The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

DWELLINGS OF THE POOR.

Ar this season of the year, when even the
poorest persons in the kingdom look forward
to a brief period of comparative cheerfulness,
it may not be an inconvenient moment for the
discussion of a question bearing so directly on
the comfort of the working classes as that
which we now propose. The question de-
serves, in our opinion, far more attention than
it ordinarily receives ; and perhaps we may
now obtain a bearing which might be denied
at times when the enjoyments of life were less
specially brought under notice.
It is the boast of the nineteenth century
that the poor and the vicious are at length re-
ceiving that consideration from the public
which our grandfathers totally neglected.
Bath and wash•houses, model lodgings,
schools, mechanics' institutes, and libraries,
attest the earnestness with which our philan-
thropists are pursuing their career ; yet in the
matter of dwelling-houses their efforts fall far
behind the necessities of the case. While new
suburbs are rising upon all sides of London,
containing ranges of what may well be styled
mansions, in comparison with tenements of a
similar rank fifty years ago—while the upper
and middle classes enjoy at least three times
as much comfort in their homes as they did
at the beginning of the century—the
poorest class of all has remained almost just
as it was. The Rookery may have been extir-
pated, but no Tyburnia or Pimlico has risen
on its site. The public at large have been
gainers by the removal of a nuisance, but the
former inhabitants of the region have merely
gone to some similar locality elsewhere, which
is made worse and worse by every fresh
immigration. Whole slices of London are
still perfect honeycombs of courts, alleys, and
passages, from which it is difficult to suppose
that disease is ever absent, and in which it is
totally impossible that the working man should
gain any conception of the comforts or decen-
cies of home. A single visit to any one of the
alleys which run out of Gray's-inn-lane would
be sufficient to horrify any one of our country
readers. Yet Londoners accept it as a matter
of course ; and even the philanthropic societies
above mentioned have wholly failed to cope
with the evil Model lodging-houses are not
suitable to the purpose. They are of course an
enormous improvement on Fullwood's rents,
or Baldwin's gardens, but they do not get rid
of the physical and moral evil of a large number
of persons, principally growing families, of both
sexes, being crowded under one roof; while it
is impossible to invest lodgings, however com-
fortable, with the exact character of home.
What is the radical source of half the vices
of the poor—of intoxication, of theft, of pro-
stitution? Is it not due to the fact that the
labouring man must seek his relaxation
abroad instead of in his own room? Is it not
considered an evil sign in a gentleman's
family when the husband is always at his
club? Has not many and many a man's ruin
been traceable to the scolding or• untidy wife
who drove him for refuge to the tavern? Such
things are matters of daily notoriety, and yet
we exclaim against the immorality of the poor,
who are subject to more constant temptation
with less power of resistance. To a large
number of London labourers the public house