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10
The Common Lodging-Houses Act has indeed worked wonders within
its sphere of action, but there is a condition affecting the working classes,
not coming within this statute, which demands deliberate and careful
attention from the authorities. Frequent have been the pictures brought
to light of such an amount of indiscriminate herding of the sexes as is
truly fearful to contemplate. It is not only in the more densely peopled
portion of the Metropolis that these cases may be found; the suburbs
afford too many instances of a similar kind. In the course of last month
only, during one of my periodical investigations in the Rookery, I found
a most shocking disregard for decency, and proper separation of the sexes
in several houses. Hundreds of like instances of moral turpitude may be
discovered within our district, as also of those where the size of the apartments
is totally inadequate to the number of occupants. Nov, where lies
the remedy? It is vain to look for its accomplishment by the poor themselves.
The daily necessities of the labourer's family draw so heavily on
his earnings as to leave only a very small sum for payment of rent, and
hence the most limited house accommodation is sought for and endured.
The initiative must be taken by the authorities or by those who take an
interest in ameliorating the working peoples' lot. Fortunately, the statistics
of almost every instance where the effort has been made, prove the
self-supporting character of Institutions, specially provided as dwellings
for the poor, and of thus laying the axe to the root of this corrupt tree.
Until this desirable object can be more generally obtained, I believe considerable
good might be accomplished by a legislative enactment, placing
every house let out in weekly tenements to more than one family, under
similar regulations to those affecting common lodging-houses, and rendering
landlords liable for permitting overcrowding to exist upon their
property. It is a fact worthy of note that although there are from 50,000
to 60,000 persons sleeping nightly in the common-lodging houses of
London, there has not been for the last two years one case of fever engendered
therein. From observation, I believe the next census will prove
that an enormous addition has been made since 1851 to the labouring
population of these united parishes. The cleansing and uprooting of some
of the property of the kind above described in the nearer Metropolitan
Districts, has forced large numbers of labourers into ours, and affords a
strong argument for an equalization of the Poor-Rate, at the same time
that it compels us seriously to consider how they are housed.
INFANT NURSERY.
In my last Report I had the honor of informing you that I had opened
an establishment for the daily care of the infant children of poor women
compelled to go from home to work. Through the whole of last year I
toiled anxiously to extend the uses of this Institution. I have now the
pleasure of assuring you of its success, and that twelve benevolent Ladies
are lending me their valuable aid to enlarge its sphere of usefulness.
During the year the number of admissions was 1,372, and the daily
average is steadily increasing.
OPEN DITCHES.
It is a happy anticipation that on the completion of the Main Drainage
Scheme we may look with confidencc for the total exclusion of neitifarous