In the places of work where there is the greatest need for cleanliness, in every place where there is a steam-engine, hot water, which is commonly allowed to run waste, is already provided in abundance for warm or tepid baths, not only for the workpeople, but, where there are numerous engines, for the whole population. If the same hot water arose at the same heat and abundance from any natural spring, baths would be erected, and medical treatises would be written in commendation of its medicinal virtues, which, the better opinion appears now to be, are ascribable, in the majority of instances, simply to the hot water, and to its application in cases where it had not before been used. Hot or tepid baths are deemed of more importance for the labouring classes in winter than are cold baths in summer, and they might be generally provided for the working classes in the manufacturing districts at a cost utterly inconsiderable.
A few years since a gentleman, observing some ditches in London, in the neighbourhood of the City-road, smoking with clean hot water running away from the steam-engine of a manufactory, directed attention to the waste, and suggested the expediency of using that water to supply public warm or tepid baths. After a time the suggestion was acted upon as a private speculation, and large swimming-baths were constructed; one, with superior accommodation and decorations at 1s.; another, with less costly fittings-up, at 6d. the bath. These were luxurious tepid baths, kept at a heat of 84°. The example appears to have been followed in Westminster by the establishment of similar tepid swimming-baths, where only 3d. is charged to persons of the working-class. As many as 2000 and 3000 of this class have resorted to these baths in one day, and the bath at the lowest charge is stated to make the best return for the capital invested in it. Similar establishments are, we believe, in progress in other parts of the metropolis. Mr. Samuel Greg, at Bollington, has formed baths for the use of his workpeople, which he thus describes:—
“The bathing-room is a small building, close behind the mill, about 25 feet by 15. The baths, to the number of seven, are ranged along the walls, and a screen about six feet high, with benches on each side of it, is fixed down the middle of the room. The cold water is supplied from a cistern above the engine-house, and the hot water from a large tub which receives the waste steam from the dressing-room, and is kept constantly at boiling temperature. A pipe from each of these cisterns opens into every bath, so that they are ready for instant use. The men and women bathe on alternate days; and a bath-keeper for each attends for an hour and a half in the evening. This person has the entire care of the room, and is answerable for everything that goes on in it. When any one wishes to bathe he comes to the counting-house for a ticket, for which he pays a penny, and without which he cannot be admitted to the bathing-room. Some families, however, subscribe a shilling a-month, which entitles them to five baths weekly; and these hold a general subscriber’s ticket, which always gives him admittance to the room. I think the number of baths taken weekly varies from about 25 to 70 or 80. We pay the bath-keepers 2s. 6d. and 2s. a-week, and I believe this amount has been more than covered by the receipts. The first cost of erecting the baths was about 80l.”
The feet of the female as well of the male workers in such establishments, who work in the mills without their stockings, are seen coated with the filth of years, for which there is no other necessity than their own habitual indolence. These habits mere admonitions will not always remove from the adult population. A manufacturer in London, who did not care to take this trouble with them, began with his apprentices, and took them several times to the new tepid baths, as a holiday and a reward, until they had experienced the comfort, and had formed a habit, when he left them to themselves, and they paid out of their own pocket-money the small amount necessary to defray the expenses. Where the use of hot or warm water has been given to the workpeople, and baths have been provided, they have frequently been defective in some important point. Dr. Barham states that the miners, on their ascent to the ground, have commonly only the means of using the hot water from a rivulet on a bleak and exposed situation; in other places, as where bath-rooms are provided, the accommodation for dressing was defective, in being cold and chilling instead of being made warm, as it might be at a very trifling expense. It was only at Camborne, the mine already noticed, that anything deserving the name of proper baths had been erected. Dr. Barham observes, in a communication on this subject—
“The security from chill during the ablution, and the abundance and comfortable temperature of the water in the cases mentioned as examples of superior accommodation, have no doubt contributed to a comparative immunity from pulmonary disease and catarrhal affections, which the managers and the men themselves have noticed since this provision has been made.
“The cost of the practice is so inconsiderable as to be unworthy notice. Timber and iron for such purposes are always to be found in our mines among what is no longer fit for its original destination. No charge of any kind is made for the use of these accommodations.
“The owners of steam-engines might always supply hot water, in proportion to the amount of condensation effected, without any extra cost to themselves, when they do not employ the heated water to some purpose of their own. In some mines the warm water is husbanded for the cleansing of the ores, but this is an exceptional case. Generally speaking, there is a great quantity of iron cylinder and other materials convertible to the conveyance of the water, which maybe supplied at a very low rate, as unserviceable for engine-work.
“I have thought that steam-engines are not the only sources for the supply of hot water to the public at an insignificant cost. All works in which great heat is employed, or almost all such works, might supply heat to large bodies of water after the fuel has been most economically applied to their own purposes. Smelting-houses, foundries, glass-houses, for instances, have always heat enough to spare for the warming of extensive thermæ. By the use of brick pipes, surrounded by wood or some bad conductor, such heat, first applied to the bottom of large reservoirs, might be distributed over extensive districts, and buildings might be warmed and workshops supplied with warm water for the thorough purification of the labourers, at a very trifling expense. My own opinion is, that a system of washing is more desirable as a national habit than a system of bathing. The latter is doubtless excellent for bodies of men who are under effectual control, and for the young.”
Employers’ Influence on the Health of Workpeople by the Ventilation of Places of Work, and the Prevention of Noxious Fumes, Dust, &c.
In some of the “dusty trades,” the excessive amount of premature mortality is so great as to justify interference, defensively, as against the charges which, from the neglect of sanitary measures, fall neither upon the employer nor upon the consumer, who directly benefit by the produce of the industry, but upon ratepayers, to whom the manufactory itself may be a nuisance. In the instance of such trades, personal cleanliness is so far a requisite as to justify an additional rate of insurance where it is neglected. Yet the regulations preventive of disease are by no means onerous, either in their cost or their interference with the processes. Some of the noxious manufactures, and especially those in lead, have been the subject of examination by the “Conseil de Salubrité of Paris,” and the preventive rules they prescribed were as follows:—1. The establishment of a good ventilation in the workshops or manufactories. 2. Exacting from the workpeople close attention to personal cleanliness; obliging them to wash the hands and face before dining, and before leaving the workshop; forbidding them taking any of their meals in the workshop, and, by reasoning and information, directing their attention to the dangers by which they are surrounded. 3. Employing the practicable means for conducting the processes so as to raise the least dust possible. 4. Boarding off the mills and sieves, so as to prevent the escape of the smaller particles. 5. Requiring of the workmen engaged in the processes where there is lead-dust or any other injurious dust suspended in the air, that they cover the nose and mouth with a handkerchief slightly moistened. 6. Subjecting the workshop to occasional medical inspection, in order to prevent the intensity of any maladies that break out, and with that view to examine the workmen from time to time to detect any symptoms of disease, and to oblige the workman attacked to abstain from work until the medical officer declares that he may resume it without inconvenience. 7. Obliging workmen to wear frocks or blouses, which they should leave in the workshop when they quit work; and these blouses should from time to time be washed. 8. Sending away from the workshop every workman who gives himself up to debauchery or drunkenness. 9. Endeavouring to get the workmen, (i. e. workers in lead) to form the habit of drinking every day, on leaving the workshop, a little hydro-sulphuretted water, to neutralize the effects of the lead that may have been taken into the stomach.