The St. Johns herald., 1896-10-24
HOUSING OF THE POOR.
The Wage Farmer Has a Deep IT
 terest in This Subject.

The ge-Earner Has a Deep In-
 terest in This Subject.
 What are the wage-earner's special
 interests in improved housing? In the
 first place, this class is vitally interest | ed in the conservation of health. Good
 health means earning power, and as
 wOrkingmen lead more or less of hand
 to-mOuth existence, any loss of earning
 power is a serious matter. Lord Bea- cOnsfield aptly voiced this truth in an address delivered at the opening of some new blocks of improved tene-
 ments in London. He said ''the health of the people is really the foundation
 upon which all their happiness and their power depends" Few realize the loss of productive energy through sick ness brought about by bad living en- vironments. Sir James Paget, the dis tinguished English physician, eSti- mates that the whole population of En- gland between fifteen and siXty-fve years old works in each year twenty millions of weeks less than they might if it were not for sickness. He puts down the loss inflicted on wage-earners at nearly fifteen millions of dollars an nually. He refers simply to a purely preventable loss. Some years ago the London health authorities instituted in- quiries in certain low neighborhOods to estimate the value of labor lost in a year, not by sickness, but from sheer exhaustion induced by unfavorable sur roundings It was found that upon the lowest average every worker lost about twenty days in the year from this cause. One might go on multiply ing such instances, but it is not neces- sary to enforce the argument by cumu- lative citation.
 Wage-earners are vitally interested in the passage and enforcement of wise sanitary laws. Bad sanitation entails proportionally worse economic conse- quences to them than to the more high ly favored. They are also more often the victim of sickness and epidemics, fostered by insanitary neighborhoods. The wOrkingman has positive inter- est in using whatever political power he possesses to secure legal remedies against uninhabitable houses through appropriation laws such as those cur gently put into operation by the Board of Health of New York under the Ten ement House Law of 1895. Who, if not wage-earners, are interested in the Obliteration of rOokerieS where the death rate equals seventy-three in a thousand? Whatever promises better living conditions, no matter whether it comes from legal enactment or private effort, will find support from wage earners who appreciate their true inter- ests.
 Important as are the physical and economic aspects of this question, they are not the sole, perhaps they are not not even the chief, considerations. Eth ical issues have greater ultimate sig nificance. Many of our moral and so- cial ills are more nearly connected with | bad housing than appears upon the sur face. Take, for example, drunkenness. How absurd to suppose that immoder- | ate liquor drinking can be suppressed | so long as people are left to live in | houses where lack of elementary sani- tation saps vitality, while noisomeness and unattractiveness impels a search for outside relief. It is entirely unjust to suppose that only low impulse to or a reckless disregard of fam. fly duties leads wage-earners to con- tract the saloon habit" The utter 1ullness, the lack of individuality in tenement house existence, often lie back of the fatal temptation.-Century.