“What is their diet?—Chiefly bread; now and then a cucumber, with cherries, figs, dates, mulberries, or other fruits which are abundant there; now and then a little fish.
“Do they ever use animal food?—Occasionally I believe the flesh of goats, but I never saw them eating any other than the diet I have described.
“Did they appear to eat more than the European workmen?—About the same; if anything, more moderate as respects the quantity.”
I have collected much other information to the same effect. In the Appendix, I have given, as a contrast, an instance of arrangements which tend to promote the habit of drinking, and the consequences, a part of which are met and dealt with by the administrators of relief from the poor’s rates, in the shape of claims to relief on the ground of sickness and consequent destitution; and another part of which fall as disorders and crimes to be encountered by the police.
I submit here one important instance of the exercise of a wise influence on the habits of the agricultural population:—
In a form of lease used in leasing the Highland property of the Duke of Sutherland, which appears to be ably devised to ensure progressive improvement, care for the moral welfare of the population is not omitted. The poverty, disorder, and crime engendered by the destructive habit of whisky drinking, fostered by the practice of illicit distillation, is encountered by a clause which provides that if the tenant “distill whiskey, or shall permit any one to distill whisky, or shall sell or permit the same to be sold on the said premises hereby set, or on any part of the said estate, or shall contravene any of the regulations the said proprietors have established for the management thereof, and that if he or they shall be convicted of any of the said offences before the sheriff, depute, or substitute, or any two of his Majesty’s justices of the peace for the said county; then, in either of these events or cases, this agreement shall be, ipso facto, void and null, and the said tenant shall be forthwith removable by summary process before the judge ordinary, whereupon decree shall be pronounced upon relevant proof of the fact.”
The lease ensures the improvement of the tenements, and provides that “no earthen houses or huts are permitted to be built on any consideration.” The one provision is the proper complement of the other; and Mr. Hill gives his testimony to the excellent effect which the support given to the law, and the prevention of whisky drinking, produce on the habits of the population.
Employers’ Influence on the Health of Workpeople by the Promotion of Personal Cleanliness.
I proceed to another instance of the power of the employers to protect the health, as well as the morals of their workpeople, by influencing their habits of personal cleanliness.
But I shall first submit a few instances of the extent and prevalence of personal uncleanliness amongst whole classes of workpeople.