The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-28 00:00:00

DWELLINGS OP THE LABOURING
CLASSES.

MEETING AT HERTFORD.
A meeting of noblemen, gentlemen, clergy, and
other persons connected witlrthe town and county.
of Hertford, was held at the Town-hall, on Satur-
day last, for the purpose of taking into considera-
tion the propriety of forming a Building Company
with a view to improve and erect dwellings for the
working classes.
On the motion of the Right Hon. W. COWPER,
M.P., seconded by the Hon. and Rev. GODOLPHIN
HASTINGS, Lord Raynham, M.P., was called to the
chair.
The CHAIRMAN said he felt it a great honour to
be called upon to preside over sO influential a meet-
ing assembled for the important purpose of taking
such measures as were in their power to improve
the dwellings of the working classes.
Mr./ABEL SMITH, M.P., said he had great plea-
sure in proposing the resolution which had been
placed in his hands—" That it is advisable to estab-
lish a Company in Hertford, to be called the Hert-
ford Building Company (Limited), for the purpose
of improving and erecting dwellings for the labour-
ing classes, in the county and town of Hertford,
with a capital of £5,000 in 1,000 shares of £5
each."

Mr. R. DIMSDALE, in seconding the resolution,
said he had received several letters in answer to in-
quiries made by him, furnishing information rela-
tive to the manner in which the plan proposed to be
adopted here, was carried out in other places. At
Ramsgate they had a company in connection with
the Metropolitan Association, in which 21 per cent.
had been paid on allthe shares. At first the profits
were only 7s. per share, but now they were 14s.
The Liverpool Society had been attended with a
similar result. This society expended £4,200 in
building, and let their houses at rents varying from
4s. to ss. per week, clearing £2lO or 5 per cent. on
each share. He had written to the chairman of the
Metropolita* Association, calling attention to what
was proposed to be done in Hertford, and was re-
ferred by him to what had been done at Liverpool.
This gentleman recommended that the Local
Society or Company should be independent, as
there would be some expenses incurred in connect-
ing it with the Metropolitan Association. What
was proposed to be done • here was to obtain a sub-
scribed capital of £5,000 in shares of £5 each, only
£2 10s. being called for on each share. The work-
ing capital of the company would thus be £2,500.
It would cost £BO or £B5 to build a cottage
according to plans they had, and supposing they
built 20 to begin with, the outlay would be £1,700,
leaving £3OO for the purchase of land. This was
perhaps more than they would have to give for it,
but at Ramsgate they paid £322. £2,000 would
thus be expended, leaving £5OO to pay preliminary
expenses and form a sinking fund. Then, as to
returns, 20 houses let at rents of £6 a-year would
produce £l2O. This plan had been tried in other
places besides those mentioned by him. A society
had been formed at Hastings, and answered well.
At first there was only one set of cottages, then two,
and now there were four sets, and dividends were
paid to the shareholders at the rate of 6 per cent. ;
and the Hastings people said they did not see why
they might not get rid of all the filthy places in course
of time, either directly or by inducing the owners to
improve them. Now this was just what they wanted
to do in Hertford and other towns in this county—to
convert the bad houses into good. A society at
Brighton had paid 41 per cent. to the shareholders ;
and if they co!ild do this in Brighton, Hastings, and
other towns, why should they not do it here. (Hear,
hear.) There was a great want of decent houses for
the poor in Hertford, and at St. Alban's they were
getting quite as bad. What they wanted to do
was to make a beginning, to provide model
houses, and to show landlords, who would not
be unwilling to follow in their wake, that these im-
proved houses would pay. He could not agree with
the remark that it was useless to do anything, un-
less they pulled down the old houses ; for by build-
ing cottages they would be drawing poor people
away from the miserable places in which they now
lived, and by inducing landlords to reconstruct and
improve their cottages, they would be constantly
diminishing the number of the inferior houses.
(Cheers.) He thought they might at all events
Make the experiment here, by starting with an acre
of land, which they would probably get without
difficulty for £2OO. They might then expend £1,700
or £l,BOO in building, leaving £5OO for a sinking
fund, an dto launch the scheme. Suppose they failed,
the shareholders would not be injured ; for the pro-
perty would certainly be saleable at an improved
value, and the shareholders would get their money
hack. They must combine the commercial with
the charitable in a movement of this kind, for un-
til they saw that the thing would pay they would-
never convince the smaller holders of property, and
induce them to improve their cottage property,
which was what they wanted todo. The subject was
one of the utmost'social importance. In a work of
Dr. Southwood Smith's, he read that the annual
mortality in London was twenty-three in every
1,000 of persons living, while in the model lodging-
houses of London the deaths were only 8 in the
1,006 ; showing that there might be an actual sav-
ing of many thousands of lives a year by the im-
provement of the dwellings of the poor, and the
consequent removal of the preventible causes of
disease and death. He had taken a great interest in
this matter, and he did not despair of persuading
the people of Hertfordshire to adopt the plan now
suggested, and which had been successfully carried
out in other places. He believed there were more
tramps passed through Hatfield than through any
other town in the county ; and, if they could build
a model lodging-house there, he believed it would
answer well. The London Association had amodel
lodging-house which paid 17'per cent., and taking
all their lodging-houses together, they paid 41-- per
cent. These were facts encouraging in a commer-
cial point of view ; and he was sure they would
agree that there few other ways in which they
could do so large an amount of good by so small an
outlay of money. (Hear.) He had much pleasure
in seconding the resolution. (Cheers.)
The resolution was then put to the vote, and de-
clared to be unanimously agreed to.
The HIGH SHERIFF (M. H. Gosselin, Esq.),
moved the next resolution !—" That those gentlemen
who subscribe their names to the memorandum of
association for 10 shares and upwards be appointed
directors of the company, with power to add to their
number."

