefore, could contribute anything to the family resources, there would probably be seven human beings, and might easily be nine, ten or even twelve, to