Shall we ever learn that prevention of disease is not
only
more humane than attempts to cure it, but also cheaper ? Here is an instructive contrast drawn by the Salford Women Citizens' Association in their very useful survey of Housing Conditions in the St. Matthias' Ward, Salford (7 Brazennose Street, Manchester, 3d.) : Salford is spending more than £20,000 a year on sufferers from tuberculosis, while it spends only £10,000 on s the improvement of housing. How badly improvement is needed the pamphlet shows. A " very large number " of the nine hundred and fifty houses inspected " come under the category ' Unfit '." One in six suffers from " insufficiency of. light and ventilation." One in five is
"-without any facility to enable the housewife to do the family washing "—and there is no public wash-house near. In one hundred and thirty-eight houses the inhabitants share water-closets with those of other houses ; in one group of eight there are two closets for fourteen grown-up people and twenty-three children. Rats infest many dwellings, in others fleas and bugs abound. Many are "indecently" overcrowded and " the moral aspect of the question " is described as no less serious than its physical side. A valuable document for the future historians of our age !
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