The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-12-18 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We omitted to state last week, i❑ giving an account of the
monster iron warehouse, built by Mr. Cato, that the beauti-
ful designs were furnished by Mr. John Grantham.
GAS.—We have received a number of complaints from respect-
able parties, of grievous onpression used towards them by
the officials of the gas company, who assert that they act
only in accordance with the directions of their superiors.
Our correspondents appear to have just cause to find fault,
as they have been put to serious inconvenience, without the
smallest fault en their parts. The company, we are aware,
have a giant's strength" in possessing within their own
control the full remedy over all their tenants; but it is not
always advisable "to use it like a giant," as opposition may
be provoked. It appears new to be clearly established that
gas can be manufactured in London (and, therefore, certainly
in Liverpool) at 3s. per 1000 feet; and if this be so, it is not
impossible that the consumers in this town may again "put
the screw on" to obtain it.
We are quite aware that there are three Vice-Chancellors sit-
ting in London, but the appointment of Sir J. K. Bruce and
Sir J. Wigram was made only a few years since, and Sir Lan•
celot Stadwell is still designated "the Vice-Chancellor of
England." The others are not entitled to the distinctive
appellation.

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A correspondent at Carlisle calls our attention to a meeting to
be held in that town to-morrow, to endeavour to further the
separation of Church and State, and wishes to know if Mr.
Baylee or some other clergyman cannot be prevaile6l on to
meet the lecturers. We think our correspondent will have to
look nearer home. He cannot have an idea of Mr. Baylee's
numberless and important engagements, or he would never
have made the suggestion.

Ebr Ribrrpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 18, 1849

THE opening, on Wednesday last, by the " Me-
tropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings
of the Industrious Classes," of another model
lodging-house, in the neighbourhood of Spital-
fields, and the proceedings on the occasion, suggest
a subject upon which a few remarks here may not
be out of place. 'l'o render ourselves intelligible,
however, we shall he under the necessity of giving
a brief description of the kind of erections, as
dwellings for the industrious classes, which have
been adopted by the association.
The pile of building opened 8i Wednesday is
five stories in height from the basement, which is
surrounded by an open area, containing baths,
washhouses, and ample space for workshops. Its
internal arrangements comprise a large coffee.room,
reading-room and kitchen, a cook's shop. where
coffee and cooked meat can be had at all hours;
and dormitories, fitted up with iron bedsteads and
proper furniture, in the upper stories. This esta-
blishment is intended for the accommodation of
single men, and is certainly replete with every con-
venience and requisite to ensure health. The sum
to be paid by each tenant is 3s. per week. Ano-
ther wing is in course of erection, designed for
families, each of which will be provided with three
rooms, a small kitchen, water-closet, cupboards,
store-room, &c., for ss. 6d. per week. In every
respect they appear to be upon a similar plan to the
dock cottages at Birkenhead.
The proceedings were opened on the occasion by
the Earl of Carlisle, who certainly afforded the
meeting a very gratifying account of the experience
of a similar establishment provided by the asso-
ciation in the Old Pancras-road. There had not
occurred in that establishment a single case of
cholera throughout the whole of the recent epide-
mic, although it was rife in the surrounding loca-
lities. The general health of the tenants had been
improved ; and the pecuniary results were most
satisfactory. Out of £2,418, the amount of rent
which had accrued, there had only been £1 19s. 7d.
which could be called a bad debt, and £5 14s. Id.
which was doubtful. The actual arrears of 110
occupants of apartments was only the sum of £7
10s. The total amount thus far raised and ex-
pended by the association was about £40,000, the
interest derived from which they estimated at 21
per cent. ; but they felt convinced that if they could
succeed in raising the whole sum contemplated by
them (£100,000) a dividend of five per cent. would
be realised.
Of course, we are disposed to give every credit
for good intention and a sincere wish to benefit
the condition of their industrious fellow beings to
the noblemen and gentlemen engaged in this work.
The want of cleanly, well-constructed dwellings
for the working classes in our cities and large
towns, and even in the rural districts, is one of
the crying evils of the age, and the source of much
of the disease and vice by which we are surrounded.
We must suggest, however, that the movement of
this and similar associations, however well they
may be supported by the public, can go but a very
little way towards providing a remedy. The Earl
of Carlisle and his fellow labourers must be tho-
roughly aware of the fact that the helping hand of
the legislature is wanted to enable them to carry
out their benevolent designs, and that without it
any real progress in sanatory reform cannot he
effected. Why are our working classes at this
moment dragging out a miserable existence in
dear and filthy cottages—say, rather, dens—in the
confined streets and unventilated courts of our
cities and large towns ? Why are the dwellings
even of our middle classes not better in construc-
tion, better ventilated, better drained and severed ?
Legislation has imposed a bar against the efforts
of the community to improve the existing state of
things. We have decreased the import duties on
timber for the purpose of house construction ; we
have cheapened the food of the working man ; but
we tax his bricks. We say to him—you shall not
add a room or a convenience to your dwelling;
you shall not drain, or sewer, without first paying
an excise upon your chief material, bricks. This
injurious war tax diminishes every man's com-
forts. It forms a considerable portion of rents,
and enters largely into the cost of our mills, our
railways, and of almost every work of convenience
and utility,

