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11
St. George-tbe-Martyr, Southwark.—There are ten common lodging-houses in this district
into which women are received, two honses containing single women only.
Only one of the houses was originally constructed to be used as a common lodging-house, hut
extensive alterations and additions have been made in a few to fit them for this purpose. One was
originally a warehouse. The inmates were described for the most part as hawkers or as working in
summer in the Borough market. As a result the majority of the houses are most fully occupied in the
summer when such work as pea-shelling is carried on. One house was equally full winter and
summer, and one or two fuller in the former season. Children even when accompanied by parents are
usually refused admission. Generally it was said that the majority of the inmates were " regulars."
The keepers as a rule do not let furnished lodgings. One who told me he previously had forty rooms
so let has now only four, his reason for their discontinuance was that they caused more trouble
than he cared to experience. His charges are 5s. per week. Two other keepers have four furnished
rooms, the charges of one being 9d. and lOd. per night, depending on the position of the room. These
are let to people who occupy them for loner periods.

The first common lodging-house is a row of four, two and three storey houses, having in the
back yard, which is common to all, a large building at the rear specially constructed for use as a
common lodging-house. The second consists of three similar houses with a large building especially
constructed in the back yard at the rear of one of them. This back yard opens into another back yard
common to the other two houses. The third common lodging-house is an old house of three storeys
with a basement. The fourth consists of two old houses, three storeys in height, and used together.
The fifth is a large building specially constructed for the purpose. The sixth consists of three houses,
three storeys in height and without basements, with extension in the rear. The seventh is a large
house three storeys in height and without basement. This house was originally built for the
purposes of a public-house. The eighth was originally a warehouse, and is a large building four
storeys in height. The ninth is a row of five houses, four of which are used for single men, the other
for furnished lodgings, and having at the rear a building in which single women and doubles are
accommodated. The tenth consists of two houses, three storeys in height with basement, and
practically used for single men, but having sleeping accommodation for six married couples.
In the first common lodging-house, the single women sleep in the front houses and on the first
and second floors of the back building. In the second common lodging-house, one house is used for
single women, the second for married couples, the third is in direct connection with the building at
the rear, and the first floor of this front house, and a room on the ground floor of the back building
is reserved for single women, the upper part of the back building being occupied by single
men. In the third common lodging-house, the front room on the ground floor is used for single
men, and the rest of the house for single women. The fourth common lodging-house, consisting
of two houses, has the back addition of each house and the second floor of one house devoted to
doubles, and the rest of the houses to single women. In the fifth the first floor is devoted to single
women, and the two floors above to single men. The sixth, consisting of three houses, has the two
rooms on the ground floor of one house opening into each and used for women, the back room opens
into washhouse in the back addition used for men ; the rest of the house is used for single men, except
the back addition over the washhouse, which accommodates one double bed. In the seventh, one
ground floor and the upper part of the house is used as sleeping rooms for single women. In the
eighth, which was originally a warehouse, the first and top floors are divided by corrugated iron
partitions into cubicles for doubles, and the second floor is used for single women. In the ninth house,
the single women and doubles are accommodated in a building at the rear of the front houses, the
singles on the ground floor, the doubles above, the front houses are used for men. In the tenth,
which is almost entirely a single man's house, the ground floor is divided by corrugated iron partitions
into cubicles for the doubles.
The bedsteads are generally iron with the usual shaving mattresses or sacking and flock
palliasses, but in the first house nearly all are provided with wire-wove mattresses. In the third, fourth
and ninth the bedsteads are wood.
Kitchens.—In the first common lodging-house the ground floor of the back building provides a
large kitchen for the inmates, all of whom are single women. In the second there are two kitchens,
the ground floor of one of the front houses provides a kitchen for the single women and the women of
the doubles, the ground floor of the back building contains a kitchen for single men. The men of the
doubles use either kitchen. In the third the front basement room provides a dark kitchen for the
single women and single men. In the fourth the ground floor of one of the two houses provides a kitchen
used by the single women and married couples. In the fifth a large and somewhat dark room in the
basement serves as a kitchen for both sexes. In the sixth the kitchen is built at the rear of one of
the houses and is used by both sexes. It communicates with the ground floor of the house used lor