Part 54
“The lodging-houses for trampers are a prolific source of disease, and productive of enormous expense to the parish in which they may be situate; from one I have within this week sent into the union workhouse six cases, namely, two of fever, three of itch and destitution, and one of inflammatory dropsy. These unhappy beings are boarded and bedded in an atmosphere of gin, brimstone, onions, and disease, until their last penny be spent, and their clothes pledged to the keeper of the house, when they are kicked out and left to the mercy of the relieving officer.”
The committee of physicians and surgeons, who have made a sanitary report on the condition of the labouring population in Birmingham, give the following account of the lodging-houses in that town:—
“Lodging-houses for the lowest class of persons abound in Birmingham. They principally exist near the centre of the town, many of them in courts; but great numbers of front houses, in some of the old streets, are entirely occupied as lodging-houses. They are generally in a very filthy condition; and, being the resort of the most abandoned characters, they are sources of extreme misery and vice. These houses may be divided into three kinds,—mendicants’ lodging-house, lodging-houses where Irish resort, and houses in which prostitutes live, or which they frequent.
“We find it stated in Mr. Burgess’s return, that in 47 of these the sexes indiscriminately sleep together. In the day time the doors of these houses are generally thronged with dirty, half-dressed women and children; and if visited in an evening, the inmates are found to be eating, drinking, and smoking. Such houses are, for the most part, occupied by beggars and trampers, but many of them are the resort of thieves. Some idea may be formed of the description of persons who frequent some of these abodes, by stating that in two of them, one of which was situate in John-street and the other in Thomas-street, a chain, fastened at one end by a staple and at the other secured by a padlock, was placed on the outside of the door, at the foot of the staircase which led to the sleeping apartments. Upon asking the mistress of the house for what purpose that was required, she stated that she employed it to lock in the lodgers until she released them in the morning, as they would otherwise decamp, and take away whatever furniture or moveables they could carry with them. Some of these houses are occupied exclusively by foreigners. In a court in Park-street we visited one which was inhabited by Italians, men and women, with their stock of musical instruments, monkeys, and other small animals. We are informed that there is another Italian lodging-house in Lichfield-street, as well as one which is frequented only by the Flemish or German broom-girls.”
In whatever part of the kingdom these receptacles are examined they exhibit common characteristics. _Dr. Jenks_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the labouring classes in Brighton, gives the following account of the lodging-houses:—
“Nottingham-street is the well-known haunt of tramps and beggars; Egremont-street of the lowest prostitutes and thieves. Both streets are on elevated ground, with good surface drainage, sufficiently wide and commodious, and might easily be preserved in a decent state; but all manner of disgusting refuse is thrown out of doors, and but seldom removed by the scavengers. In Nottingham-street there are eight or nine lodging-houses. Lodging-keepers have commonly three or four houses, for each of which they pay 2_s._ 6_d._ per week. The following is a description of one of them, and may serve as an _instar omnium_:—The keeper of the lodging-house rented four of these small tenements. One room, common to the whole of the inmates, who amounted to 30, including the children, served both as kitchen and sitting-room. This room was crowded when I visited it in company with the chief police-officer, Mr. Solomons, with not less than 17 people covered with filth and rags. In the largest of the sleeping-rooms, 16 feet by 10 feet, by 7 feet high, there were six beds, five on bedsteads and one on the floor, to accommodate twelve people of both sexes, besides children. Each person paid 3_d._ per night. Those who could afford more could be accommodated with a small room with one bed. * * * In a word, the streets in this neighbourhood have for many years been an intolerable nuisance to the town at large. They are the resort of tramps, begging impostors, thieves, and prostitutes of the lowest description, who daily and nightly take their rounds through the town.”
The following account of the lodging-houses in Manchester is from the report of _Dr. Baron Howard_:—
“The pernicious effects resulting from the vitiation of the atmosphere by the congregation of many persons in a confined space are lamentably illustrated in the common _lodging-houses_ of the poor; the crowded, dirty, and ill-ventilated state of which is, I conceive, without doubt one of the most prolific sources of fever in Manchester. To those who have not visited them, no description can convey anything like an accurate idea of the abominable state of these dens of filth, disease, and wretchedness.
“The great prevalence of fever in these houses during the severe epidemic of 1837–38 attracted the especial notice of the Board of the House of Recovery, who passed and transmitted the following resolution to the churchwardens on the 3d of January, 1838:—‘It appearing that a great number of cases of fever originates in the common lodging-houses of the poor of the town, the Board begs to suggest to the churchwardens and sidesmen the desirableness of appointing proper persons to inspect the same, in order to prevent, as far as possible, by cleanliness and ventilation, the increase and spread of this malady.’ In consequence of this suggestion the parochial authorities did immediately cause some of the most filthy of these establishments to be cleansed and whitewashed; but it is evident that temporary exertions of this kind, however praiseworthy, are quite inadequate to effect much permanent improvement.
