“Another class of structures should be raised, perhaps rather as dormitories than for permanent residence, from which families would be excluded; these should be arranged like some of the wards of Chelsea Hospital, with separate compartments appropriated to each tenant. Unlike the frail and worthless tenements that rise in great profusion around London, these buildings should be studiously planned and strongly constructed; all that the builder’s art can contribute towards the safety, health, and comfort of each individual, should here be found. In the former class of buildings, a room or rooms should be let at a low weekly rent to any decent family that should apply: in the latter, each compartment should be let by the night.

“The exterior of these locanda, or public lodging-houses, should have a cheerful, inviting appearance, not entirely without architectural character, although free, of course, from the mere ornament and frippery of architecture.

“In throwing out these suggestions for such consideration as they may deserve, it seems superfluous at present to trouble you with explanatory plans and other details; it may be enough for me to assure you that buildings can be erected, affording all the accommodations above described, and offering to their inmates the luxury of a decent, cleanly, and healthy abode, at a cost less than is usually required by them for the purchase of the squalid resting-places they now resort to, and yet enough to repay a fair interest on the original expense of the new building.

“It may be said that in providing these commodious dwellings for their needy inmates, we shall be furnishing them with that which they do not desire; that habitual and long acquaintance with privation has taught them to regard and to endure, without any lively distaste, much of that misery from which others, more delicately educated, would shrink with disgust; but I consider this objection quite unfounded. A tainted atmosphere cannot be less injurious because by long habit it is breathed without nausea. If these deplorable habits have really acquired so much force, it should be our part to make corresponding efforts to teach the victims of them to become more sensible of their misery, not indeed by inculcating lessons of discontent, but by affording to them facilities for providing themselves with healthier and happier abodes.

“It is the true saying of an eloquent writer, that ‘les esclaves perdent tout dans leur esclavage, jusqu’au désir d’en sortir;’ yet surely no benevolent person would think himself idly or unprofitably employed in loosing from bondage those whom long endurance has caused to forget the blessings of freedom. I am, however, unwilling to believe, even now, that the classes of whom I am speaking are insensible to the comforts of cleanliness, or unable to appreciate the benefit to be derived from improved habitations.

“I confess I cannot discover any objection to the adoption of such a plan for ameliorating the dwellings of the poorest classes of our fellow creatures that would not be counter-balanced by many direct and indirect advantages.”

I beg leave to submit this communication and the plans with which Mr. Smirke has favoured me, that it may be made known and considered. Much importance will be attached to the testimony received from him as well as from other professional men, that it is possible to afford to the labouring classes the luxury of “a decent, cleanly, and healthy abode at a cost less than is usually required from them for the squalid resting-places they now resort to, and yet enough to repay a fair interest on the original expense of the new building.”

I see no reason to doubt the applicability of Mr. Smirke’s plan to such places as those where ranges of buildings are now required as lodgings for workmen, and, without questioning the applicability of the proposition last cited, to all classes of residences. It is proper to mention, that in the course of this inquiry frequent instances have arisen of much social disorder arising from the too close contiguity of residences, or from the want of some control over the inmates. In the instances noticed of lodging-houses, or of one building, inhabited by different families, living as in the apartments of the same dwelling, the conclusion afforded by experience seems to be, that a power and discipline almost as strong as that of a man-of-war, is requisite to preserve order in such communities; and that until a degree of education of the lower classes is attained, which is hopeless for the present, generation at least, it is desirable to avoid any arrangement which brings families into close contact with each other. A large proportion of the cases of assault and brawls which occupy the attention of the petty sessions and sessions in towns, arise from contentions amongst the inhabitants of courts and alleys, which are clearly ascribable to too close contiguity; and these effects have frequently given rise to the suggestion that if a city were rebuilt, the preservation of peace would be much easier if such places were entirely removed and the inhabitants separated. A common pump has gone far to furnish practice to a petty attorney. All the females wanted to use it at the same time, and perpetual quarrels and frequent assaults arose to get the first supplies. Several attempts have been made by benevolent landlords to get their labourers to make use of common bakehouses, common wash-houses, to join for one common brewing, and have offered them the use of utensils; but they never could be got to agree upon it, and I have met with no instance in which such plans have succeeded. Unless the walls of contiguous cottages are very thick, detached cottages have social comforts and moral advantages superior to those houses built in rows; and persons even of the middle class pay a higher rent for detached tenements for the sake of the comparative freedom which they allow from disturbance by their neighbours. The information I received in Scotland respecting the assemblages of single men, farm-servants, in houses called boothies, showed that the effect was also extremely unfavourable to their moral habits.

SKETCH OF A PLAN FOR A

PUBLIC LODGING HOUSE