As I write, I have in my mind's eye a certain neighbourhood in London, once fashionable, now inhabited by "nice" people, whose means make it impossible for them to pay high rents. But this neighbourhood is slowly but surely deteriorating, and rents are sinking, simply because the houses are of a kind that necessitate at least three servants being employed, in addition to a nurse if there are young children. With less than three servants these houses could not be kept clean or warm.
A Typical Labour-Making House.
The accommodation in most of these streets and squares consists of:
Basement (deep and rather dark).—Kitchen, pantry, servants' hall at back (generally very dark), lavatory, coal and wine cellars; front area (dustbin stands here), backyard; steep and dark stairs to ground floor.
Ground Floor.—Dining-room, smoking-room, and third small dark room, lavatory, narrow hall, and steep stairs leading to small half-landing.
First Floor.—Double drawing-room. Above, seven bedrooms, one lavatory, and one bathroom.
All coal for the house must be carried up one, two, or three, and possibly four, flights of steep stairs.
There is a large kitchen range, with flues to clean twice a week, as in order to keep up the hot-water supply much coal is burned, and the flues become very dirty.
The chimney must also be swept every two months. Other chimneys must be swept twice a year; if much used, three times a year. All food and table utensils must be carried up and downstairs three times a day, and when lunch and dinner are in progress a servant must run up and down with clean and dirty dishes, etc.
Washstands are used in each bedroom, and hot water taken to these rooms three or four times a day. There is but one bathroom and upstairs lavatory; therefore there is a good deal of stair work when doing the rooms. If there is a nursery, the nursery meals have to be carried up and down.