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68 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR.
contrast to the dark features of filth and unwholesomeness
which environ them; they familiarize the
poorest classes generally with all the practical
advantages of cleanliness; they show that dirt is
not inevitable; they therefore create and foster,
among the humblest members of society, a laudable
discontent with defective sanitary arrangements, and
they establish a strong public opinion, grounded on
experience, in favour of those conditions of cleanliness
and comfort, which determine the maintenance
of health.
That all the great results of sanitary science
can be applied in their utmost perfectness to the
dwellings of the poor, for the payment of a rent
often below, and never above, the average given
for some miserable doghole, that poisons its inhabitants,
is a truth of immense importance, deserving
the widest dissemination, and pregnant with the
most hopeful promise. Such advantages spring
from and illustrate the economical application of
the associative principle; they cannot be obtained
otherwise than by the application of capital in such
an amount as lies only within the compass of
wealthy corporations, or is reached by the voluntary
combination of several private purses. While
the labouring classes are abundantly able to maintain
these institutions when established, and to
render them amply remunerative to those whose
capital has first founded them, it is obvious that no