“In some of these houses as many as six or eight beds are contained in a single room; in others, where the rooms are smaller, the number is necessarily less; but it seems to be the invariable practice in these ‘keepers of fever beds,’ as the proprietors were styled by Dr. Ferriar, to cram as many beds into each room as it can possibly be made to hold; and they are often placed so close to each other that there is scarcely room to pass between them. The scene which these places present at night is one of the most lamentable description; the crowded state of the beds, filled promiscuously with men, women, and children; the floor covered over with the filthy and ragged clothes they have just put off, and with their various bundles and packages, containing all the property they possess, mark the depraved and blunted state of their feelings, and the moral and social disorder which exists. The suffocating stench and heat of the atmosphere are almost intolerable to a person coming from the open air, and plainly indicate its insalubrity. Even if the place be inspected during the day, the state of things is not much better. Several persons will very commonly be found in bed; one is probably sick, a second is perhaps sleeping away the effects of the previous night’s debauch, while another is possibly dozing away his time because he has no employment, or is taking his rest now because he obtains his living by some night work. In consequence of this occupation of the room during the day, the windows are kept constantly closed, ventilation is entirely neglected, and the vitiated atmosphere is ever ready to communicate its poisonous influence to the first fresh comer whom habit has not yet rendered insensible to its effects, an exemption which seems to be in some degree acquired by habitual exposure, and which accounts for the immunity frequently enjoyed by the keepers themselves of these houses, whilst their lodgers are attacked in succession. This circumstance, which was particularly noticed by Dr. Ferriar, I have often observed. Where cellars are occupied as lodging-houses, the back room is generally used as the sleeping apartment; and as this has often no window, and can only receive air and light through the door opening into the front room, the utter impossibility of ventilation renders the ravages of infectious fevers particularly destructive when they once find entrance.
“The beds and bedding, being seldom washed or changed, are generally in the most filthy condition, and consisting usually of those porous materials to which contagious vapours are especially liable to attach themselves, the danger of sleeping in them may be well conceived. Even if a bed has been occupied by a fever patient who has died, or been removed, it is often immediately used by fresh lodgers, without having undergone any purification.
“The disgraceful state of these lodging-houses has been dwelt upon at some length, because I consider their evils of a most serious and extensive nature, and I feel quite satisfied they are the most malignant _foci_ of infectious fevers in Manchester. Indeed it is my decided opinion that the vitiation of the atmosphere by the living is much more injurious to the constitution than its impregnation with the effluvia from dead organic matter; and certainly all I have observed in Manchester induces me to consider the ‘human miasms’ generated in overcrowded and ill-ventilated rooms as a far more frequent and efficient cause of fever than the malaria arising from collections of refuse and want of drainage. I have been led to this conclusion from having remarked that fever has generally prevailed more extensively in those houses where the greatest numbers were crowded together, and where ventilation was most deficient, although the streets in which they are situated maybe well paved, drained, and tolerably free from filth, than in those where there was less crowding, notwithstanding their location in the midst of nuisances giving rise to malaria. This inference is also supported by the fact of the higher relative proportion of fever to other diseases which has been shown to exist in the collegiate church district, where the number of crowded lodging-houses and confined courts, the closely compacted state of the buildings, the narrowness of the streets, and consequent density of the population and absence of ventilations, are most remarkable.”
_Mr. John Rayner_, medical officer of the Stockport union, gives the following account of the lodging-houses in that town:—
“The lodging-houses in these districts, which are principally occupied by the Irish labourers, are for the most part very much crowded, and are in a remarkably filthy states. The beds and bedding are not only loathsome to the sight but are extremely offensive to the smell, and are so closely packed that several families may occupy the same room, each bed containing several persons. In such places the married and single often repose together, and the beds are so arranged, that in some instances there is not room for a person to walk between them. I have seen seven persons in the same bed, and last week removed to the infirmary a case of rheumatic fever, with translation of the disease to the heart, from a bed which every night contains _eight_ persons. I have generally found that the lower order of Irish labourers occupy the most filthy districts, and that wherever they _colonize_, misery and wretchedness is sure to abound. They are the most common applicants for medical relief at our charity.”
“I lately had a case of inflammation of the absorbments of the legs, from a trifling injury to the foot, in an Irish boy, who was living in a dark, damp cellar, about four yards square, in which were two beds. The height of the ceiling was not more than six feet, and yet _seven_ persons laid in it, together with a few rabbits. One of the beds had to be removed from the wall on account of its extreme dampness, and so dark was the dwelling at mid-day, that I had to make use of a candle whilst inspecting him.”
The following is the description of the lodging-houses at the next stage, by the relieving officer of the Macclesfield union:—
_Mr. James Bland_, medical officer of the Macclesfield union,—
“I beg to observe that the lodging-houses are a fruitful source of fever. The persons renting these tenements showed greater resistance than others in having their houses properly whitewashed at the time the epidemic cholera appeared. The vagrants who visit these houses are frequently attacked with fever: exposed during the day to the inclemency of the seasons, with their imperfect covering, ragged clothes, and naked feet, at night thrust into a room perhaps of 16 or 20 square yards, having perhaps five or six beds and three individuals in a bed, married and single, male and female, to all appearance indiscriminately lodged. When a case of illness occurs, the lodging-house keeper is most importunate and clamorous in demanding relief from the town; and when obtained, it is quite a question whether it will really be applied to the wants of the sufferer. I have never any confidence that the remedies given will be administered to the patient.”
