The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-07-21 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

and wretched of our population, to breathe only
impurity and imbibe disease, at the risk of being
plundered from the almost utter impossibility of any
police surveillance being used for their protection.
Should he step aside from the view of our noble pub-
lic buildings ; should he turn from the survey of the
vast facilities which we have provided for our
commerce, and give a glance into one of these fever-
breeding and contaminating dens, what a contrast
will he see between the enterprise and lavish spirit
with which we have decorated our town and ex-
tended its mercantile advantages, and the utter
carelessness displayed in our treatment of the suffer-
ing human drudges, who have created and are
increasing the wealth which is spread around him.
Every intelligent officer of police could describe
numbers of these lodging-houses, which it is re- i

volting, even to those accustomed to such scenes, to
enter; and every medical man who has written upon
the subject of sanatory regulation, attributes to
them a great portion of the disease and crime which
infest our large towns, and sweep off annually thou-
sands of our population. Speaking of such places,,
Lord Ebrington, in a lecture recently delivered be-
fore the members of the Mechanics' Institute at
Plymouth, says :

" I cannot read aloud the evidence about the lodging-
houses in which human beings, our brethren of both
sexes, are promiscuously packed, almost as close as the
decks of a slave-ship, in the very room where patients
may be dying of some c,mtastious disease, nay in the very
sheets from which some victim of typhus fever has just
been carried forth to his grave—such evidence as the
Children Employment Commissioners give about the con-
dition of the lower classes at Sheffield for instance, or
Leeds, of their precocious vice or premature decay ; or
what I have heard from eye-witnesses of that of the
chapter property at Westminster. But what must be the
religious and moral consequences of such a state of
things? Can we wonder at the result? I only marvel it
is not worse than it is."

And other witnesses bear out this statement abun-
dantly.
Now, we maintain that a mitigation, at least, of
this evil is quite within our reach ; and that the
authorities of our town, aided with powers from the
Legislature, are the parties to make the effort. It
would be quite possible to erect in various parts of
the town inexpensive buildings, well ventilated, and
supplied with the means of cleanliness, in which our
casual wayfarers might he sheltered for a small
charge, and protected, by proper classification, from
moral and physical contamination. A system of
licensing the houses kept by private individuals,
with proper powers of inspection and limitation of
the numbers accommodated, might also be adopted ;
and care might be taken that all such houses were
made suitable for the purpose, and that such build-
ings as are now used for lodging houses—mere
hovels, unsafe:and filthy—should be disallowed. The
difficulties, we should imagine, could not he great if
resolutely grappled with ; and the expense would be
counterbalanced by the saving caused by the dimi-
nution of crime, which such places generate to a
fearful amount.

Speaking of such increase of crime, and its source,
the same Noble Lord remarks ;
" VVltyshould creatures living so wretchedly fear a change
for the worse ? lhey have nothing to lose in this world ;
and such is their ignorance that the next has no terrors
for them. Take again the gaol returns of Preston :of the
prisoners tried for felony, 73, ignorant of the Saviour's
name, were familiar with the histories of Dick Turpin
and Jack Shepherd. A larger:per centage of the others knew
these histories better than the names of the months of the
year, or the meaning of vice and virtue. Mr. Clay men-
tions a map of the town coloured darker according to the
intensity of filth and squalor, and with the houses marked
on it where criminals had resided, and where epidemics
had caused death ; and sums up the result by saying that
dirt, disease, and crime are concurrent. Read Parent
Duchatelet's account of the dwellings and habits of the
" classes dangereuses" at Paris, and you will only wonder
that the French Revolution was not more sanguinary and
terrible."

An examination into the state of some parts of
our own town would give similar results, which the
records of our police-court would confirm. _ _

We only glance for the present at this subject, for
the purpose of throwing out the hint for others,
more able and influential, to take up. On a future
occasion we may be able to afford the public a few
statistics upon the subject.