Gardens Committee,
who desired to brighten the homes of the poorest class by gifts of
growing flowers and window-boxes; but these gifts could not be made in
courts such as these, _as flowers and plants were susceptible to the
unwholesome surroundings, and would not live_.

Mr. George Haw has compiled the following table on the three St. George's
parishes (London parishes):-

Percentage of
Population Death-rate
Overcrowded per 1000
St. George's West 10 13.2
St. George's South 35 23.7
St. George's East 40 26.4

Then there are the "dangerous trades," in which countless workers are
employed. Their hold on life is indeed precarious--far, far more
precarious than the hold of the twentieth-century soldier on life. In
the linen trade, in the preparation of the flax, wet feet and wet clothes
cause an unusual amount of bronchitis, pneumonia, and severe rheumatism;
while in the carding and spinning departments the fine dust produces lung
disease in the majority of cases, and the woman who starts carding at
seventeen or eighteen begins to break up and go to pieces at thirty. The
chemical labourers, picked from the strongest and most splendidly-built
men to be found, live, on an average, less than forty-eight years.

Says Dr. Arlidge, of the potter's trade: "Potter's dust does not kill
suddenly, but settles, year after year, a little more firmly into the
lungs, until at length a case of plaster is formed. Breathing becomes
more and more difficult and depressed, and finally ceases."

Steel dust, stone dust, clay dust, alkali dust, fluff dust, fibre
dust--all these things kill, and they are more deadly than machine-guns
and pom-poms. Worst of all is the lead dust in the white-lead trades.
Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a young, healthy,
well-developed girl who goes to work in a white-lead factory:-

Here, after a varying degree of exposure, she becomes anaemic. It may
be that her gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth
and gums are perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible.
Coincidently with the anaemia she has been getting thinner, but so
gradually as scarcely to impress itself upon her or her friends.
Sickness, however, ensues, and headaches, growing in intensity, are
developed. These are frequently attended by obscuration of v