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result of these inconveniences is that persons so situated too frequently
become regardless of decency and self respect, and consequently have a very
limited idea of the pleasure arising from a clean skin, and the wearing of
clean clothes.
The discomfort above mentioned is not all that a poor family occupying
a single room has to endure ; for when occupying the upper room of a house
three storeys high, the labour of carrying water up stairs, and conveying
the same after it has been used down again, is so great that the linen is
never properly washed, owing to the small quantity of water which is used
in the washing of it, and when dried has an offensive smell. The present
high price of coals is a very serious drawback to all those persons whose
means are limited towards their obtaining a sufficient supply of boiling water
for washing purposes. I may here remark that the houses in this District,
which are occupied by the poor, are not adapted for the operation of washing,
for scarcely a house is to be found in the poor Districts in which there
is a sink into which the waste water can be thrown ; and, so long as the
poor are compelled to occupy such inconvenient houses very little improvement
can be expected to take place either in their moral or physical
condition.
As a step, therefore, in the right direction, I can confidently recommend
the establishment of baths and wash-houses in every District where
the poor reside ; and, from the experience which has been gained by the
knowledge of the benefits arising from the laundries in Goulston Street,
it may be fully anticipated that, by the re-opening of that institution, there
will be not only a diminution in the amount of disease, but the rate of
mortality will be materially lessened.
Mrs. PiLBROW, the late Superintendent of the Baths and Wash-houses
in Goulston Street, informs me that the Laundries were such a boon to
the poor women in the neighbourhood, that they afforded to them a means
of subsistence, by washing, for a small charge, their neighbours' linen, and
so relieving several families from the inconveniences of a washing-day at
home. Mrs. Pilbkow also says that the poor people would come to the
Laundries in the morning with large bundles, containing the soiled linen of
several poor families, where, by a constant supply of hot and cold water,
and by the use of a steam pipe, which boiled the linen, the clothes, however
dirty, were returned to their respective owners on the same evening in a
clean and wholesome condition.
The late Superintendent further remarks, that she has known, on a
very hot Saturday, or during a particular Jews' holiday, every bath in the
building occupied, and the long settle, which extends the whole length of
the bathing corridor, to be filled with expectant bathers, each one taking his
turn as a bath-room became empty.