London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

“The next ‘model lodging-house’ in importance is the one in Charles-street, Drury-lane. This, from personal observation (having lodged in it more than four months),” says my informant, “I can safely say (so far as social reform is concerned), is a miserable failure. The bed-rooms are clean, but the sitting-room, though large, is the scene of dirt and disorder. Noise, confusion, and intemperance abound from morning till night.

“There is a model lodging-house in Westminster, the private property of Lord Kinnaird. It is generally well conducted. His lordship’s agent visits the place once a week. There is an almost profuse supply of cooking utensils and other similar comforts. There are, moreover, two spacious reading-rooms, abundance of books and periodicals, and every lodger, on payment of 6d., is provided with two lockers—one in his bed-room, and the other below-stairs. The money is returned when the person leaves the house. There is divine service every day, conducted by different missionaries, and twice on Sundays. Attendance on these services is optional; and as there are two ways of ingress and egress, the devout and undevout need not come in contact with each other. The kitchen is very large and detached from the house. The master of this establishment is a man well fitted for his situation. He is a native of Saffron Walden in Essex, where his father farmed his own estate. He received a superior education, and has twice had a fortune at his own disposal. He did dispose of it, however; and ‘after many roving years,’ as a ‘traveller,’ ‘lurker,’ and ‘patterer,’ he has settled down in his present situation, and maintained it with great credit for a considerable period. The beds in this house are only 3d. per night, and no small praise is due to Lord Kinnaird for the superiority of this ‘model’ over others of the same denomination.

“Such are a few of the principal of these establishments. Giving every credit to their founders, however, for purity and even excellence of motive, I doubt if ‘model lodging-houses,’ as at present conducted, are likely to accomplish much real good for those who get their living in the streets. Ever and anon they are visited by dukes and bishops, lords and ladies, who march in procession past every table, scrutinise every countenance, make their remarks upon the quantity and quality of food, and then go into the lobby, sign their names, jump into their carriages, and drive away, declaring that ‘after all’ there is not so much poverty in London as they supposed.

“The poor inmates of these houses, moreover,” adds my informant, “are kept in bondage, and made to feel that bondage, to the almost annihilation of old English independence. It is thought by the managers of these establishments, and with some share of propriety, that persons who get their living by any honest means may get home and go to bed, according to strict rule, at a certain prescribed hour—in one house it is ten o’clock, in the others eleven. But many of the best-conducted of these poor people, if they be street-folk, are at those very hours in the height of their business, and have therefore to pack up their goods, and carry homeward their cumbersome and perhaps heavy load a distance usually varying from two or three to six or seven miles. If they are a minute beyond time, they are shut out, and have to seek lodgings in a strange place. On their return next morning, they are charged for the bed they were prevented from occupying, and if they demur they are at once expelled! Thus the ‘model’ lodgers are kept, as it were, in leading-strings, and triumphed over by lords and ladies, masters and matrons, who, while they pique themselves on the efforts they are making to ‘better the condition of the poor,’ are making them their slaves, and driving them into unreasonable thraldom; while the rich and noble managers, reckless of their own professed benevolence, are making the poor poorer, by adding insult to wretchedness. If my remarks upon these establishments appear,” adds the writer of the above remarks, “to be invidious, it is only in ‘appearance’ that they are so. I give their promoters credit for the best intentions, and, as far as sanitary and moral measures are concerned, I rejoice in the benefit while suggesting the improvement.

“Everything even moderately valuable has its counterfeit. We have counterfeit money, counterfeit virtue, counterfeit modesty, counterfeit religion, and last, but not least, ‘counterfeit model lodging-houses.’ Many private adventurers have thus dignified their domiciles, and some of them highly merit the distinction, while with others it is only a cloak for greater uncleanliness and grosser immorality.

“There has come to my knowledge the case of one man, who owns nearly a dozen of these dens of infamy, in one of which a poor girl under fifteen was lately ruined by a gray-headed monster, who, according to the pseudo-‘model’ regulations, slept in an adjoining bed. The sham model-houses to which I more particularly allude,” says my correspondent, “are in Short’s-gardens, Drury-lane; Mill-yard, Cable-street; Keate-street, Flower and Dean-street, Thrawl-street, Spitalfields; Plough-court, Whitechapel; and Union-court, Holborn. All of these are, without exception, twopenny brothels, head-quarters of low-lived procuresses, and resorts of young thieves and prostitutes. Each of the houses is managed by a ‘deputy,’ who receives an income of 8s. 2d. per week, out of which he has to provide coke, candles, soap, &c. Of course it is impossible to do this from such small resources, and the men consequently increase their salaries by ‘taking in couples for a little while,’ purchasing stolen goods, and other nefarious practices. Worse than all, the person owning these houses is a member of a strict Baptist church, and the son of a deceased minister. He lives in great splendour in one of the fashionable streets in Pimlico.

“It still remains for me,” my correspondent continues, “to contemplate the best agency for promoting the reformation of the poor. The ‘City Mission,’ if properly conducted, as it brings many good men in close contact with the ‘outcast and poor,’ might be made productive of real and extensive good. Whether it has done so, or done so to any extent, is perhaps an open question. Our town missionary societies sprang up when our different Christian denominations were not fully alive to the apprehension of their own duties to their poorer brethren, who were lost to principle, conscience, and society. That the object of the London City Mission is most noble, needs no discussion, and admits of no dispute. The method of carrying out this great object is by employing agents, who are required to give their whole time to the work, without engaging in any secular concerns of life; and regarding the operation of the work so done, I must say that great good has resulted from the enterprise. At the commencement of the labours of the Mission in any particular locality great opposition was manifested, and a great amount of prejudice, with habits of the most immoral kind—openly carried on without any public censure—had to be overcome. The statements of the missionaries have from time to time been published, and lie recorded against us as a nation, of the glaring evils and ignorance of a vast portion of our people. It is principally owing to the city missionaries that the other portions of society have known what they now do of the practices and habits of the poor; it is principally due to their exertions that schools have been established in connection with their labours; and the Ragged-schools—one of the principal movements of the last few years—are mainly to be attributed to their efforts.

“A man,” says my informant in conclusion, “can receive little benefit from a thing he does not understand; the talk which will do for the senate will not do for the cottage, and the argument which will do for the study will not do for the man who spends all his spare time in a public-house. These remarks will apply to the distribution of tracts, which should be couched in the very language that is used by the people to whom they are addressed; then the ideas will penetrate their understanding. Some years back I met with an old sailor in a lodging-house in Westminster, who professed a belief that there had once been a God, but that he was either dead, or grown old and diseased. He did not dispute the inspiration of the Bible. He believed that there had been revelations made to our forefathers when God was alive and active, but that now the Almighty did not ‘fash’ (trouble) himself about his creatures at all!

“I endeavoured to instruct the man in his own rude language and ideas; and after he had thus been made to comprehend the doctrine of the Atonement, he said, ‘I see it all plain enough—though I’ve liked a drop o’ drink, and been a devil among the gals, and all that, in my time, if I’ll humble myself I can have it all wiped off; and, as the song says, “We may be happy yet,” because, as the saying is, it’s all square with God A’mighty.’ Whether the sailor permanently reformed, I am unable to say, for I lost sight of him shortly after; at any rate he understood the subject, and was thus qualified to profit by it. And what can the teachers of Christianity among the British heathen—herded together in courts and alleys—tell their poor ignorant hearers better than the old sailor’s aphorism, ‘You have, indeed, gone astray from your greatest and best Friend, but, if you so desire, “You may be happy yet,” because it’s all square with God A’mighty?’