[-45-]
CHAPTER VIII.
DIRTY, dilapidated, and unwholesome dwellings destroy
orderly and decent habits, degrade the character, and conduce to immorality. Bad
air produces feelings of exhaustion and lowness of spirits, and these tempt to
the use of stimulants-the fruitful parents of all crime. We have urged
and re-urged this in many shapes: but repetition is necessary, improvement moves
so slowly. The "New Lodging-house Act" is being pushed gradually yet firmly into use, and is,
without doubt, effecting much good. "The sanitary policemen," as the earl
of Shaftesbury said on a recent occasion, "are looked
upon by the poor as guardian angels." Admitting the genera] good of this measure,
there is, nevertheless, one consideration which requires careful and immediate
attention. While the new Act of Parliament is driving the poor from their close
quarters, we say now, as we have said before, no adequate provision has been
made for their reception elsewhere, and the consequence must be that rent for
dwellings will be raised beyond the means of the destitute poor, particularly
those with families of children, and they will simply remove
the overcrowding to places not at present discovered by the police, or
be compelled to seek shelter in the workhouses.
The following case shows the operations of the Act in this
respect :-A widow, very poor, with three children, the eldest ten years of age,
is charged 3s. 6d. a week for lodging in a house in "Short's-gardens,"
Drury-lane: this is an amount of weekly rent which it is totally out of the power of this woman, in her present
circumstances, honestly to pay. The lodging-house keeper says that having
known the woman for some years, he has, since his house was
licensed, let her and the children sleep there for 3s. 6d. a week-a sum less
than he ought to charge: the ordinary charge would be 4d. a night for the
mother (2s. 4d. a week), and half-price for the children (3s. 6d. a [-46-]
week); in all, 5s. 10d. This is a startling amount of
rent, but the lodging-house keeper, as he observed, since he dare not admit more
than a certain number of inmates, must charge the amount allowed by law to
enable him to live, and at the same time pay his rent and taxes.
Immediate and large provision of lodgings is required by the
present condition of things, particularly for the very poor who have families of
children.
Lodgings of a certain description are needed where a man or
woman with a family of children can be sheltered at a cost of from 1s. 6d. to
2s. a week. The City of London should do something to supply this want.
In all directions they are demolishing the dwellings which are at all likely to
afford shelter to the poorest, and are driving poverty, vice, and ignorance out
of the City. Yet, the "poor will not cease to be in the land," and as it is
evident that those who formerly lodged, and are at the present time living
within the City, must otherwise go elsewhere; the effect of this will be to
burden the surrounding parishes with the pauperism which they have turned from
their own doors. We would gladly behold this demolition if other provisions were
made; and it is to be hoped that the Corporation of London, under these
circumstances, will set an example in trying if wholesome shelter for poor
families can or can not be provided, remuneratively, at the cost to which we
have alluded, viz, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. a week. We do not care about the
old-fashioned style of house being followed, but would wish that buildings
should be erected on a strictly economical principle, dictated by the superior
scientific knowledge of the present day; and we are satisfied that places of
this description could be reared, which, by judicious arrangements, might be
made not only profitable to the builders, but at the same time to confer a great
service on the whole community.
The importance of showing that suitable dwellings and other
accommodations for the industrious poor can be made self-supporting, induces us
to mention the last annual report of the Metropolitan Association for the
Improvement of the Dwellings of the Poor, particularly as we are of opinion that
buildings erected for English working men must not be institutions of charity.
Satis6ed as we are that a sufficient provision of healthful habitations for the
working classes can only he hoped for as the result of commercial speculation;
and anxious as we have ever been, therefore, to show that capital may be
advantageously invested in providing these, we are much interested in the
success of the Metropolitan Association. At first the dividend paid was small,
necessarily, because, amongst other reasons, while the houses were building, of
course there was no return from the capital expended: at the present moment,
however, as we are glad to hear, all the buildings are paying about five per
cent. "Once let it be proved," as Lord Carlisle said some time ago,
"that the act of doing good, in however unpretending and commonplace a
manner, to large masses of the struggling and impoverished, [-47-]
would pay its own way, and insure its fair profit, and it
would follow that benevolence, instead of being only an ethereal influence in
the breasts of a few, fitful and confined in its operations, would become a
settled, sober habit of the many ; widening as it went, occasioning its own
rebound, and adding all the calculations of prudence to all the impulses of
generosity.