Mr. W. R. BAKER seconded the resolution, which
was agreed to.
The proceedings then terminated.

SOPRTING INTELLIGENCE.

THE STATE OF THE SERPENTINE.

...low, if ever, we want Hercules to 'come down
to our help. We want him, with his bulky strength
and willing arm, to do for us such work as he did
in the olden days of Greece, when men were not
yet reclaimed from simple savagery, and still
stumbled about in swamps and morasses, to escape
from the fangs of dragons and the claws of wild
beasts. Hercules was the first President of the first
Board of Works, and_his presence is now instantly
required in London. In the middle of the 19th
century, in the very centre of the luxurious capital
of the British empire, there exists just such a
nuisance as the. Grecian hero would have loved to
abate. There is a foul and reeking lake in this
London of ours, spreading about its filthy vapours
in the polluted air—not in the remote quarters of
the town, not in smoky Spitalfielda or watery
Wandsworth, where persons of low estate must
breathe that plebian atmosphere which is in harmony
with their fortunes, but close tothe Rialto of fashion
and decorative life. In Hyde Park, we say, under
the delusive name of the Serpentine there is a broad
lake which has nothing of the sinuous serpent about
it but the name and the unpleasant smell. Yet no
serpent stinks so foully as the Serpentine even
now while these lines are passing from the pen.
The sultry heat of the last few days has appealed,
not unsuccessfally, to its hidden virtues. It is not
with this filthy pool as with the reeking Thames.
There is here no ebb and flow of abomination—no
churning up of a polluted stream—but a calm, dig-
nified monotony of evil smell. It is in itself enough
to breed a pestilence, and yet the " Upper Ten
Thousand" of London have selected its banks for
purposes of health and recreation. On the northern
bank rows of carriages three deep pass on daily at
a foot's pace, filled with the wives, and sisters, and
daughters of the noblest and wealthiest in the land.
On the southern shore you may see every after-
noon for six days of the week hundreds of fair
young girls on horseback, undermining their con-
stitutions and listening to regimental music. Why
should all these noble and wealthy and beautiful
people congregate so sedulously round such a sheet
of filth P We English are certainly a strange
people. We are pre-eminently seekers after
country air, and lovers of breezy uplands, and
bubbling streams, where the trout with its bright
spots may be seen far down in quiet pools,
and yet our senators legislate for the empire
in chambers where chloride of lime is a necessary
of life. If the minds of our great ones are
set upon a banquet of unusual delicacy,_ they go
down to Greenwich, and hold their noses even
while they hold the feast. During the height of
the season our most fashionable people take their
habitual exercise and pastime by riding, driving,
or walking round a most abominable pond which
is enough to breed the cholera, had it not given the
preference to the Indus and the brighter beams of
the Asiatic sun.

The Serpentine is a most positive nuisance. We
entreat any one who may doubt the truth of our
assertion to satisfy himself by personal investiga-
tion of the real state of the case. Within the last
few days the miasmata which it emits had become
so offensive that speedy aetion must be taken in the
matter, or evil will surely follow, which we shall
all deplore when it is too late. In the earlier part
of the season some feeble attempts were made to
abate the virulence of the stench by casting into'
this metropolitan lake certain modicums of lime.
There are traces of the presence of this palliative ea
the banks, as though to mark how the nymph
Serpentine had spurned the purifying agent from
her dirty breast. You might as well have
administered a seidlitz powder to a dead body
in the hope of staying the progress of cor-
ruption. There is but one thing to do,
which is to drain the lake thoroughly, as was
done with the sheet of ornamental water in the
gardens of St. James's-park, N. half measures
will be of the slightest avail. We do not,
of course, mean to say that this can be
done just now, when things are at their
worst. To expose the coagulated filth of the Ser-
pentine to the action of a July sun would probably
be to send the inhabitants of Knightsbridge, Ken-
sington, and Mayfair out of the world, or out of
town before the 12th of August. Till the colder
weather returns such palliatives as are possible
must be applied, and when the summer has passed
away let the only real and effective remedy be ap-
plied. The Serpentine must be drained; what pol-
lutions are poured into it, or percolate into it, must
be diverted into another channel ; the bottom must

be left exposed for a certain and sufficient period to
the purifying influences of the air, and finally be
dealt with as was the bottom of the ornamental
water in St. James's-park. This is no idle specu-
lation. We have present before our eyes, or, what
ire-perhaps more important, our-nases, the results of
an operation of the kind. Why should not that
which has once succeeded so admirably succeed
again ? The purification of the St. James's waters

has s proved one of the most gratifying improvements
of the metropolis in our time. lire are therefore

most anxious to see the results of our experience
brought to bear upon a nuisance similar in kind,
but far more intense in degree.
There is some probability that the desired change
will be carried out, inasmuch as the rule of Lord
John Manners at the Board of Works is at an
end, and now Mr. Fitzroy reigns in his stead. This
gentleman has already established for himself the
character of an intelligent and industrious ser-
vant of the public. We entreat him to consider that
the attention of the metropolitan public—that is, of
3,000,000 persons, to say the least, not inferior in
understanding clic' influence to any in the British
empire—is keenly directed to the proceedings of his
office. A good redile has already made sure his
footing on the slippery path of public life. No
doubt, the hands of any gentleman who is appointed
to preside over the Board of Works are much ham-

pered by that other Board with which he must so
frequently co-operate. A zealous and capable man
placed in the position which Mr. Fitzroy now oc-
cupies will, however, always take the lead, and
always be able to gibe the bias to public action in
this department of administration.—Tistes.