By means of this item alone the wage-earning power
of the industrious classes would be enlarged by some millions of pounds,
and their comfort correspondingly increased. There would also, he
contended, be other distinct economies, for there would be less need for
much of the accommodation in prisons, reformatories, and workhouses
now needed from evils incident to unhealthy circumstances and crowded
dwellings.
He dwelt upon the economic advantages of sanitary measures generally,
dealing first with the subject of the conversion of sewage into manure,
and then, in relation to the provision of healthful dwellings, such as
those of the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the
Industrial Classes, he showed that the cost of such dwellings had been
about L1,900,000 for 11,000 persons. By the saving in life and health,
through the continuance in earning power of men, whose lives would
otherwise have been cut short, he estimated that the expenditure of the
L1,900,000 for the 11,000 persons, by the addition often years' earning
power to the heads of families, brought in a return of L4,600,000, and
urged these facts as showing the pecuniary advantages accruing to the
nation from sanitary improvements which led to decreased death and
sickness rates.
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