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88 HABITATIONS AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR.
to observe, that in all offices of nature they are
gregarious and public; that every instinct of personal
or sexual decency is stifled ; that every nakedness
of life is uncovered there. Such an apartment
is commonly hired in the first instance by a
single pair, who sub-let a participation in the shelter,
probably to as many others as apply. Sometimes
a noxious occupation is carried on within the
space : thus, I have seen mud-larks (chiffoniers)
sitting on the floor with baskets of filth before them,
sorting out the occasional bit of coal or bone, from
a heterogeneous collection made along the bed of
the river, or in the mouths of the sewers ; and this
in a small room, inhabited night and day by such a
population as I have described.
Who can wonder at what becomes, physically or
morally, of infants begotten and born in these
bestial crowds ?
In my former Report, I drew your attention to
this pestilential heaping of human beings, and suggested
to you its results ; and on many occasions,
during the past year, complaints have been before
your Honourable Court which have had their real
and Knot court. There were three families, each consisting of
a man and wife and two or more children, in a small room, 15
feet by 8, all lying upon dirty rags on the floor. I found one of
the children suffering under small-pox. The adjoining room was
occupied by six grown up persons and two children." In the
circumstances to which my Report refers, scenes of this description
must of necessity be habitual: and it is to their habit, not to
their exceptional occurrence, that my remarks apply.