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

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 18, 1858.

890

adore their worst enemy ; ay ! even to the last—
to the very moment when famine and pestilence
swept them all away.
Beware, then, we say to our Radical friends—
beware, and avoid, as you would avoid a pesti-
lence, the blusterers on the hustings, who boast
"of what they are going to do." Engage not in
a foolish crusade for the destruction of those
influences by which you are naturally affected.
Property and rank must always carry some
weight ; you cannot destroy it. Talent, knowledge,
high character, education, real Christian benevo-
lence, ought always to exercise great moral power
in every community. Seek not to overthrow
them—for, if you try, and were to prove suc-
cessful, you would bitterly rue the day; for you
must then surrender your interests to the keeping
of men like 0 CoNNELL—the bitterest enemy of
those whom he pretended to serve—the man
whose blusterings on the hustings ended by con-
signing his followers to the agonies of starvation,
and the horrors of an untimely grave.

What an opportunity was here to work out on
a large scale, and in living reality, the benevo-
lent idea of which the " model cottages " of 1851
were so beautifully suggestive ! But, alas, for
the difference between Amory and practice ! The
Commissioners, in their see for popular improve-
ment, forgot all about the improvement of the
dwellings of the poor. They demolished the
habitations of the sixty families of labouring
poor, and left their evicted inmates to shift for
themselves as best they might. What could they
(lb ? They could only fall back upon other similar
localities in their immediate vicinity, and by their
immigration aggravate the many evils, physical,
moral, and social, to which the overcrowded
state of the metropolitan and suburban districts
inhabited by the labouring classes has given rise.
These facts are set forth in a petition, presented
to the two Houses of Parliament in the course
of the last session, and republished in THE
PRESS of last week. But the wisdom of our
senators was engaged in settling the weighty
questions connected with our Indian empire, and
we can scarcely wonder that the cries of the
three hundred houseless souls from Gore-lane
failed to attract their notice. So insignificant
was the tale of their distress thought, that it did
not even find its way into the official record of
the proceedings of Parliament, nor did the re-
porters' gallery convey the echo of their com-
plaint to the public ear.
But although Parliament was deaf and re-
porters were silent—although no Longfellow may
embody in heroic hexameter the sorrows of some
Evangeline of Gore-lane—the theme is one which
must not be allowed to pass into oblivion alto-
gether. Nor is it only the razzia executed on
their Kensington estate by the Commissioners of
the " Great Exhibition" that claims public atten-
tion. They, indeed, having placed themselves in
the forefront as leaders in the great work of the
improvement of the masses, incur a larger amount
of responsibility and reproach by such heedless
and unfeeling disregard of the effect produced by
their proceedings upon a poor population whom
the power acquired by purchase had placed at
their mercy. It is, however, but fair to them to
add, that if they have failed to set the good
example which might have been expected at their
hands in consideration of the " model cottages "
of 1851, they have only followed the evil example
of most of the " public improvements " of the
metropolis and its outlying districts. In what-
ever direction we bend our steps we see commo-
dious thoroughfares opened, new streets spring-
ing up, exhibiting rows of stately mansions, of
comfortable houses, of handsome shops, with their
fronts of plate glass, where formerly the ground
was cumbered by piles of squalid and ruinous
buildings, from which, through narrow, filthy
lanes and alleys, the poor swarmed like bees from
a hive. This looks like " improvement," no
doubt. But let the inquiry be made what has
become of the crowds of human beings who dwelt
in those " improved" neighbourhoods, who filled,
even to gorging, the hovels that have disappeared
before the wand of architects and commissioners ;
let the poor that have been summarily dislodged
be followed into the dwellings where they have
taken temporary shelter from the—to them
terrible—tide of improvement " which is daily
gaining upon them, and scenes will present them-
selves front which eye and mind turn away in
horror and disgust. The sanctuary of the family
turned into a common sty, the decencies of lite
rendered impossible by the inevitable herding
together of every age and sex, the very atmo-
sphere contaminated by fermenting masses of
physical and moral corruption—such are on the
dark side of life the unseen, the unsuspected, the
unblest results of those showy improvements for
the promotion of which we constitute Boards of
Commissioners and pass Acts of Parliament !
And is there, then, no remedy for so crying an
evil, no means of averting the social dangers
likely to arise from its continuance and increase ?
The remedy is an easy and an obvious one. It
is suggested in the petition to which we have
already referred. Let Parliament take care in
every improvement " Bill to insert such clauses,
and to frame such general enactments for the
regulation of building operations in the metro-
polis and in other large towns, as shall render it
-zompulsory upon every board, or company, or in-
dividual, before demolishing any dwellings in-
habited by the poorer classes, to provide, and
that within a convenient distance from the scene

of their labours, fresh accommodation for ,
least an equal number, giving them the benefit,
at the same time, of all the architectural improve-
ments adoptedin the construction of "model
cottages " and modellodgmg-houses. While the
management of public affairs was in the hands'
those *ho arrogate to themselves exclusively the
title of "friends of the people," such a suggestion
might appear somewhat Utopian ; but since
have a Government which deals, not in fine
phrases, but in facts and deeds, there is good
reason to hope that so important a feature in our
social ecisoomy will no longer be treated with
difference and neglect.