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
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