MÜLHAUSEN.
359
1902-5, 1,919 dwellings were sought, and 1,324 or 09 per cent, were of one,
two, and three rooms without kitchen :—
Year.
Number
of
tenements
sought.
Number of tenements of
One room. Two rooms.
Three rooms.
Three rooms or less.
Total. Per cent.
1902- 3
1903- 4
1904- 5
Total
545
503
866
1,919
29
53
90
172
141
117
229
487
201
175
289
665
371
345
608
68
68
70
1,324
69
Of 748 returns from working-class households upon which predominant
rents have been calculated for the purpose of this report, 65 or 8'7 per cent,
were of tenements of one room without kitchen, 100 or 13 4 per cent, were of
tenements of one room with kitchen, 290 or 38’8 per cent, were of tenements of
two rooms with kitchen, and 293 or 39 2 per cent, were of tenements of three
rooms with kitchen.
The director of the House Bureau reported in 1904 “ tv lack of suitable
working-class tenements of two, and particularly three, rooms with kitchen,”
and added :—“In the mediation of dwellings the observation was made that the
cases in which house owners on principle let only to childless families are
increasing to a serious extent, so that families blessed with children can with
difficulty find suitable dwellings. A tenant is often compelled to conceal the
number of his family, a practice which as a rule leads to disputes with the
landlord and a speedy notice to quit.”
A typical modern working-class house, illustrative of housing conditions
at their best, because it was erected under the existing by-laws, may here be
described. It is a house of four stories, with two tenements on each floor,
approached in the centre of Ihe building. On each floor entrance is obtained
right and left to a corridor 8 feet long and nearly 4 feet wide, with doors into
one of the two front rooms and the back room and the kitchen. The size of the
rooms varies from 13 to 16 feet in length and 10 to 12 feet in width, while the
kitchen is 12 feet by 8 feet, the height being 9 feet. One of the front rooms
has two windows, and the rest have but one. The water-closets are outside
on the landing, one for each tenement. The stairs are sufficiently broad, and
the walls are plastered and afterwards stencilled in simple design. As in all
newer houses there is good cellaring, and each household has a share.
In Mülhausen not only the cooking stove but the heating stove as well
invariably belongs to the tenant, who, as in the Rhineland, carries it with him
from house to house as part of his furniture. Hence stoves of all kinds are
used, the character and the quality depending upon the means of the owner.
In the houses of artisans and working-people of good earnings the cooking
range may have polished steel facings and cost as much as £2, but the usual
contrivance is much simpler and cheaper, and the stoves found in most kitchens
do not cost half this amount. The heating stove is a plain cast-iron upright
structure, with perforated surface, and like the kitchen stove it burns coal and
briquettes, though for economy’s sake much wood is also used for fuel. The very
poor have a still cheaper arrangement for cooking—a mere oil or petroleum stove,
costing a shilling or two. In many of the old houses an interesting survival of
French influence exists in the form of the open hearth, raised some three feet
from the ground and surmounted by a wide cupola-like smoke-conductor. The
most primitive arrangement of the kind seen was a basement of brickwork
4 feet square and 1^ feet high, upon which rested a cheap iron stove, the smoke
from which rose several feet in the air before gathering in a wide cupola
communicating with the flue. In the front of the brickwork was a cavity used
for the storage of fuel.
The local custom is the monthly payment of rent, which as a rule
includes the charge for water, which otherwise entails an extra charge of
1 s. a month. Notice to leave is generally given from the 1st to the 15th of the
