London. We were in no case expected, and enjoyed the fairest opportunity to see everything as it really is. The beds were in some of the lodging-houses unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully and promptly shown through the rooms, and our inquiries frankly and clearly responded to. I propose to give a brief and candid account of what we saw and heard.
Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles has had the usual result. True, the sleeping-rooms are somewhat ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant, and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4d. (eight cents) per night, and I believe 2s. (50 cents) per week, for which is given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for cleanliness, but it is now near the close of the week and her lodgers do not come to her out of band-boxes.—Only men are lodged here. The concern pays handsomely.
We next visited a Working Association of Piano Forte Makers, not far from Drury Lane. These men were not long since working for an employer on the old plan, when he failed, threw them all out of employment, and deprived a portion of them of the savings of past years of frugal industry, which they had permitted to lie in his hands. Thus left destitute, they formed a Working Association, designated their own chiefs, settled their rules of partnership; and here stepped in several able "Promoters" of the cause of Industrial Organization of Labor, and lent them at five per cent. the amount of capital required to buy out the old concern—viz: $3,500. They have since (about six weeks) been hard at work, having an arrangement for the sale at a low rate of all the Pianos they can make. The associates are fifteen in number, all working "by the piece," except the foreman and business man, who receive $12 each per week; the others earn from $8 to $11 each weekly. I see nothing likely to defeat and destroy this enterprise, unless it should lose the market for its products.
We went thence to a second Model Lodging House, situated near Tottenham Court Road. This was founded subsequently to that already described, its building was constructed expressly for it, and each lodger has a separate apartment, though its division walls do not reach the ceiling overhead. Half the lodgers have each a separate window, which they can open and close at pleasure, in addition to the general provision for ventilation. In addition to the wash-room, kitchen, dining-tables, &c., provided in the older concern, there is a small but good library, a large conversation room, and warm baths on demand for a penny each. The charge is 2s. 4d. (58 cents) per week; the number of beds is 104, and they are always full, with numerous applications ahead at all times for the first vacant bed. Not a single case of Cholera occurred here in 1849, though dead bodies were taken out of the neighboring alley (Church-lane) six or eight in a day. So much for the blasphemy of terming the Cholera, with like scourges, the work of an "inscrutable Providence." The like exemption from Cholera was enjoyed by the two or three other Model Lodging-Houses then in London. Their comparative cleanliness, and the coolness in summer caused by the great thickness of their walls, conduce greatly to this freedom from contagion.
The third and last of the Model Lodging-Houses we visited was even more interesting, in that it was designed and constructed expressly to be occupied by Families, of which it accommodates forty-eight, and has never a vacant room. The building is of course a large one, very substantially constructed on three sides of an open court paved with asphaltum and used for drying clothes and as a children's play-ground. All the suits of apartments on each floor are connected by a corridor running around the inside (or back) of the building, and the several suits consist of two rooms or three with entry, closets, &c., according to the needs of the applicant. That which we more particularly examined consisted of three apartments (two of them bed-rooms) with the appendages already indicated. Here lived a workman with his wife and six young children from two to twelve years of age. Their rent is 6s. ($1.50 per week, or $78 per annum); and I am confident that equal accommodations in the old way cannot be obtained in an equally central and commodious portion of London or New York for double the money. Suits of two rooms only, for smaller families, cost but $1 to $1.25 per week, according to size and eligibility. The concern is provided with a Bath-Room, Wash-Room, Oven, &c., for the use of which no extra charge is made. The building is very substantial and well constructed, is fire-proof, and cost about $40,000. The ground for it was leased of the Duke of Bedford for 99 years at $250 per annum. The money to construct it was mostly raised by subscription—the Queen leading off with $1,500; which the Queen Dowager and two Royal Duchesses doubled; then came sundry Dukes, Earls, and other notables with $500 each, followed by a long list of smaller and smaller subscriptions. But this money was given to the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Laboring Classes," to enable them to try an experiment; and that experiment has triumphantly succeeded. All those I have described, as well as one for single women only near Hatton Garden, and one for families and for aged women near Bagnigge Wells, which I have not yet found time to visit, are constantly and thoroughly filled, and hundreds are eager for admittance who cannot be accommodated; the inmates are comparatively cleanly, healthy and comfortable; and the plan pays. This is the great point. It is very easy to build edifices by subscription in which as many as they will accommodate may have very satisfactory lodgings; but even in England, where Public Charity is most munificent, it is impossible to build such dwellings for all from the contributions of Philanthropy; and to provide for a hundredth part, while the residue are left as they were, is of very dubious utility. The comfort of the few will increase the discontent and wretchedness of the many. But only demonstrate that building capacious, commodious and every way eligible dwellings for the Poor is a safe and fair investment, and that their rents may be essentially reduced thereby while their comfort is promoted, and a very great step has been made in the world's progress—one which will not be receded from.
I saw in the house last described a newly invented Brick (new at least to me) which struck me favorably. It is so molded as to be hollow in the centre, whereby the transmission of moisture through a wall composed of this brick is prevented, and the dampness often complained of in brick houses precluded. The brick is larger than those usually made, and one side is wedge-shaped.
We went from the house above described to the first constructed Bathing and Washing establishment, George-st. Euston-square. In the Washing department there are tubs, &c., for one hundred and twenty washers, and they are never out of use while the concern is open—that is from 9 A. M. to 7 P. M. There is in a separate Drying Room an apparatus for freeing the washed clothes from water (instead of Wringing) by whirling them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room, which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average family. Everything but soap is supplied. The building is not capacious enough for the number seeking to use it, and is to be speedily enlarged. I believe that the charges are too small, as I understand that the concern merely supports itself without paying any interest on the capital which created it.
The Female part of the Bathing establishment is in this part of the building, but that for men is entered from another street. Each has Hot and Vapor Baths of the first class for 12 cents; second class of these or first-class cold baths for 8 cents; and so down to cold water baths for 2 cents or hot ditto for 4 cents each. I think these, notwithstanding their cheapness, are not very extensively—at least not regularly—patronized. The first class are well fitted up and contain everything that need be desired; the others are more naked, but well worth their cost. Cold and tepid Plunge Baths are proffered at 6 and 12 cents respectively.
I must break off here abruptly, for the mail threatens to close.
VI.