Yet whjat is the amount which accrues to the
revenue from this paltry tax ? Although the rate
is ss. lod. per one thousand bricks—between a
third and a fourth of the value of the article when
manufactured—the amount of the duty in 1842
in England and Scotland was. only £400,086; and
the cost of collection would, no doubt, materially
lessen this amount, whilst the annoyance to the
manufacturer, caused by the restrictions imposed
as to the size, &c., constitutes at all times a serious
impediment to production. Surely, if government
is serious in its professions of a desire to amelio-
rate the condition of the middle and working
classes, to give them better dwellings and increased
comforts, the excise on bricks ought at once to be
done away with. Whilst its repeal would give a
stimulus to every branch of the building trade, now
unfortunately in a state of stagnation and suffering,
it would undoubtedly be most conducive to an
improvement of the description of dwellings pro-
vided for those classes whom the Earl of Carlisle
and his friends are labouring to serve, and compel
the owners of the wretched dens which abound in
our large towns, and breed disease and crime, to
replace them with property more fit for human
beings to occupy.
It is universally admitted that, amongst the
greatest promoters of sanatory reform, are the
proper ventilation and lighting of dwellings. The I
human frame, like the organization of plants,
requires for its development air and light. In the
model dwellings erected by the association, of
which the Earl of Carlisle is a patron, ventilation
is sedulously attended to ; and proper lighting, we
presume, is equally studied. But how is it with
the dwellings of our working and middle classes ?
Here another injurious war tax—one of the most
unpopular that ever was imposed by a finance
minister—interposes, and says to us, you shall not
have the enjoyment of God's light and air in your
houses unless you pay first a contribution for it to
the State. What would any intelligent foreigner,
contemplating the sham windows to be met with
in our streets, the numerous houses lighted only
from the front, without even a perforation at the
back to allow a current of air to carry off the
impurities and gases, think of our consis-
tency when he heard our statesmen and philan-
thropists declaiming upon the necessity of sanatory
improvements ? He would say that we were
hypocrites, or idiots; that science was in its very
rudest state amongst us. And he would be right;
for it could scarcely enter into his mind at all that
the legislature of a civilised country had set its
face against our enjoying the full blessings so
bountifully provided for us by the great Lord of
the universe. Tax light and air ! Block out the
sun's ray, and the healthful breeze ! With as
much consistency and wisdom we might tax the
water at the fountain, prohibit out-door exercise,
and doom our population to breathe only in dark-
ness the vitiated air of cess-pools and charnel
houses.

The existing window duties stand in the way of
a really effective improvement of the dwellings of
the people. All the appliances of the sanatory
sarans—the Reeds and the Chadwicks—with their
ventilating tubes, their passes of hot air and cold
au', alternately driving us to fever heat, and chilling
us to the freezing point, are preposterous subter-
fuges. Let us have windows to our dwellinLB.