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SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR. 55
be considered almost indifferent to its existence,
or almost acclimated to endure its continuance.
It is too true that, among these classes, there are
swarms of men and women, who have yet to learn
that human beings should dwell differently from
cattle; swarms, to whom personal cleanliness is
utterly unknown; swarms, by whom delicacy and
decency in their social relations are quite unconceived.
Men and women, boys and girls, in scores
of each, using jointly one single, common privy;
grown persons of both sexes sleeping in common
with their married parents; a woman suffering
travail in the midst of the males and females of
three several families of fellow-lodgers in a single
room; an adult son sharing his mother's bed during
her confinement;—such are instances recently
within my knowledge (and I might easily adduce
others) of the degree and of the manner in which
a people may relapse into the habits of savage life,
when their domestic condition is neglected, and
when they are suffered to habituate themselves to
the uttermost depths of physical obscenity and
degradation.
Here again, as in an earlier part of my Report,
I think it requisite to remark, that I do not mean
in any degree to suggest that the evils adverted to
present themselves within the City to a greater
extent than in sundry other parts of the metropolis.
My sphere of duty lies within the City boundary,
and it would be an impertinence in me to comment,