The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-15 00:00:00

PUBLIC BATHS AND WASH
HOUSES.

The humble Petition of the undersigned Chairman and
Deputy-Chairman of the Committee for promoting the
Establishment of Baths and Washhouses for thelabour-
big classes,
Showeth,—That the committee of which your peti-
tioners are the chairman and deputy-chairman was con-
stituted at a public meeting held at the Mansion-house,
in the city of London, in Oetober, 1844, and con-
sists of 230 members, many of them engaged in the
most important professional and commercial pursuits of
the metropolis, and several of them clergymen of its
populous and crowded parishes.
That your petitioners have been authorised by a spe-
cial meeting of that committee to present this petition to
your Right lion. House, as expressing the sentiments
and wishes of that committee.
That the various recent official reports on the condi-
tion of the labouring classes, and on the state of large
towns and populous districts, and the evidence on which
those reports are founded, show that the dwellings of
large numbers of the labouring population are painfully
overcrowded, and that, in many places, the overcrowding
is steadily increasing.
That one of the consequences of such overcrowding,
is, in many cases, a total neglect of personal and domes-
tic cleanliness, leading, with the destruction of all com-
fort, to intemperance recklessness, and extreme demo-
ralization.
That in those instances in which persons in such cir-
cumstances do not abandon the endeavour to keep them-
selves and their rooms clean, they can rarely secure more
than such an imperfect degree of cleanliness as is
insufficient for the due preservation of their health ; and
that the damp alone, arising from the washing and
drying of their clothes in the rooms in which they live,
does constantly, and to a fearful extent, occasion or ag-
gravate disease.
That not only the vast majority of the labouring
classes in all large towns, but also very many of the in-
dustrious classes whose occupations are not those of
mere manual labour (such as clerks, shopmen, ware-
housemen, and apprentices), are unable, from the want
of adequate facilities for bathing, to cultivate those
habits of personal cleanliness which are conducive both
to the physical comfort and to the sound moral state of
the population.
That, as a rule, the overcrowding of the labouring
classes, and the general deficiency of means for personal
and domestic cleanliness, are evils which are not attri-
butable to any misconduct, or even to any imprudence or
neglect of self-control on the part of those who suffer
from them, and which are wholly beyond their means to
remove, and rarely within their power to avoid or in any
sufficient degree to mitigate.
That the lamentably injurious consequences to the
comfort, health, and morals of the people, resulting
from the want of proper supplies of water, the defective
state of sewerage, drainage, and street cleansing, and
the insufficiency of existing regulations for the preven-
tion of disease, which the recent official inquiries have
shown to affect large numbers of the people, have led to
proposals for legislative measures calculated to better, in
many respects, their present condition.
That were these proposals acted on in the fullest ex-
tent, the overcrowding of the labouring population would
be almost unaffected by the measures which have been
suggested.
That the most ample supply, to every room, of the
purest water, at the cheapest rate, a perfect system of
sewerage, drainage, and street cleansing, and the most
scientific general regulations for the prevention of dis-
ease, would still leave many thousands of the families of
the labouring population, compelled to live each in a
single room, as unable at present to bathe there without
a total disregard of common decency—as much exposed
as at present to the destruction of comfort and injury to
health from washing and drying their clothes at home
—and scarcely more able than at present to procure the
firing necessary to heat the water for bathing and wash-
ing, and to dry the clothes.
That the cleansing of towns and houses, so far as it
could be accomplished by the measures suggested, would
not remove any portion of the dirt with which labouring
men are, of necessity, in the ordinary course of their
work, constantly brought into contact, and from which
bathing and washing can alone free their persons and
their clothes.
That while the committee acknowledge that the
measures in question are highly desirable, and promise
to be of great benefit, they confidently submit that
other measures are necessary to promote the physical
and moral improvement of the people.
That the committe e have made extensive inquiries
among the labouring classes of London, and have as-
certained that, in general, the washing and drying of
their clothes at home occupy the greater part of two
days in every week, and in many cases, owing to the
absence of proper accommodations, extend into a third
day ; and that for the most part they are very im-
perfectly done.
That the committee are fully satisfied that of all the
means proposed for enabling the labouring and other
industrious classes to cultivate habits of personal and
domestic cleanliness, and to escape the injurious effects
of washing at home, at the same time avoiding all inter-
ference with their feeling of independence, none is
more promising of beneficial results than the general
establishment in large towns and populous districts of
public baths and washhouses, to be open at moderate
charges.
That experience has shown that those for whose ad-
