The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-10-16


child does not necessarily cost more than
H., or, at the most, FL los, the parent
realizes considerable sum after all the
expenses are paid!
1t has been clearly ascertained that it is
common practice among the more de-
graded classes OF poor in many of our
towns to enter their infants in these clubs.
and then to cause their death either by
starvation, ill-usage, or poison! What
more horrible symptom of moral degree
datlon can be conceived? Ones mind
revolts against it, and would fain reject il
as mOnstrous fiction. But, alas, #
seems to be but too true.
HUMAN SWINE
In describing the wretched state of
many OF the houses in the parish of Saint
Giles, IN London, another of the city mis-
slonarles says that in this district :. there
are FIVE PRIVATE HOUSES AND EIGHT LoDG
ING HOUSES, IN ALL THIRTEEN HOUSES.
WHICH ARE EACH INHABITED BY ONE HUN
DRIED INDIVIDUALS, so that 1900 persons.
or more than half a district, as comprised
IN only thirteen houses.
Nor let it be supposed that these houses
are so enormously large; for such is not
the case. But the rooms are close hacked
with human beings, in a manner which
would hardly be believed by those who
had not actually seen them. Church lane
consists of thirty-two houses, which con-
contain 100 rooms, in each of which rooms
live an average of nine individuals, max
ing total of Ito persons. The party
who hires the entite room re-lets it in
portions. And such rooms are the private
and respectable rooms of the district, in
distinction to the lodging-houses. The
persons living in them profess to be res
pectable and virtuOus members of society.
But we will give few examples of tile
manner in which rooms of this description
were tenanted only last month. In one
room OF a house in Church lane were
found:
Widow with three children. 4
WIDOW with one child.
Three single women
A man and his wife.
n sl1Sle man. ............ ..............1
a man and his wife.
IA
People of both sexes and of all ages.
both married and unmarried-parents,
brothers, sisters, and strangers-sleep in
the same rooms and often in the same
beds. One gentleman tells us of six peo-
pie OF different sexes and ages, two of
whom were man and wife, sleeping in the
same bed, three with their heads at the
top and three with their heads at the foot
of the bed. Another tells us of adult I'M
cles and nieces sleeping in the same bed
together; another of adult brothers and
sisters sleeping in the same room with a
brother and his wife, just married; many
tell us of adult brothers and sisters sleep
ing in the same beds; another tells US of
rooms SO filled with beds that there is no
space between them, but that brothers,
sisters, and parents crawl over each other,
half naked, in order to get to their re-
spective resting-places; another of
its being common for men and women,
not being relations, to undress together in
the same room, without any feeling of its
being indicate; another of cases where
women have been delivered in bedrooms
crowded with men, young women, and
children; and others mention facts of
these crowded bedrooms much two horri-
BILE to be alluded to. Nor are these soG-
tary instances, but similar reports are Civ
en- by gentlemen writing in all parts of
the country.
The miserable character of the houses of
our peasantry is, of itself, and independ-
emily of the causes which have made the
houses so wretched, degrading and demon,
allzlng the poor of our rural districts in q
fearful manner
AS l have said before, the landlords are
unwilling to increase the number of cot
tages in the rural districts, because they
fear to increase the numbers of the resi-
dent laboring population, and the amount
of their poor rates; and they are generally
unwilling, even when they are able, to
spend money in improving the size or char
acter of the cottages, because they know
that they can easily let any of the existing
cottages, no matter how wretched, owing
to the great demand for house-room.
The crowding of the cottages has,
therefore, of late been growing worse and
worse. The promiscuous mingling of the
sexes in the bedrooms has been increasing
very much, and is productive of worse
consequences every year. Adultery is the
very mildest form of the vast amount of
crime which it is engendering. We are
told by magistrates, clergymen, surgeons,
and Union officers, that in many parts of
the country cases of incest, and reports of
other cases of the same enormity, are be-
coming more and more common among
the poor. And there is no doubt what
soever-and in this all accounts anil au-
thorities agree-that the way in which the
married and unmarried people and the diff
ferent sexes are mingled together, in the
same bedrooms, and even in the same
beds, throughout the rural districts, is
tending to destroy the modesty and virtue
of the women, to annihilate the fOunda-
tons on which are based all the national
and domestic virtues, and to make want
OF chastity before marriage, and want of
delicacy and purity after marriage, COM
mon characteristics of the mothers and
wives of our laboring population.
The food of the laborer and bis family |
is principally bread, potatoes, and fire.
quently, in Norfolk, the Norfolk dump
ling, which consists simply of the dough
of which the bread is made, the difference
between bread and dumpling being merely
that the one is boiled, while the other is