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Derby Buildings consist of six blocks of buildings, two only of which
were completed last year. One of these blocks comprises separate and
distinct tenements for twenty-four families; the other block is upon a new
plan, comprising thirty-six tenements of two rooms each. One scullery is
here made to serve for three tenants, and two water-closets (one for each
sex) also serve for three tenants. The object of this arrangement was to
reduce the cost of the structure, so that the rents might be lower. It is
found, however, that the application for tenements, separate arid complete
in themselves (at higher rents) are vastly in excess of those for the cheaper
sort of rooms. " This is quite in accordance with the previous experience of
the Directors at other estates; it is invariably found that the applications
for tenements are always most numerous for the best kind of accommodation
afforded by the Company's buildings. The Directors think it right to
refer to this subject as a land of rejoinder to the remark which is sometimes
made that the dwellings provided by the Company seem to be of too high a
class, and that they do not meet the wants of those persons who are most in
need of assistance in this respect. The Directors have always believed that
the only effective way of surmounting the innumerable difficulties and dangers
which arise from the overcrowding incidental to large cities, is to provide
really decent homes, in as large numbers as possible, for those persons who
are best able to pay rent which afford a fair return upon the outlay. A
competition with the tenements slightly inferior to those newly provided is
thus set up, from which all classes of persons below, as well as those
actually occupying the new tenements, reap a proportionate advantage. It
must be remembered, too, that the buildings now being erected are for the
accommodation of the next two or three generations, and due account must
be taken of the fact that, as the working classes succeed to their share of the
increasing prosperity of the country, the demand for better home accommodation
will constantly increase."
These remarks of the Directors of the Industrial Dwellings' Company
appear to mo to be judicious. There is no doubt that the artizan class,
living in large towns, will be obliged, in common with all other classes of
the community, to pay higher rents for their. dwellings than they used to
pay. As this class becomes educated to appreciate the comforts of a home,
habits of sobriety and prudence will be formed, which will enable them to
spend on house-rent money which is now wasted on drink, or mis-spent
owing to want of economy and good management. Until lately there were
few places in London where a man with a family could obtain for less than
ten shillings a week a separate tenement with the necessary appliances for
washing, storing coal, and other requirements of civilized life. He was
obliged to live in one or two rooms of a house, intended but for one family,
but actually occupied by several sets of tenants. There is in such houses
usually but one water-closet, one scullery, one wash-house, and one tap for
the supply of water, in a house occupied by from three to six or eight
families. By those living on the upper floors every drop of water for
domestic purposes must be carried from the basement, and, when used,
must be taken down again. As a natural result of this, water is but
sparingly used, dirt necessarily accumulates, and the tenants soon forget
what cleanliness is. The passages, closet, cellars, and outhouses also,
belonging to a number of distinct tenants, and to no one in particular, are