Volume 1

Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration.

  • Great Britain. Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/152 (page 15)
    owners and occupiers under the Public Health Acts and the Housing Acts, and under the said series of Acts wide powers have been placed in the hands of local authorities for cleansing unhealthy areas, closing insanitary houses, preventing overcrowding, abating nuisances and enforcing generally a higher standard of sanitation ; machinery exists for the inspection and purification of cowsheds and dairies, pauperism has diminished, better and more complete accommodation is provided for the sick poor, the conditions of labour touching young persons and women, in factories and workshops, have been greatly ameliorated, and all the children of the State in workhouse schools, reformatories and industrial institutions, are started in life under far better auspices than formerly. 73. On the other hand, in large classes of the community there has not been developed a desire for improvement commensurate with the oppor- tunities offered to them. Laziness, want of thrift, ignorance of household management, and particularly of the choice and preparation of food, filth, indifference to parental obligations, drunkenness, largely infect adults of both sexes, and press with terrible severity upon their children. The very growth of the family resources, upon which statisticians congratulate themselves, accompanied as it frequently is by great unwisdom in their application to raising the standard of comfort, is often productive of the most disastrous consequences. ‘‘ The people perish for lack of knowledge,” or, as it is elsewhere put, “lunacy increases with the rise of wages and the greater spending power of the operative class; while a falling wage-rate is associated with a decrease of drunkenness, crime, and lunacy.” Local authorities, moreover, especially in the rural districts, are. often reluctant to use their powers, and in these circumstances progress, unless stimulated by a healthy public conscience in matters of hygiene, is slower than might be wished. 74, An apt illustration of the widely different views held by com- petent observers is afforded by the interesting evidence of Mr. J. B. Atkins, London Editor of the Manchester Guardian, who, with a view to investiga- tions of his own on the subject, has collected a large body of testimony, some of which he was good enough to lay before the Committee, showing in immediate juxtaposition what may be perhaps best described as the empirical and statistical methods of arriving at a conclusion. 75. The operation in different directions of the aforesaid ameliorative tendencies, and of the influences that incline towards the arrest of progress, combined with the spread of education, has, as Dr. Eichholz pointed out, had the effect of stratifying the population and concentrating the classes that require special treatment : “There is an upper class, well-to-do and well cared for, to whom our methods afford every chance of mental and physical improvement. They come out well, and furnish a population probably not excelled by any in this country or in any other. At the other end of the scale we find the aggregation of slum population, ill-nourished, poor, ignorant, badly housed, to a small extent only benefited by our methods of training. They are the degenerates for whom this enquiry 1s presumably instituted. Between these two is the third and largest stratum con- sisting of the average industrial artisan population in which the breadwinners are in regular employment. It is the aggregation of the slum population which is largely responsible for the prominent public notice called to their physical condition.” 76. Ina similar vein, Dr. R. J, Collie, one of the medical staff of the late London School Board, says— “ Physical infirmity is practically confined to the poorest and lowest strata of the population, whose children are improperly and insufficiently fed and inadequately housed, and where parents are improvident, idle, and intemperate.” 77. If this be so, as the Committee are inclined to think, the task of dealing with a concentrated rather than a scattered evil manifestly presents fewer physical difficulties. 78. The Committee have advisedly abstained from framing an estimate of the number of persons living under depressed conditions on the basis of the calculations made by Messrs. Booth and Rowntree. First, they have not the Appendix XXVILI.,7 Atkins, 2863-3122. Eichholz, 429: Collie, 3907. Rooth, “ Life and Labour in London.” Rowntree, “ Poverty.”