The Metropolitan Buildings, St. Pancras-road, which cost £17,700,
produces about £1,000 a year, and pays well In a sanitary point of view, the
results are most satisfactory. Dr. Southwood Smith has shewn that the average
rate of mortality in the improved dwellings, erected by the Metropolitan
Association, is not one-third that of the metropolis generally, while the rate
of infant mortality in the same dwellings is little more than one-fifth. When
the various expenses of procuring an Act of Parliament, the necessary expenses
of management, the amount of capital not put to remunerative use, together with
the losses on the other buildings, and which can be traced to certain causes,
are considered, we think that the St. Pancras building holds out fair promise to
any capitalist who, without Acts of Parliament, &c. could place similar
buildings in proper localities. The Report of the Society for Improving the
condition of the Labouring Classes proves the same fact.
We were much shocked by the intensely ignorant condition of
the children in Short's-gardens. Those whom we questioned, about nine or ten
years of age, could not read, and said they had "never heard of God." A
dog-fight produced a scene such as we will not attempt to describe-a scene
miserably sad: heads were in every window, and the dilapidated quarter seemed
filled with vicious life. As the place,
[-48-] so the people. The yard in which the scene occurred was
strewed with vegetables and other refuse; it -was Saturday night, and the
dust-heap was overflowing; the pavement was broken, and contained pools of
unwholesome water; the whole place was filthy in the extreme.
The formation of sewers in this neighbourhood now going on is
hailed with gratitude by the inhabitants. Some time ago we referred to the
cesspools in use here, and we will assist that description by a diagram which
exhibits the condition of many houses in other places besides Drury-lane. The
drains run in at A, B: D and G are the cesspools: the overflow is pumped away at
H. C, C, are dark cellars: a drain connecting the two cesspools: with gratings at E and
F. A whole volume of description would not speak so forcibly.
A supply of water in the poorer neighbourhoods on Sundays,
particularly during the summer months, is greatly needed. At present, the
water is generally turned on on Saturdays at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, and no further supply is to be had until the middle of the following
Monday. In hundreds of instances the water-tank is quite inadequate for the
numerous families surrounding it, and many have no vessels for water in their
own dwellings; the consequence is, that in most cases the supply is soon
exhausted, and the people in these places are not only left without the means of
washing their hands and face on the Sabbath-day, but actually have "not a
drop to drink."
A little to the north of Hatton-garden and Leather-lane is
a neighbourhood of the worst description, and which certainly requires some
interference. Nearly opposite Hatton-garden this populous and dirty place is
reached by steep descents, opposite Leather-lane, by a flight of steps. The
latter brings us to the first platform, if we may so call it: here are two long
rows of houses, with courts leading from them. These courts, as in fact are most
of the neighbouring houses, are occupied by the Irish and others engaged in
Leather-lane market. One of them in particular we found in a shocking condition.
A tank for water was placed, for the convenience of the numerous inhabitants, in
such a position as to render the water impure in a few hours; but on Monday, at
one o'clock, there was no water in the cistern, nor had there been a drop for
the accommodation of scores of pent-up women and children since Saturday
evening. On Saturday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the water is turned
on, and, as we are told, continues to run for rather more than half an hour. The
inhabitants rush out, and such of them as have any vessels contrive to fill
them, after a struggle, which suggests to the beholder the arrival of parched
travellers at a spring in the desert. Many, however, have nothing which will
hold a sufficient quantity of water; and even in the case of those who have, the
water, after remaining in a room occupied by many persons, surrounded by
impurities, must be rendered unwholesome before the Sunday morning. By that time
the water has become precious. The costermongers return late on the Saturday
night or early on Sunday morning, and require a supply of water to render [-49-]
themselves, after their dirty work, decent and comfortable on
the Sunday. This, in the present state of things, is generally impossible.
"I cannot be clean if I would," -a poor young wife said to us. She was
certainly not nineteen, but had a baby in her arms and one about two
years old by her side!
When we visited the place the dust-bin was full, and the
pavement strewed with vegetables and other refuse. The state of the exterior was
so bad, that it was unnecessary to enter the dwellings in order to understand
their condition. Here, King Fever and his friendly potentate, Cholera, may revel
in all their terrors. And remember, this place is in the midst of London.
