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156
condition of the very poor have expressed their
feelings, and have passed hasty resolutions, some of
which, at any rate, if embodied in Acts of Parliament
would probably aggravate the evils they were
intended to cure.
It is largely forgotten by most of those who
address themselves to the subject that a considerable
though unascertained percentage of our population
is composed of persons whose natural tendency is to
grovel—beggars, thieves, prostitutes, drunkards,
persons of lazy and improvident habits, persons of
feeble intelligence, and persons who (like too many
of the poor) marry or cohabit prematurely and procreate
large families for which they are totally
unable to provide; and that such persons gravitate
from all quarters to large towns and there accumulate.
Many of our poorest and filthiest fellow townsmen
are Irishmen, who import the habits in which they
have been brought up; many of them are costermongers
and labourers whose occupations almost
compel filth.
When Mr. Peabody, some years ago, inaugurated
the building of large tenement palaces for the poor
(a system which has undergone considerable
extension since), it was believed by many that a
method of housing the very poor had been devised