Mr. and Mrs. Hammond[1] go so far as to admit that 'the old English towns were often over-crowded, insanitary, etc.' That does not meet the case at all. The old towns everywhere were not 'often,' but always, insanitary to a degree which it is difficult to realize now. They never were anything else, because there was no Sanitation, as we understand it. Sanitation was, in fact, the child of the new order: not because the evils were new, as is commonly supposed, but because they were recognized. The increase of population and growth of the towns presented them on a scale which compelled investigation in conformity with the advance of knowledge and the rising standard of living. It is important to understand this. . . .
"As to housing, we have Erasmus's description of the ordinary abode of the poorer classes in Henry the Eighth's time. It was a cabin of wood and clay, consisting of a single room, shared by all the inmates for all purposes and also by animals; no chimney; the floor of beaten earth, strewn with rushes, which were renewed every two or three years, and meantime received all the refuse and filth both
- ↑ Dr. Shadwell's article is, among other things, a review of Mr. and Mrs. Hammond's book, The Town Labourer.
