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In London, there are placed by the 14 & 15 Viet., c. 28, under the superintendence
of the Police, who are empowered to insist on a certain minimum of sanitary observances.
In St Giles there are 69 of these establishments besides the Model Lodging
house in George-street. They are all in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields,
as there are none in Bloomsbury. I am unable to compare this number with
neighbouring localities. In the whole Metropolitan Police district there are 2355
registered common lodging houses, which for the population would give 49 or 50 to
St Giles, but as these houses must, from their nature, be few in the suburbs
and most frequent in central districts, it is probable that they present no great excess
in St. Giles above surrounding localities.
The testimony of all who are acquainted with the dwellings of the poor is
concurrent as to the immense sanitary advantages gained by the provisions of the Common
lodging houses Acts. The chief points which are regulated by the authorities are
cleanliness, drainage, and water supply, the separation of the sexes and the prevention
of overcrowding. The minimum of space allowed to each person is upwards of 500
cubic feet, a small allowance certainly, scarcely more than half what is secured to each
inmate in the new prisons, but still a considerable improvement on the space which was
available to each lodger before the operation of the Act.
The removal of the sick is another feature of the Police regulations for these
houses. In the case of St Giles they are for the most part conveyed to the parish
Infirmary, but a few also to Hospitals. Indeed of those inhabitants of common lodging
houses who died in 1857, less than one-third were registered at the houses themselves.
The persons who live in common lodging houses are of a peculiar class and
deserve a word of comment. They are of course the very poorest, often the most
depraved of the poor. Though some affect the same haunt for months together, to the
mass of them the lodging house conveys no idea of a home. Very largely the lodgers
are persons who are fortunate if they get enough to keep them alive during the day, and
two or three pence to lodge them at night, so as not to be obliged to enter the Workhouse.
Just as with the paupers a grade below them, many appear to be reduced to
this condition by disease and want of work, so that, no longer able to rent a
room, they are content with the public accomodation of the police lodging house.
In my examination of the mortality of 1857, as it affects these houses, some
facts of considerable interest will appear. It may here be stated that after every
correction their mortality is found to be in excess above other houses in the same streets.
The excess is in the same classes of disease which characterize the death-roll of
workhouse—to which they so largely contribute.
In connexion with the subject of common lodging houses, I may express my
conviction that no material increase in the aggregate of deaths in St. Giles can be
attributed to these houses. It is true they make a very considerable appearance on the
death register of the workhouse, but that is quite another matter, and is at once intelligible
by the foregoing considerations. It is acknowledged that very little disease is generated
in common lodging houses; but it has been supposed that they offer inducements
to persons who have become affected with disease in other districts, to leave their homes,
to migrate into St.Giles, and dying there, account for much of the excessive mortality of