The Express.
London, England, 1864-11-04 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, . NOVEMBER 4, 1864.

AMERICA.

The follow ing official despatches in regard to
the fighting between Generals Sheridan and Long-
street are published in the New York pspers :

Cedar Oroeir, Oot. 19,

Lieutenant-General Grant, City Point. I have the
honour to report that my army at Cedar Creek 1M
attacked this morning before daylight, and my left was
tuned and driven in confusion ; in fact. most of the line
was drives in confusion, with a loss of ?Apiece. of artillery.
I hestenedfrom Winchester, where I was on my way from
Washington, and found the army between Middletown and
Newtown, keying bees driven back four miles. 1 here took
affairs in hand, and quickly nailed the corps, and formed a
compact line of battle, just is time to reputes an attack of
the enemy, which wee handsomely done at about 11 ►m
At 3 P.m., after some chemise of the cavalry from the left to
the right flank, I attacked the enemy with great vigour,
driving and routing him, and capturing, according to the last
report, 43 pieces of artillery, and very many prisoners.
I do not yet know the number of casualties or lames of the
enemy. Waggon.trains, asibulaaose, and caisisons in large
numbers are in our possession. They also burned some of
our trains. Geoeral Ramseur is • prisoner in oar heady,
severely and perhaps mortally wounded. I have to regret
the less of General Bidwell, killed, and Generale Wright,
Grover, and Walcott. wounded. Wright Is slightly wounded.
Affain at times looked badly, but by the gallantry of our
brave officers and men disaster ham bees converted into a
splendid victory. Darkness again intervened to shut off
greeter remits. I now occupy Strasburg. As soon as ob.-
Wood, I will send you further particulars.
(Signed.) P. H. Salainati, Major-Gen.
Secretary Stanton telegraphs as follows :

War Department, Washington. Oct. 20.

To Major-General Dix.—Anotber great battle was tought
yesterday at Cedar Creek, threatening at first a great die.
eater, but finally resulting in a victory for the Union forces
under Sheridan, more splendid than any heretofore. The
battle was fought on the same day, the 19th of the moo',
that witnessed Sheridan's victory in September. What flit
numbers were that were opposed to Sheridan are not yet
reported to the department, but the boldness, vigour, and
success of the attack, strongly indicate that a heavy rein-
forcement bad been sent from Richmond, with the expecta-
tion of fulfilling Longstreet'm bout, to smash up Sheridan.
Longstreet was keown to be in the valley, and had aesunod
command of the army, and confident hopes of an owes-
whelming disaster to the Union army were boastfully ex-
pressed for several days back by Confederate adherents
to Washington and Baltimore,
E. M. STANTON. Secretary of War.
Wu Department, Washington, Oct. 21.
The following telegram received this morning contains
further particulars of the battle at Cedar Creek :
" Cedar Creek, Virginia, Oct. 20.
"Lieut.-General Grant—We have again been favoured
by a great victory, won from disaster by the gall►ntry of
our officers and men. The attack on the enemy was made
about 3 p.m. by a left half wheel of the whole line, with a
division of cavalry, turning each d .ok of the enemy. The
whole line advanced. The enemy after a stubborn resist-
ance broke and fled, and were pushed with vigour. The
artillery uptored will probably be over 50 pieces. Thin of
course includes what were captured from our troops
in early morning. At least 1.600 prisoners have
been brought in, besides waggons and ambulances
in large numbers. This morning the cavalry made a dub
at Fieher's Hill and carried it, the enemy having fled during
the night, leaving only asmall rear gu►rd. I have to regret
the lose of many valuable officers killed and wounded,
among them Colonel Joseph Thorburn, commanding a diet
Mon of Crook's command, killed ; Colonel Howard Kitchen,
commanding a brigade, wounded ; Colonel R. M'Kenzie,
commanding a brigade, wounded severely, but would sot
leave the field. I cannot yet give elect details. Many of
our men who were captured in the morning made their
I escape and are coming in. General Ramseur, commanding
a division in Early's army, died this morning.
(Signed) " P. H. SHERIDAN..
General Grant's appreciation of the victory at Cedar Creek
is expres-ed in the following despatch :
"City Point, Oct. 20, 8 a.m.
"To Hon. R. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.—l had •
salute of 100 guns from eattki of the armies here fired in
honour of Sheridan's victory. Tunica what bade fair to be
a disuter into a glorious victory stamps Sheridan what I
have always thought him to be, one of the ablest of
generals. (Signed) " U. S. Gum"
The medical director reports that 770 slightly wounded
have reached Wioehester from the fields.

