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132
therefore, whether something might not, be done to remedy the
evils of overcrowding by schemes providing for the migration of
numbers of the people to workmen's towns a little way out of
London, where land is less costly—a plan which, with a service
of cheap trains, should be practicable. The carrying out of
Cross's Acts in London must needs be a costly procedure at all
times, and probably much more so than schemes for migration,
which, by lessening the present excessive demand for lodgings,
might lead to reduction in rents, and thus enable the poorer
classes to obtain more and better accommodation. A rent equal
to that paid for a model lodging in London would probably provide
a remunerative return for the outlay on a cottage and
garden within a moderate train-distance of the centre of the
metropolis. By a large scheme for migration overcrowding
might be diminished, and with it preventible disease resulting
from this, the most perilous of insanitary conditions. It is the
fact, I believe, that the Model Dwellings erected on the sites
cleared under Cross's Acts are not tenanted very largely by the
poorest grades of the labouring classes, those who have been
displaced by the clearings. Clerks, and superior artizans able
to command constant work, commonly occupy these healthy
homes. Plenty others of the like class would doubtless be
forthcoming were the accommodation greatly extended. These,
however, are the classes for whom it might be practicable to
provide out of London. For persons in the lower ranks of the
labouring classes nothing better, perhaps, than the system in
vogue at Glasgow could be devised. In that city "the lowest
class of the population, the waifs and strays, too poor or too
improvident to be able to rent houses, are provided with
furnished airy lodging-houses, with large day rooms, lavatories,
&c., where each has a separate clean bed, at the charge
(including use of cooking range and utensils) of 3½d. per night ;
and these institutions are so managed as to be self-supporting,
including 5 per cent, interest on the capital."* This would be
*Memorandum by Mr. (now Lord) Cross, Home Secretary, in the Supplementary
Eeport of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes, 1885 (page 66).