The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-10 00:00:00

OVERCROIVDING IN COTTAGES.

STATEMENT MADE AT THE DINNER OF THE FARINODON
AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY, ON THE 22D OF Nov. 1860.
Two years ago, I read to the friends of the Faringdon
Agricultural Library a paper on the Condition of the
Agricultural Labourer, in which I drew attention to the
vast efforts that had been made for the advancement of
agriculture in all its departments, and endeavoured to show
that everything which science or art could devise, or money
command, had been made tributary to this object, and that,
not merely in improved methods of cultivating the soil
and the introduction of new and improved implements
and machinery, but also in the breeding, feeding, and
housing of cattle in dry, clean, well-ventilated buildings,
at the same time I pointed to the fact that while all these
gigantic efforts were called forth in that direction, com-
paratively little had been done to improve the well-being of
the labourer, and specially as regards cottage accommoda-
tion. These observations, I believe, are just as true now as
they were two years since, and, feeling a deep interest in the
question, I have employed competent persons to visit every
town and village in the Faringdon Union, to obtain exact
information as to the accommodation and number of
inmates in every cottage in the Union ; that information I
hold in my hand, but as it is too minute, circumstantial,
and voluminous to lay before this meeting I have made a
digest of the leading features, which, with permission, I
will read to you :

" DIGEST.

" Woolstone—Man and wife, two grown-up sons, and an
illegitimate child of the daughter, all sleep in one room ;
man and wife, with a son and two daughters, sleep in one
room ; two married couples and a child sleep in one room ;
man and wife, with daughter and two sons, sleep in one

room.
" Watchfield—A father and three daughters sleep in one
room on ground floor ; seven persons, in a two-roomed cot-
tage, of whom two are lodgers, sleeping in the pantry ; a
father sleeping with his daughter, 17 years of age, and the
wife in another bed.
" Shrivenham—Six cottages, having 35 inmates sleeping
in six bedrooms, some of them grown-up sons and daughters
only one privy for the whole, and that in a bad state.
" Longcot.—Man and wife with a child, one widower,
and one single woman with a child, making six persons
sleeping in one room ; two-daughters, each with an illegi-
mate child, a son, aged 20, cohabiting with a woman, and
four other persons, making 10 in one room, with two beds.
"Fernham.—Eleven persons sleeping in two bedrooms,
both on the ground floor ; seven persons ditto ; ten persons
ditto ; son and daughter, over 16 years of age, with two
other persons, sleeping in one room ; three sons and a
daughter and two younger children, with father and mother,
sleeping in a room 8 feet by 12 feet; two single men lodg-
ing with a man and wife, with four children, making eight
persons sleeping in one room ; two brothers and two sisters,
above 16 years of age, with father, mother, and four chil-
dren, making 10 persons sleeping in one room.
" Littleworth.—Man and wife, with grown up son, five
children, and four lodgers, making 12 persons sleeping iu

two rooms.
"Faringdon.—Sixteen cottages in Red-row : this is
stated to be the most wretched place the reporter ever saw.
Nine cottages lately indicted for a nuisance, but still very
bad. In one cottage the drain flows into the sitting-room ;
and in another the drain at front door is offensive. Three
cottages are badly off for water. Several cottages in a bad
state of drainage,
" Lechlade.—A man and wife, with a female lodger and
five children, sleeping ' pall mall" together.
" Buckland.—A man and wife, with two grown-up girls
and two other children, all sleeping in one room ; a man
and wife with four children, including a grown-up girl, all
sleep in one small room , a. widow with grown-up son and
daughter, and a lodger, all sleep in one room ; a woman
slept for a long time with a son aged 24.
" Langford.—The cottages are very old, but the occu-
pants live with some regard to decency. I have not seen
any place, says the reporter, where the unmarried men
sleep with the women.
" Longworth.—Most of the cottages in this village are
very old, some of them scarcely fit to live in. (Said to be
ecclesiastical property.)
",Duxfoi d.—Ten cottages in a most wretched state, and
ought to be taken down.
" Kingston Lisle.—Most of the cottages have only one
small bedroom, yet the families are large, and the majority
take lodgers. Example—Man and wife with five children
and two men and three women lodgers, making 12 persons
sleeping in one room,
" Balking.—Man and wife with grown-up daughter and
son, and four illegitimate children of daughter, all sleep in
one small room.
" Eaton.—Man and wife with two children, live and sleep
in one room— a wretched place.
" Stanford.—A son, over 16 years, sleeps with father and
Mother, Four wretched tenements with only ono sleeping