vantage public baths and washouses have been estab-
lished gladly resort to them, and are willing to pay such
charges as, when the establishments are in full work,
may be relied on as sufficient to defray the expense of
supporting them.
That at the baths and washhouses which have been
established at Liverpool by the corporation of that town,
and which were opened in the month of May, 1842,
the number of those who bathed in the first three years
was 41,788, and in the first 'nine months of the present
(the fourth) year, ending in February, 1846, was 14,562 ;
and that during those three years and nine months
44,115 persons washed there upwards of 1,000,000
articles.
That the accommodations at that establishment were
found to be so inefficient to meet the wants of the town
that the corporation of Liverpool are erecting a second
establishment there (at an expense, beyond the value of
the land, of about 6,500/), which is to be opened in the
course of a few months.
That at Glasshouse-yard, near the London Docks, a
small establishment of baths and washhouses has been
open about 11 months, for the use of the very poor ;
and though the accommodations there are so limited
that sometimes nearly 200 applicants have of necessity
been refused admittance in the course of a single week,
25,123 persons have bathed, and 31,882 persons have
washed 235,814 articles there during that period; and of
those persons several hundreds have come from distances
varying from four to six miles.
That the Committee of which your petitioners are
members are engaged in the erection, at Goulstone-
square, Whitechapel, of a model establishment of public
baths and washhouses.
That the building is to contain about 100 baths, each
in a separate apartment, to insure privacy to the bathers
—about 100 pairs of wash tubs separated by sufficient
screens—hot closets for drying all the articles washed,
and accommodation for ironing part of them.
Tuat the baths are to be of two sorts, about four-
fifths of them being for the labouring classes ; and
that every bather is to have an ample supply of clean
water.
That the charges at the baths for the labouring classes,
including the use of one towel for every bather, are
proposed to he a :d. for a cold bath, and 2d. for a
warm bath.
That the charges at the other baths, including the use
of two towels for every bather, are proposed to be 3d.
for a cold bath, and 6d. for a warm bath.
That the charges at the washhouses are proposed to
be such as to enable the week's washing of a labouring
family to be well done, and the articles washed to be
dried rapidly, and so as to insure thorough ventilation
and the destruction of all vermin and infection, its about
three hours, for about 3d.
That the use of the wash-house, on such terms, will
not only wholly free such of the labouring classes as
resort to it from the constant discomfort and frequent
injury of washing at home, but will also effect an impor-
tant saving to them in time and money.
That calculations, made on the basis of actual experi-
ence, show that those proposed charges will, when the
establishment is in full work, be not only amply suffi-
cient fur its support, but will leave a surplus at least
equal to the interest of the capital sunk in its erection.
That the receipts of the establishment at Liverpool
have been, for the first year, 1591. ; for the second year,
2801. ; fur the third year, 3321. ; and for the first three-
quarters of its current year, 3251, exceeding its ex-
penses (exclusive of improvements and repairs) during
these nine months by more than 301.
That the average expense at Glasshouse- yard is a
fraction less than threehalfpcnee a-head.
That the Legislature has recognised the propriety of
taking measures, under the sanction of special laws, and
at the public expense, for promoting, not only the health
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That the want of personal cleanliness is constantly
found, by those who have to endure it, an insuperable
obstacle to their availing themselves of opportunities,
otherwise within their reach, for obtaining instruction,
whether religious or secular, and indulging in rational
amusements and recreations.
That for the reasons which your petitioners have
stated, as well as for others which will readily occur to
your Right Hon. House, the Committee are of opinion
that it would be highly desirable for the relief of a vast
proportion of the inhabitant-) of large towns andpopu-
lous districts, from evils now incident to their social po-
sition, and from which they cannot relieve themselves—
that it would add greatly to the efficiency of other mea-
sures proposed for the welfare of the people at large—
and that on the ground of public principle and national
policy of duty and expediency, it would be right—to
facilitate by law the establishment of public baths and
wash-houses, and their support for a limited period at
the public expense.

That your petitioners respectfully suggest that for
eahraea bsolilvge n
suchthis pbuorrpoousgehist
and parishes
would
voluntarilylaw!
on adopting its provision; to establish public baths
wash-houses for the use, at moderate charges, of theirand
'
respective inhabitants ; for that purpose to obtain loans
as lo
as for other public works, for the repayment of such
a
loans, and the support of the establishments during such
a period as may be necessary for bringing them into
full work, to impose moderate rates, and to carry the
income to be derived from such establishments (which,
when they are in full work, may be reasonably expected
to leave a yearly surplus overexpenditure), to the credit
of the rates.
Your petitioners, tberafore, humbly pray that your