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6
For washing purposes there is a shed in the yard with two fixed basins used by both sexes in
common.
The cottages are old, but were kept clean and in good order. They are furnished with iron
bedsteads with straw mattresses and flock beds.
The keeper has two additional cottages providing eight rooms, which he lets as furnished
lodgings, charging 4s. per week for each room. He does not let them for less than a week. He tells
me he will not receive young girls or boys.
Chelsea.— There is one common lodging-house in this district into which women are received.
It is used solely by the one sex and provides 34 beds at a charge of 6d.
It consists of a large kitchen on the ground floor and two large dormitories above. Waterclosets
and a washhouse with three fixed basins are situated in the yard. I was told that a few of the
inmates were engaged in laundrywork as ironers.

The first two belong to the same owner, and each of them consists of two adjoining houses, old but
clean, three storeys in height. The third common lodging-house is a larger house of three storeys, old
but clean, and the fourth is a house fronting in the street having immediately at its rear a building
forming part of the lodging-house but which was formerly a factory. Some of the women resorting to
these houses sell flowers, &c., in the street, go out washing, or are engaged in tailoring.
The first lodging-house, as already stated, consists of two adjoining houses, and one of these is
occupied by doubles, the other by doubles and single women. The second, which also consists of two
adjoining houses, contains doubles and singles in each house. In the third, which provides accommodation
for 23 single women and two doubles, the doubles are situated away from the rooms occupied
by the single women and are immediately above the kitchen in a building at the rear of the yard. In
the fourth, which consists of a house fronting on the street with a building (formerly a factory) at its
rear, the doubles are situated on the first floor over the latter. The difference between the 4d. and 6d.
beds for singles are that the former are situated in the attic. The family rooms are extra large cubicles
having in each a double and single bed.
Kitchens.— The kitchen in the first lodging-house is one of the ground floor rooms. In the
second both ground floor rooms are used as kitchens, one kitchen being used by the singles in one of
the two houses of which it consists and by the doubles of the other, leaving to the singles in the latter
the kitchen on the ground floor of that house. By this arrangement the keeper separates women of the
unfortunate class from the rest of the lodgers. Thus, in these two lodging-houses two kitchens are
used by married couples and singles and one by single women. In the third common lodging-house
the ground floor of the rear building serves as kitchen for the singles and the two doubles. In the
fourth the basement of the front house provides a rather dark kitchen for the singles, the doubles
having a kitchen on the ground floor of the rear building.
The bedsteads in these houses are iron with flock beds and straw mattresses, and were fairly
clean.
Water-closets.— The water-closets for the first two lodging-houses are situated in the yards, and
there is an understanding that men and women do not use the same water-closet. In the third house
two water-closets are situated in the yard, and in the fourth six water-closets are provided in the
yard.
Washhouses.— For washing purposes each of the first two lodging-houses has two or three fixed
basins with cold water laid on under a roof in the yard, and a copper for washing clothes is provided
in the yard. The men are intended to use these lavatories, the women washing in basins in the kitchen.
In the third house three fixed basins with cold water laid on are situated under a roof in the yard. In
the fourth house there are two lavatories each with six fixed basins and cold water laid on, used
separately by singles and doubles; hot water is available. A dormitory for single women opens out of
the lavatory used by the married couples.
The first two and the last of these houses were, I was told, more fully occupied in winter than
in summer; the third was about equally occupied throughout the year. Children are only admitted
exceptionally and not without parents. I was told that girls under 18 years of age are not received
into the fourth house. Tho keeper of the first two houses told me that she had frequent requests for
accommodation by people with families.
Holborn.— There is one house in this district receiving women. It provides 94 single beds for
this sex at a charge of 4d. per bed. The registered premises include the whole of two adjoining houses
and a part of a third, the rest of the last house and one other constituting a common lodging-house for
men. The provision made for women and for men is, however, in every way separate. The premises
are very old.
The women occupying this house include persons employed in Covent-garden-market.
tailoresses, laundresses, &c.