"The information I obtained in the course of this inquiry into the condition of low lodging-houses, afforded a most ample corroboration of the truth of a remark I have more than once found it necessary to make before—that persons of the vagrant class will sacrifice almost any thing for warmth, not to say heat. Otherwise, to sleep, or even sit, in some of the apartments of these establishments would be intolerable.
"From the frequent state of weariness to which I have alluded, there is generally less conversation among the frequenters of the low lodging-houses than might be expected. Some are busy cooking, some (in the better houses) are reading, many are drowsy and nodding, and many are smoking. In perhaps a dozen places of the worst and filthiest class, indeed, smoking is permitted even in the sleeping-rooms; but it is far less common than it was even half-a-dozen years back, and becomes still less common yearly. Notwithstanding so dangerous a practice, fires are and have been very unfrequent in these places. There is always some one awake, which is one reason. The lack of conversation, I ought to add, and the weariness and drowsiness, are less observable in the lodging-houses patronized by thieves and women of abandoned character, whose lives are comparatively idle, and whose labour a mere nothing. In their houses, if their conversation be at all general, it is often of the most unclean character. At other times it is carried on in groups, with abundance of whispers, shrugs, and slang, by the members of the respective schools of thieves or lurkers."
"The licentiousness of the frequenters, and more especially the juvenile frequenters, of the low lodging-houses, must be even more briefly alluded to. In some of these establishments, men and women, boys and girls,—but perhaps in no case, or in very rare cases, unless they are themselves consenting parties, herd together promiscuously. The information which I have given from a reverend informant indicates the nature of the proceedings, when the sexes are herded indiscriminately, and it is impossible to present to the reader, in full particularity, the records of the vice practised.
"Boys have boastfully carried on loud conversations, and from distant parts of the room, of their triumphs over the virtue of girls, and girls have laughed at and encouraged the recital. Three, four, five, six, and even more boys and girls have been packed, head and feet, into one small bed; some of them perhaps never met before. On such occasions any clothing seems often enough to be regarded as merely an encumbrance. Sometimes there are loud quarrels and revilings from the jealousy of boys and girls, and more especially of girls whose 'chaps' have deserted or been inveigled from them. At others, there is an amicable interchange of partners, and next day a resumption of their former companionship. One girl, then fifteen or sixteen, who had been leading this vicious kind of life for nearly three years, and had been repeatedly in prison, and twice in hospitals—and who expressed a strong desire to 'get out of the life' by emigration—said: 'Whatever that's bad and wicked, that any one can fancy could be done in such places among boys and girls that's never been taught, or won't be taught, better, is done, and night after night.' In these haunts of low iniquity, or rather in the room into which the children are put, there are seldom persons above twenty. The young lodgers in such places live by thieving and pocket-picking, or by prostitution. The charge for a night's lodging is generally 2d., but smaller children have often been admitted for 1d. If a boy or girl resort to one of these dens at night without the means of defraying the charge for accommodation, the 'mot of the ken' (mistress of the house) will pack them off, telling them plainly that it will be no use their returning until they have stolen something worth 2d. If a boy or girl do not return in the evening, and have not been heard to express their intention of going elsewhere, the first conclusion arrived at by their mates is that they have 'got into trouble,' (prison.)
"The indiscriminate admixture of the sexes among adults, in many of these places, is another evil. Even in some houses considered of the better sort, men and women, husbands and wives, old and young, strangers and acquaintances, sleep in the same apartment, and if they choose, in the same bed. Any remonstrance at some act of gross depravity, or impropriety, on the part of a woman not so utterly hardened as the others, is met with abuse and derision. One man who described these scenes to me, and had long witnessed them, said that almost the only women who ever hid their faces or manifested dislike of the proceedings they could not but notice, (as far as he saw,) were poor Irishwomen, generally those who live by begging: 'But for all that,' the man added, 'an Irishman or Irishwoman of that sort will sleep anywhere, in any mess, to save a halfpenny, though they may have often a few shillings, or a good many, hidden about them.'"
The recent report of Captain Hays, "on the operation of the Common Lodging-house Act," presents some appalling facts:—
"Up to the end of February, it was ascertained that 3100 persons, mostly Irishmen, in the very heart of the metropolis, lodged every night, 84,000 individuals in 3712 rooms. The instances enumerated are heart sickening. In a small room in Rosemary lane, near the Tower, fourteen adults were sleeping on the floor without any partition or regard to decency. In an apartment in Church lane, St. Giles, not fifteen feet square, were thirty-seven women and children, all huddled together on the floor. There are thousands of similar cases. The eastern portion of London, comprising Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile-end—an unknown land to all of the decent classes—is filled with a swarming population of above 300,000 beggars, costermongers, thieves, ragsellers, Jews, and the like. A single court is a fair example of this whole district. It contains eight houses of two rooms each. Three hundred persons—men, women, and children—live there. There is only one place of convenience; and one hydrant, which is served half an hour each day. The condition of this court may be imagined; it is too filthy to describe. Decayed matter, stagnant water, refuse fish, vegetables, broken baskets, dead cats, dogs, and rats, are strewed everywhere around. The prices of various kinds of provision in these neighbourhoods give a forcible notion of the condition of the population. You can purchase for a halfpenny fish or meat enough for a dinner.
"In this neighbourhood is Rag Fair. It is worth a visit. Thousands of persons are assembled in the streets, which are so thickly covered with merchandise that it is difficult to step along without treading on heaps of gowns, shawls, bonnets, shoes, and articles of men's attire. There is no conceivable article of dress that may not be purchased here. It is not without danger that one even visits the place at noonday. You are in the midst of the refuse of all London,—of a whole race, whose chief employment is to commit depredations upon property, and whose lives are spent in the midst of a squalor, filth, deprivation and degradation, which the whole world cannot probably parallel. One of the London missionaries says—'Persons who are accustomed to run up heavy bills at the shops of fashionable tailors and milliners will scarcely believe the sums for which the poor are able to purchase the same kind of articles. I have recently clothed a man and woman, both decently, for the sum of nine shillings. There is as great a variety of articles in pattern, shape, and size, as could be found in any draper's shop in London. The mother may go to Rag Fair, with the whole of her family, both boys and girls—yes, and her husband, too—and for a very few shillings deck them out from top to toe. I have no doubt that a man and his wife, and five or six children, with £1 would purchase for themselves an entire change. This may appear an exaggeration; but I actually overheard a conversation, in which two women were trying to bargain for a child's frock; the sum asked was 1½d., and the sum offered was 1d., and they parted on the difference.'
"The following is a bill delivered by a dealer to one of the missionaries, who was requested to supply a suit of clothes for a man and woman whom he had persuaded to get married several years after the right time:—