All the wounded that are able to bear transportation will
be forwarded immediately to Ifartin.burg.
The telegraph line is now working to Atlanta, but no late
reports have been roosi•d by the department.
(Signed) E. M. STANTON. Secretary of War.

CHEAP LODGING-HOUSES.

Poverty no longer acquaints a wan with strange
bed-fellows. The Lodging-house Act has taken
poverty under its protection since 1851, and at the
present time any one paying threepence or four-
pence a night for his bed has that bed to himself,
and a specified number of cubic feet of space about
and around him, guaranteed by law. The cheap
hotels, where married couples have an apartment
to themselves for sixpence a night, and where single
men or women have separate beds in large cham-
bers for a sum ranging from twopence-halfpenny
fourpeuce a night, accommodate at the present
time some thirty thousand of our Loudon popula-
tion. They are scattered through most districts in
the metropolis, but abound in Spitalfields and
Whitechapel, where there is considerable competi-
tion among their proprietors or lessee', and where
the tramp, the thief, the beggar, the vagrant work-
man, and the cadger finds his custom as welcome
and as eagerly sought after as that of an English
tourist is at a foreign landing-place, or a money-
spending commercial traveller in a country town.
The regulsr inspections and constant supervision of
the polies have enforced uniform cleanliness through-
out these establishments, and whatever may be the
character of their frequenters, their arrangements
present nothing which suggests either squalor or
discomfort. A barrack-like regularity, and an
utter absence of joyousness or mirth seem their
prevailing characteristics, and dismal quietness and
dull decorum are apparently enforced. But most of
the people we saw were too broken down and mise-
rable to be anything but quiet, and it seems certain
that men and women who frequent these lodging-
houses do so only because of the utter impossibility
of maintaining a garret or kennel of their own. In
a lofty a Litewashed kitchen, in Garden-court,
George-yard, Whitechapel, we are introduced to
the keeper of one of these houses. A large
coke tire is burning cheerfully in the
grate, before which • dozen men, women,
and children are cowering, to gain some Attie
warmth prior to ascending the stairs and retiring
for the night. Clothes-lines run across the room,
from which hang women's ragged uuderlinen and
wen's torn shirts. These have been washed by their
owners in the room provided below, and will be
put on again in the morning, after those owners
have finished their night's rest. At the table run-
ning along the wall are seated two figures. Both
are ragged and wretched looking, but whereas one
is eating voraciously some unsavoury morsel he has
just cooked at the fire, the other is rapidly covering
a sheet of note paper with a neat and clear hand-
writing. " A begging letter most likely, sir," whis-
pers our guide, but the writer is young, and sad,
and woe-begone, and as his dress axd bearing are
that of a man who has fallen suddenly to decay we
prefer to think of his letter as one of penitence and
promised amendment, awl that it will result in his
delivery from his present surroundings. The
people in the room are all strangely quiet and sad.
Conversation there seems to be none, and this is
not due merely to the presence of strangers, for ou
our exit and re-entrance to the room we disturb no
hum, and excite no curiosity. The whispers and
tittering which so often greet an unexpected visitor
to a crowded room are conspicuous for their absence
here; and every faculty seeuis absorbed in extract-
ing as much animal warmth as possible out of the
tire. Ragged and greasy clothes, hungry faces,
and sharp eyes are common enough, but while
some have the beaten-down, cowed look of people
at (Ada with fortune, others have the
half - startled, half - defiant, bearing of those
whose relations with society are almost open
war. Up a narrow little staircase, and we are in a
passage on the first floor, ou each side of which a
number of doors lead into the sleeping cells for
married couples. It is past eleven p.m., and only
two of those are unoccupied. A truckle bed with
sheets and a coarse blanket coverlid comprises the
whole of the furniture, and the walls of each cell,
which are of unstained deal, are only some eight feet
high, and are unroofed. The fits ing up of the one large
room wherein these cells are placed is much after
the fashion of our parochial baths and washhouses,
or those chambers iu Deau-street, Soho, described