Lucy's-buildings, another portion of this district, is
singularly well adapted for the purpose of destroying health : continuing from
the steps from the end of Leather-lane, and crossing at a steep gradient the
street already alluded to, we come to three double rows of buildings, each
containing twelve houses (rent, 3s. 3d. a week) of three rooms each. The lowest
court is reached by nine steps : at the top of the steps is a sort of narrow
back-yard, in which are conveniences, one for each two houses. Nothing can be
worse than this arrangement,-hut we cannot go into details. The backs of the
rooms built against this bank are damp, and most unfavourable to health. In the
lower court is an untrapped gully-hole, which is also most offensive : here
cholera was a visitor, and fever seems to be held in terror. The water- cistern
was empty on Saturday evening, and would continue so until Monday afternoon.
This court, badly as it is situated, might be materially improved in condition
by two things, viz, an unlimited supply of water, and the application of proper
traps to the closets and gully-holes.
Pursuing this point, namely, the supply of water, we started
on a voyage of examination, and in more than fifty houses, entered between the
hours of two and four o'clock in the afternoon of one Friday, there was not a
drop of water!
In Charlotte's-buildings, Gray's-Inn-lane, a place swarming
with people, there were not three gallons of water at six o'clock on Saturday
afternoon.
For those, then, who say our general subject is too vast for
them to touch, here is a simple, practicable point for their operations,-a
supply of water for the poor on Sunday mornings.
Many unwholesome parts of London in the fashionable west-in
Mary-le-bone, in Bloomsbury, &c.-are hidden behind the large squares, and in
passages leading from good streets. These little "Rookeries" are so
numerous, and individually of such small extent, that our space prevents us from
giving more than two or three examples.
In Great Coram-street, leading from Tavistock-square, close
to the Russell Institution, is a narrow, squalid-looking turning, Little
Coram-street, running north to Tavistock-place. A stranger visiting this street
will not fail to be struck with the immense number of children, [-50-]
women, and others, who swarm in crowds evidently too great
for the visible houses. A careful inspection shows narrow passages leading from
this street to collections of small houses inhabited by very poor people. One of
these courts (Coram-place) is fifteen feet below the surface of the street, and
is reached by a flight of steps. Having said this much, and considering the
poverty of many of the inhabitants, and the ill-condition of the houses, none
will wonder at bad results. Surrounded on all sides by tall buildings, and
planted below the surface of the ground, it is scarcely possible for a breath of
even comparatively pure air to reach the inhabitants.
In the map in "Chamberlain's London," dated 1770 (only
eighty-four years ago), all this district is marked fields, the farthest houses
on the north being Ormond-street, Queen-square, Southampton-place, and the
British Museum. The Foundling Hospital, with the burial- ground at the back, was
an isolated building.
By the way, we wonder how many persons, not living in this
neighbourhood, know what is called "the Colonnade," running out of Grenville-street,
Brunswick-square, parallel with Bernard-street and Guildford-street,-a row of
about forty houses (about 500 feet in extent), where the one-pair floor projects
and is carried on a row of wooden columns, with a raised walk beneath, over the
basement, in front of shops on the ground-floor, like the "Rows" in Chester?
The effect is singular. We are dealing, however, with more serious matters than appearances.
In a narrow street leading from the south side of Clipston-street
is a place very similar to the courts mentioned above. From this street two
passages lead to underground courts; on one side by a flight of steps; on the
other, by a steep descent. Their condition is so similar to that of the courts
we have just described, that it is unnecessary to enter into particulars, except
to say that there is no proper drain, and that in the court on the right-hand
side is a cesspool, belonging to some of the neighbouring houses, the contents
of which flow through the flag-stones of the court. Some of the women are afraid
to trust their children to play there, lest the covering should fall in, and
they be suffocated in the receptacle.
Any one taking the trouble to inquire into this matter will
not fail to be surprised at the little knowledge the persons living in these
places have of their unhealthiness. In answer to the questions as to the health
of their family, they usually reply, "It is very good, except at times." The
appearance of the children generally contradicts this statement; and if you
inquire of a person who has had a large family the number living, the answer too
often shows a sad amount of loss. One woman, whom we thus questioned in this
court, where she had lived twenty-three years, had had thirteen children, and
but three were then alive.
Since the first publication of our observations on the
amazing number of children now in the streets of London who are being educated
in vice,-forbidden from good, and prepared for a life of [-51-]
misery, - as we then ventured to say, Lord Shaftesbury has brought into the
House of Peers a Bill to meet part of the evil. Earnestly we hope it may do so;
but in the meanwhile individuals should remember how much is in their own power
m their several districts, and not to leave all to an Act of Parliament. Let us
each
"LIVE
FOR SOMETHING."