ABSTRACT
The dead shouldered the living a little time since, until people were compelled to close our city churchyards; and yet the question how those plague-spots were fed did not intrude itself upon the public mind. The unhappy young woman appears to have been of a delicate constitution, little suited for long hours of hard work in a crowded and unwholesome room. On the 12th of June – a Friday – she was taken ill. The surgeon’s description of the work-rooms and sleeping apartments pointed to the origin of the disease. In most cases no complaint was made of the quality of food. The work-room contained sixty-two young women, to each of whom an allowance of one hundred and thirty cubic feet of air was granted – that being little more than a fifth of what was requisite for health. The means of ventilation were defective, consisting only in the coming down of the window-sashes from the top.