in " The Seven Sons of 111ationo'n." the absence
of either chair or table, and the absolute bareness
of wooden cabins which possess a bed and literally
nothing else, is chilling enough, and contrasts un-
favourably with the little home comforts of model
prisons and kindred institutions. Retracing our
steps, and hearing the heavy breathing of the sleep-
ers to our right and left as we pass their closed
doors, we ascend some more stairs, and are in a long
low chamber containing between twenty and thirty
beds. This is the single men's room, and there is
no attempt at enclosure or privacy. The conches
are stationed at regular intervals, and are nearly all
occupied. Here and there a bead is wearily lifted up
as we pass up the passage iu the centre and gain the
end of the room, but iu the majority of cases the
heavy sleep is unbroken, and our intrusion is not
marked. There is nothing in the faces seen to
denote their owners' calling, but iu the uneasy
toesiugsaud distorted figures of some of the party we
read of the day's anxieties being carried to the pillow,
and the struggle for bread being followed by a
feverish chase after rest. Downstairs, and through
the lower room, where two new arrivals are claiming
standing-place by the tire, and where the letter-
writer is readitig over his now finished composition
with a troubled, anxious face, and descending some
outer steps, we are in a cellar where lockers with
keys are ranged against the wall, wherein water is
laid on, awl in which basins and laundry tubs are
provided. The shirts and linen we saw hanging to
dry upstairs have been washed Lere ; the sleepers
we saw and heard have the privilege of washing
here also if they think fit, and the charge for all
this accommodation is threepence a night ; and to
any one staying six nights the Sunday is thrown in.
Soap, it should be remarked, is not provided by the
proprietor, but all the other items, of gaslight, fire,
house-room, and sleeping accommodation, are in-
cluded in this charge of eighteenpeuce a week. This
was described to us as a "Cadgers' House," and
its complement of twenty-seven single men lodgers,
five single woven lodgers, and twenty-one married
couples, is generally made up before 12 at night.
" Wilinotes Chambers," in Thrawbstreet, Spital-
fields, are on a much larger scale than the establish-
meta just named, and are designed for a very
different set of customers. The internal applisnces
are superior, and the charge is higher. Out of the
dark and squalid street, and pushing through a swing
door at the end of a gaily papered passage, and you
stand in a large well lit room which seems palatial
in its contrast to the habitations around. The
large boiler of the store near the door has recently
buret, and one of the fires is consequently unlit ;
but iu the neatly pointed bricks of the model range
near it, in the comparative cleanliness of the !
people sitting about, iu the numbered lockers
placed in the principal sitting or coffee room instead
of the cellar below, we traced a vast increase in
comfort over the place we inspected last. Near
the window were a quantity of small thin rush-
lights, in size and slimness like dolls' candles, and
these were given out one by one, as the lodgers re-
tired upstairs. The washing room here was in
active requisition during our stay, and we shall
give some notion of the scale on which the proprie-
tor's arrangements are made by saying that the
wooden framework wherein the basins stand is to
be shortly replaced by a marble slab. "The wood
goes more rotten like with Lavin' water spilt on it,
and marble 'll be cheaper in the end," we were told,
after learning that the house allowed all itscustomees
" the use of plates." The landlord here has
another house over the way conducted on similar
principles, but " more smaller like," and in the
two establishments there are nine large coke fires
alight night and day. About a hundred people are
lodged here, who pay 4d. a night if they stay a
week, with the seventh night thrown in; and the