the majority of their hours in buildings, too. When you think this over you can easily see that, for whatever purpose they are constructed, buildings should be healthful places in which to live and work.

2. BUILDINGS ARE A MATTER OF COMMUNITY CONCERN

The conditions under which people live and work are important not only to them but to the whole community. We have already seen that unwholesome conditions result in a direct loss to the community through lowering of vitality, sickness, and death.* Public hospitals and almshouses must be supported to take care of the human wastage that inevitably results from bad living conditions.

In order to promote good housing, cities are forming definite standards of construction. All buildings should be planned so as to secure sufficient light, ventilation, and proper sanitation for the safeguarding of health. They should be constructed of strong material and with a wide margin of safety, so that there shall be no danger of collapse. Where possible, fire resisting materials should be used; the day of wooden buildings in cities is over. In the case of tenement buildings, or business buildings, in which large numbers of people live and work, there should be adequate precautions in case of fire. Fireescapes or fire-stairways should be provided, ample for the accommodation of all who are to be within. Laws must be passed by state legislatures to enable cities to regulate the type of building to be constructed, to ensure safety in construction, to compel repairs on old buildings, when needed, and to require all buildings to be kept in a sanitary condition.

Most of our cities are protected by such legislation. But laws are not enough. To be effective, legislation must have public opinion solidly back of it. The whole community must therefore be kept informed of conditions that are dangerous to safety;

* Chapter I.

tenants must be led to appreciate and to demand healthful surroundings, and landlords must be convinced that sanitary, well-planned and well-built structures are a sound business investment.

Three Kinds of Buildings. A city's buildings may be divided into three broad classes: (1) buildings used for residence purposes; (2) buildings

In

in which private business is carried on; and (3) buildings in which the community's business is carried on, usually termed public buildings. Chapter XII we shall see how cities have begun to group the buildings of these three classes into separate zones, excluding certain types of business from residence districts, and gathering public buildings together to form a civic centre. They have also begun to restrict the height of buildings, in order to prevent sunless

and dark lower floors.

Photo by G. L. Hickok

In this chapter we shall confine

ourselves to the consideration of buildings used for resi

dence.

3. WHAT CONGESTION MEANS

A recent study of housing conditions in the Ann Street District of Los Angeles, California, describes a district where a largely immigrant population is living in small houses. The average family consisted of five persons living in three-room houses. Two-room houses built in courts sometimes contained families of six or eight, the kitchen doing double duty as kitchen and bedroom. Two or three children usually slept under the bed on a mattress. It is significant that the worst cases of tuberculosis were found in these houses.*

In the outskirts of the towns in the thickly settled Lackawanna Valley, with a big immigrant mining population, are conditions that are dangerous to health and the welfare of the whole community. A housing investigator says: "In the outskirts of all of these towns there are many very poor houses in which four, five, or six times as many people are living as is safe for them or safe for the rest of the community. I have seen twenty people living in four small rooms. I have seen as many as nine people sick in bed in one room, no larger than an ordinary bedroom."†

Ten years ago there were blocks on Manhattan Island averaging 1400 persons to the acre. At that time the most densely populated districts in London averaged only 396 persons to the acre.

A committee of the Common Council of Boston, after investigating the tenement districts of that city, reported that the tenement houses in the North End District were a serious menace to the public health because of over-crowding in insanitary buildings.

Because of the shortage of homes, to-day, conditions are even worse, and in practically every industrial community in the United States there is over-crowding and congestion. It is

*"A Study of the Housing and Social Conditions in the Ann Street District of Los Angeles, California." By Gladys Patric, M. D.

"The Housing Problem." Report and Recommendations of Eugene H. Fellows, Executive Secretary of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense and Committee of Safety of Lackawanna County.

Push cart market on the lower east side, New York City. Notice the obstructed fire escapes.

federal laws.

Counterfeiters, mail-robbers, violators of the revenue laws, and traitors are some of the offenders that come under jurisdiction of the federal authorities.

Long term convicts and those sentenced to suffer capital punishment are taken in charge by the state government. The

states differ greatly in their laws and methods of handling social offenders, and in their correctional institutions.

The local-county or city-authorities have charge of persons awaiting trial, or of petty offenders. A number of cities entrust the administration of correction to the same officials that have charge of charities. Pennsylvania cities combine the two functions in charge of the Director of Public Welfare, who is appointed by the Mayor. Other cities have separated the two functions and have a separate Department of Corrections. This is the case in New York City, where there is a Commissioner of Corrections, appointed by the Mayor to take charge