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98 HABITATIONS AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR.
of Parliament, formal notice has been given on the
part of the Corporation of the City of London, of
their intention, in the approaching session of the
Legislature, to apply for authority which may enable
them to achieve, for their dependent fellow-citizens,
this almost incalculable good.
I cannot too strongly express the importance I
attach to this implied intention of the Corporation,
to establish model-dwellings for the industrial population
of the City. But the first and immediate
operation of such an Act will, from the nature of
things, hardly reach to those very destitute and degraded
classes of which I have spoken. Modellodgings
of the ordinary character will become the
residence of men, who now pay from two to five
shillings a week for such space as they occupy, and
who have the habit of sleeping in beds. To them
the gain will be very great; and the example of
improved domestic habits will be beneficial to their
entire class. But among the lowest order which I
have described to you, as it subsists in thronged
and pestilent heaps within your worst quarters,
there is little knowledge of beds. The first hirer of
the room may possibly have a pile of rags on which
he lies, with his wife and children, in one corner of
the tenement; but the majority of his sub-tenants
(paying for their family-lodging from sixpence to tenpence
a week) lie on straw, or on the bare boards.
It will be obvious to you, that no Model Lodginghouse
could be reduced to the level of their means.