Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

STASSFURT. 443 Hence Stassfurt has hitherto been spared a housing " problem,” and there has arisen no need for the municipality to provide dwellings, nor for the formation of a provident building society as in many German towns, where workmen’s dwellings are either scarce or inferior in accommodation. The “ back ” and " side ” houses common in many large industrial towns are here quite the exception, and there are no basement-dwellings. Consequently almost every small dwelling has an abundance of light and air, and slums are non-existent. The working-class dwellings are distributed throughout the whole town and are of two clearly defined types, the older and the more modern. Those belonging to the mining authorities form a category by themselves. The older type has a distinctly rural appearance. The front wall of such a house is uniformly low, rising only a few feet above the windows of the ground floor, except above the door in the centre, where it rises and forms the front of a gable containing a window belonging to the tenement on the first floor. The roof is invariably covered with tiles. The houses usually run continuously, without any breaks in the nature of side entrances. The prevailing type is the double house, with tenements on each side of the central entrance. The house front, in the case of these older dwellings, is plastered over and painted. The frontage of such a double house varies from 45 to 48 feet. The door opens directly into a corridor varying in width from 5 to 6 feet, which runs through to a small yard at the back ; to the right and left of the corridor, which is often paved with square tiles, are doors opening into the front rooms of the tenements, and from the corridor .a flight of stairs rises to the first floor. It frequently happens that such a house as this is owned by a small tradesman, who has his shop on the ground floor. The water tap for all four tenements is sometimes placed in the corridor, though more frequently in the small yard or court at the back of the house. Passing through into this court, which in form and size varies considerably, one finds here in juxtaposition the wash-house which serves for all the families in the house, the pigstyes belonging to the several tenants, the store houses for wood and coal, and the conveniences. The last-named are of the most primitive kind and are on the cesspool principle ; there is never more than one for two tenements and sometimes only one for three. In the court is also the manure heap, though one never finds it placed so near a window as at 0 schersleben. The dwelling itself consists in the majority of cases of living room, bedroom, and kitchen, though where the family is large and the income admits of it, there may be two bedrooms, making a tenement of four apartments. In the cheaper tenements, however, there is often only one kitchen for two dwellings, this kitchen being at the end of the corridor nearest the court, and often in a recess. Anything approaching to a kitchen range is only found in the most modern and the dearer class of dwellings. The cooking contrivance almost universally used resembles an old-fashioned English scullery or wash-house boiler, except that the walls of the cavity are lined with brick. At the bottom of this cavity coke is burned, and the pans or other cooking utensils are placed above upon a simple grating. A small flue at the back of this primitive oven is intended to carry away the sulphurous gases given off by the coke, yet a noxious smell is emitted when the cover is removed. The only merit that can be claimed for the Stassfurt stove is its cheapness, for the fuel used is simply the refuse from the soft surface coal or " brown coal ” as it is called in Germany, after paraffin and various oils have been extracted from it, and is really a sort of coke-dust. About ¿ cwt. of this fuel is used per week, where the oven serves a family of four or five persons. The rooms are heated by means of tall iron stoves, mostly of iron, in which briquettes are burned. Kitchens of the kind referred to, even when not shared by two families, show no evidence of house pride ; and a few cheap enamelled cooking utensils, hanging from nails driven into the wall, are the only approach to furniture. The living room, which in the case of a tenement on the ground floor is entered by a door opening directly into the corridor, varies in size in the older houses from 10 to 12 feet in length, from 9 to 11 feet in breadth, and about 6 feet 9 inches to 7 feet in height. It usually contains two windows, the 39088 3 K 2

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Cost of living in German towns

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation