The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Giles's, in Saffron-hill, in the districts east of
the Tower, in Westminster itself, such rooke-
ries abound. Law, it is true, has within the
last few years been invoked to place them
under supervision. and to improve their accom-
modations. The number of lodgers, and the
space allotted to each, are matters of which
the pollee takes cognisance : sanitary reform,
though more talked of than acted on, is yet in
progress. But law, after all, can do little. It
can drive from► an overcrowded tenement the
beggar, the thief, the pauper ; it can say to the
hotoseowner, " You shall not receive more than
" a certain number of tenants, and you shall
" supply them with certain things necessary
" pin• decency or comfort ;" but here its power
ends. Bad lodgings, undrained, unventilated,
and unclean, can only be put an end to by re-
placing them with better. It is mockery to tell
the labourer in search of a house that. for de-
cency's sake, he must not be suffered to re-
side in such dwellings as alone are accessible
to him ; the remedy lies in an opposite direc-
tion. Build working-men's houses such as
they ought to be, and the sties and dens that
now stand in their stead will rapidly disap
pear. This can be done without appeals to
benevolence—without public meetings, expen-
sive dinners, subscription lists advertised in
the newspapers, and all the machinery of
ostentatious charity. Indeed, such means for
such an end are not only useless, but posi-
tively injurious. If the labouring class of the
metropolis can only be lodged and maintained
at the expense of the wealthy, there must be
something radically wrong in our social sys-
tem. But we believe this is not the case.
Lodging-house keepers, as a general rule,
charge exorbitant rents, because their capital
is small, and they have to calculate on a cer-
tain amount of loss by non-payment. They,
moreover, are for the most part tenants them-
selves ; and thus a. double profit has to be de-
ducted from the rent ultimately paid by the
occupier. Where companies have been formed,
large capitals invested, and a moderate rent
demanded, the undertaking has in ahnost
every ease been found successful—not only in
a moral and social, but also in an economical,
point of view. All that is necess►uy is that
these facts should be known : the rest will fol
low in due time.

TREATY WITH PARAHUAY.—It is our pro-
vinee to draw attention to the important
fact that a commercial treaty has just
been concluded with Paraguay. This
treaty occupied the attention of the Earl of
Malmesbury, and has been settled on the
basis of the principles laid down by the noble
Lord when he held the seals of the Foreign-
office. It. has just received the official papa'
tures of the Ministers of France, of the United
States, and Sardinia, along with that of the
chief contracting parties,—an instance of
unanimity not often met with among diplo-
nudists ; and its bearing will be understood in
mercantile circles when we state that it will in
all probability be followed by the opening of
the navigation of the Parana.

CAsr. or Ma. SlCllELL.—Particulars have
reached us of the ease of a Mr. Siehell, who
has been locked up for three weeks at Milan
by the Austrian authorities. Without, how-
er, entering upon this case at present, we
wish to remark the silence of Lord Dudley
Stuart and others under the sedative influence
of a congenial Administration.

TO TII EDlTiolt OF "THE P1:1-:•S."

Sir,—Not living a political partisan it is very possible
that my ideas about what is right and wrong mav not suit
an age like that in which we live : but 1 recolieet when
stioli emitting AS 11104 towards Mr. S:atiltril, in dragging
rliVatte" lettell4 and eollVerpOlthillS heron. the rlthlte.
Wolliti have met with an ontburst of universal indignation
from the gouttlemen of England. I heard the late Sir
Hobert Peel utter a vehement invective in the Maine of
l'ommonn against those who, for party purposes. pubished
the cluditlential lett4.l* of )Ir. Sourin, t torney-O enent lof
Ireland, addressed to the hue hoed No,intrv. Yet the
practice. which was then considered disgrareinl. has now
liven rendered legitimate by constitutional processes, as a
contribution to the general confusion to which iwe are
rupidl tending. 1 am, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
E. G.