DRESDEN. 
197 
wide, and 6 feet 4 inches high. This is probably one of the most inferior types 
of three-roomed tenements in Dresden. 
From the foregoing it will be seen that there is a certain amount of 
variation in the rents charged for dwellings consisting of the same number of 
rooms in one and the same house. Thus we find three rooms on the first floor 
front costing 5s. 9d. a week, and three rooms at the back on the fourth floor 
costing only 3s. 6d. The former tenement, however, has one room containing 
two windows looking into the street and is more conveniently situated on the 
first floor. The latter is less easily accessible and none of its rooms are directly 
lighted from the street. Similarly, and for like reasons, we find four-roomed 
tenements varying from 4s. Id. (1st floor back) to 8s. 0d. (2nd floor front). 
These somewhat wide limits of variation prepare one for what is to be expected 
when the inquiry is extended to a larger number of examples. 
The rents of most of the three-roomed tenements in the old town 
fall within the range of 2s. 4d. and 5s. 9d., and most of the four-roomed 
tenements within the range of 3s. 6d. and 6s. 11 d. per week. The difference in 
the average weekly rent as between the three-roomed and the four-roomed 
tenements is only 7d. 
Among the many causes for variation in the rents payable for the same 
amount of house room, the facilities for heating in winter occupy a prominent 
place. For in Dresden, and throughout Saxony generally, the stove is a 
fixture and not (as in the Rhineland, for instance) the property of the tenant. 
Of two three-roomed dwellings, one having a stove in every room and the other 
with stoves in two of the rooms only, the former will always fetch the higher 
rent, other things being equal. The comparatively slight difference in the rents 
payable for working-class tenements of three rooms and four rooms respectively 
is in great measure due to the importance attached to a high in-door temperature 
in the winter. The majority of the industrial working classes in Dresden live in 
tenements of three rooms, and where a working-class dwelling has a fourth room, 
the latter is almost invariably stoveless and fetches but little, if any, extra rent. 
The dwelling may even fetch less rent than one of three rooms all provided 
with heating facilities. Thus, for 15 three-roomed tenements situated in the 
Zahngasse, Töpferstrasse and Webergasse (all narrow streets in Old Dresden), 
and having stoves in every room, the average rent was found to be 5s. 2d. per 
week, while for 25 four-roomed tenements in the same streets, but each with a 
stoveless room, the average rent worked out at 4s. 10c/. per week. 
The same thing is found to be true in respect to dwellings in the outlying 
and more modern parts of the town, where, as already stated, the bulk of the 
industrial working classes live. Rents, moreover, are but very little higher at 
the outskirts than in the inner town although the accommodation provided is as 
a rule far superior. Here we find that for the three-roomed tenements the bulk 
of the rents lie between the range of 3s. 6c/. and 5s. 9d. per week, and for the 
four-roomed tenements between 3s. 6c/. and 6s. 11 d. The average rent works 
out at 4s. 8d. for the former and at 5s. 2d. for the latter. 
As typical of the general principles on which the suburban streets and 
houses are constructed a rectangular block of buildings bounded by the four 
streets known as the Hechtstrasse, Erlenstrasse, Gustav Meyerstrasse and 
Fichtenstrasse, in the northern extension of this town, may be taken for 
illustration. Here, as in the old town, the building plok aie deep. Lut 
while in the old town the whole plot is covered with masonry, with the 
exception of the well or air shaft, here only about one-half of the site is 
built upon and the remainder left open. In point of structure, both external 
and internal, it is difficult to distinguish one house from another in a neigh 
bourhood of this kind. All are four-storied, with seven or eight windows on 
each story. All are entered through a large and somewhat ornate and massive 
doorway, admitting to a lofty tiled passage leading past the staircase to a yard 
or garden across which one has to pass in order to reach the Hinterhäuser or 
ba¿k houses. On either side of this passage and before reaching the staircase is 
a door admitting to the ground-floor tenements. Each of these consists of four 
rooms divided by a corridor into two pairs, of which the windows of the one 
look into the street while those of the other look into the ) ard or garden at the 
back,