The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-18 00:00:00

DWELLENGS FOR THE POOR.

WHO that in this age of wonders can carry back
his recollection to the famous annul mirabilis
and its Great Exhibition" does not remember
opposite the principal entrance of the magnifi-
cent structure in Hyde-park two brick buildings
of small dimensions and modest aspect, which, by
their conspicuous yet unpretending presence,
seemed to point a moral as great as the mighty
show they confronted ? There was something
striking in the thoughtful benevolence of the
Princely suggestion, that whatever might be the
achievements of commerce and industry, of art
and science, displayed in the " Palace " over the
way to the admiring gaze of all nations, there
was a purpose far higher than the enjoyment of
wealth and luxury by the few, to which those
achievements ought to be made subservient—the
happiness of the rawly. If the stupendous pile of
iron and glass, with its glittering outside and its
gorgeous interior, seemed to make too near an
approach to the sentiment of the elated monarch
on the banks of the Euphrates—" Is not this great
" Babylon that I have built ?"—the "model cot-
tages " stood there as if to vindicate the age from
the imputation of boastfulness and selfish, heart-
less pride : they seemed to say in language not to
be mistaken, "In the midst of our wealth we
remember the poor."
Looking upon that practical demonstration of
the humane tendencies, the truly Christian spirit,
by which, happily, the mighty developments of
human intellect and power put forth in our day
are accompanied, who would have thought that,
after all, those '• model cottages " would prove a
cutting, though unintentional, satire upon the
proceedings of the very Commissioners under
whose auspices they were so appropriately
created ? Such, however, we regret to say, is
the uncomfortable, the unsatisfactory conclusion
to which so promising a beginning has led.
Having, by the financial success of their under-
taking, obtained the command of a large sum of
money, the Commissioners resolved to invest it
for the permanent support of objects akin to those
of the " Great Exhibition." They purchased an
estate, and forthwith entered upon a course of
active operations in furtherance of their ambitious
scheme. Kensington Gore, where the refined
taste of the Prince of Exquisites had held its
fastidious and exclusive court—where the more
comprehensive, the immortal SOYER had cooked
soups and cutlets, and brewed coffee and lemonade
for the million—was henceforth to be a still more
favoured spot, consecrated to the cause of
advancing intelligence and of popular improve-
ment. In the progress of the transformation
which, for this purpose, the locality had to
undergo, the Commissioners stumbled upon a
cluster of humble du ellings, wherein some sixty
families, numbering in all about three hundred
souls, found shelter, and pursued the various
callings by w:tich the honest and industrious
among the suburban poor are wont to
eke out their subsistence. The hamlet
of Gore-lane proved an inconvenient obstruc-
tion to the plans of " improvement " con-
templated by- the Commissioners: to have
allowed its continued existence would have been
a sad blot upon the Kensington-Gore estate; its
removal became a matter of expediency, almost
of necessity.