The next to godliness : an address to the working class / by Benjamin Ward Richardson.

  • Benjamin Ward Richardson
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The next to godliness : an address to the working class / by Benjamin Ward Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    this charter some of the leading parts might be carried out by local legislation alone and at once; others by general or Parlia- mentaiy legislation. The first advance that the working classes should cry for, in every town, is for a more extended system of public baths and wash-houses. These carry with them the better cleansing of the body itself, and of the articles in which it is clothed. Next to this should come the demand for public laundries, with proper conveniences attached for the disinfection of infected clothing, so that the organic particles of disease by which the great and fatal pestilences are spread should not pass from oerson to person with the linen and clothing which is called clean, and which is so often sent home falsely named under that disguise. A third matter to urge on authorities is the absolute necessity of giving a pure water supply, a supply disconnected in the most perfect way from the sewage system of the town or the village; a supply that is constant, and requires no cistern in which the pure fluid has to be stored. A fourth improve- ment to be demanded is for open places in all crowded locali- ties, more space for trees and flowers and grass, with pleasant walks in parks for the people of all ages, and especially for the young, who now fade in the gloom of the streets and alleys and slums of great cities. A fifth necessity to urge for, to insist on, is for better houses for the worldng populations; houses built on dry and wholesome foundations; houses built of sound and healthy materials ; houses constructed with all the modem ad- vantages of drainage, so that each house is absolutely cut off from the sewer; houses that are well arranged for warming and ventilation, and filled with sunlight whenever there is sun; houses placed not miles away from the workshop, and which it is part of a day's labour to reach, to and from the daily labour, but in proximity to the workman's work. A sixth advancement which should be insisted on is the erection of workmen's workrooms in all towns ; rooms where no family would be allowed to live, but in which under proper supervision, every working man or work- ing woman ought, for a small sum per week, have a clean and convenient and comfortable workroom, in which he or she could carry out their occupations away from the living room ..where many are forced often to abide, where the infectious sick are compelled often to lie, and from whence, too often, the particles of disease are carried on the articles of manufacture from the unfortunate home manufactory to the home of the pui'chaser. A seventh and last demand for im])rovement which ought to arise from the working classes of all towns, and from none more han from Newcastle, is for the purification of the atmospheric ir from smoke and all impure vapours and gases in which plants