United States or India ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The preposterously long hours, the ill-ventilated rooms, the savage monotony of her toil, none of these reached the girl through the glow of hope and ambition.

The spectacle here was extremely annoying, for men, women, and children were crowded together in an ill-ventilated space, with kettles, saucepans, blankets, bedding, and large blue boxes. There was a bar for the sale of spirits, which, I fear, was very much frequented, for towards night there were sounds of swearing, fighting, and scuffling, proceeding from this objectionable locality.

The accommodation for reporters outside the Gallery was very different then from what it is now. There were two wretched little cabins, ill-lit and ill-ventilated, immediately behind the Gallery, which were used for "writing out." But one of these was occupied exclusively by the Times staff, and the other was so small that it could not accommodate a quarter of the number of reporters.

Indeed, some tribes, such as the Chandalar, lived in their skin tents the year round. Now an ill-ventilated and very commonly overcrowded cabin shelters them most of the year. It is true that the cabins are constantly improving and the standard of living within them is constantly rising. The process is slow, despite all urgings and warnings, and overcrowding and lack of ventilation still prevail.

Ill-kept and ill-ventilated, the air was loaded with noxious effluvia, while the various abominations that met the eye at every turn would have been sufficient to produce the distemper in any one who had come in contact with them. They were, however, utterly disregarded by the miserable sufferers and their attendants.

We should never read, write, sew, stitch, or otherwise use the eyes when they smart or tingle, or when the sight is dim or blurred. The eyes are then tired and need a rest. Much injury may be done by reading in twilight, or by artificial light in the early morning, and by reading and working in badly lighted and ill-ventilated rooms.

In one cottage I had found four generations sleeping in one room the great-grandfather and his wife, the unmarried grandmother, the unmarried mother, the little child; three men lodgers completed the tale of eight human beings crowded into that narrow, ill-ventilated garret.

These houses are generally built without any reference to the health and comfort of the occupants, but simply with a view to economy and profit to the owner. They are almost invariably overcrowded, and ill-ventilated to such a degree as to render the air within them constantly impure and offensive.

Thus went Geordie from house to house, meeting with much discouragement, and even downright opposition, but he was always good-humored, and so he seldom failed to extract a promise to attend the meeting. The night of the meeting arrived, and the hall an old, badly lit and ill-ventilated wooden erection was packed to its utmost.

Some changes in school organizations resulted from these protests; in the matter of ventilation of school-rooms some real improvement was probably effected; though we shudder to think how much room remains for further improvement, when we read in the report of the superintendent of public schools in Brooklyn that in the primary departments of the grammar schools "an average daily number of 33,275 pupils are crowded into one-half the space provided in the upper departments for an average daily attendance of 26,359; or compelled to occupy badly lighted, inconvenient, and ill-ventilated galleries, or rooms in the basement stories."