The further stages of the lodging-houses on the northern roads are thus described in the reports:—
_Mr. Nicholas Oliver_, the medical officer of Durham, thus describes the lodging-houses in that town:—
“One fruitful source of generating and propagating contagious diseases is to be found in those common lodging-houses where vagrants and mendicants, or any one whatever, whether healthy or diseased, are for a trifling sum provided with lodgings. I have known 40 persons half clothed, lodged in one of those wretched dwellings, three or four lying in one bed upon straw, and only a single counterpane to cover them, which is never changed. Excrementitious matter was allowed to accumulate and be about the rooms in all directions, the stench being most revolting. In the beginning of summer fever of a typhoid type occurred in this house and affected a number of the inmates, but being in the other district, they came under the care of the other medical attendant.”
The medical officer of the Teesdale union gives the following description of the houses in that stage:—
“In this court there are eight common lodging-houses, and the number of lodgers sometimes amounts to 100; at this time it is 50: eight or ten sleeping in a room, upon the most unwholesome straw. The buildings are in general good; but the wretched and filthy state of the houses can scarcely be conceived. From this part many of our applications arise. It is, indeed, a source of physical and moral disease.”
_Mr. Gilbert Ward_, the medical officer of the Tynemouth union, describes the lodging-houses there as sources of disease, of which one example may suffice:—
“In a low, damp, dirty, ill-ventilated, miserable hovel, kept by the most filthy people I ever beheld, containing four beds seldom changed, and which I have witnessed filled with beggars of the lowest description, there have been the following cases:—A son and daughter died, another son and daughter had the disease, and the mother had two attacks, all within a period of 18 months. This family, in consequence of their filthy habits, was removed to the workhouse, but could not be induced to remain; and they again returned to their old quarters, and were afflicted as above described.
“The constable has several times visited these houses, to endeavour to prevent the nuisance of so many congregating in them; but his efforts have hitherto been ineffectual.”
_Sir John Walsham_ thus exemplifies the descriptions he has received of the lodging-houses in Newcastle:—
“There is a considerable number of lodging-houses in Newcastle, some of the rooms of which are frequently occupied by from 15 to 20 persons each. In these houses the most deplorable scenes of profligacy and depravity are met with, both sexes being crowded together in a manner injurious to both health and morals.
“A medical gentleman told me, in Stockton, this morning, that in the common lodging-houses where travelling vagrants are frequently attacked with fever, &c., and in many cases die, the beds are the very next night occupied by fresh inmates, who of course are infected with the same disorder.”
And one of the relieving officers for the same town says:—
“I have frequently had occasion to complain to the magistrates against the lodging-houses taking in so many lodgers; but the law in this respect is so defective that they could render me no assistance. On a Sunday last July, I went to see a man (a travelling musician) who was very ill of the small-pox, and died a few days afterwards. The house contained four small rooms, and was situated in a back yard, in a very narrow, confined, dirty lane. There were 40 people in the house, and they were not all in that lodged there. Four months ago I went into a room in the same yard; the room was very dirty; it was 9 feet broad by 15 feet long, and contained four beds, in which slept two men, four women, and thirteen children. I found in one of the beds two children very ill of scarlet fever; in another, a child ill of the measles; in another, a child that had died of the measles the day before; and in a fourth, a woman and her infant, born two days before; and the only space between the four beds was occupied by a tinker, hard at work.”
The lodging-houses in Scotland are similarly characterized. _Dr. Scott Alison_ states that,—
“There are many regular lodging-houses in Tranent, perhaps from 15 to 20, in which paupers, vagrants, and a few labouring people live. The people reside there for a considerable time. I have known colliers in employment to live in these houses. They are crowded at all hours, but more especially at night. Men, women, and children live and sleep in the same apartment. In one of them I have seen an apartment, about 18 feet long and 10 feet wide, which contained four beds made up constantly; and when the house was ‘throng,’ another was added to the number. The lodging-houses are the head-quarters for beggars. The people go about during the day pursuing their avocations, and return home at night to regale themselves with their earnings. These people lie in bed till very late, and, if visited in the forenoon, may be seen sitting beside the fire, roasting herrings or frying meat. They live well amidst their wretchedness.”
In the report of _Mr. James Cameron_, surgeon of Tain, there occurs the following description of the lodging-houses in that part of Scotland:—
“There are three lodging-houses in Tain, which are chiefly occupied by beggars and hawkers. These places are kept in the filthiest condition imaginable: I have been credibly informed that the bed-clothes used in one of these houses have not been washed for the last five years! Summer being the season when these people are generally abroad, these low lodgings are then often crowded to excess. During the week-days the beggars and hawkers perambulate the country, returning on Saturday night. They frequently, especially when collected in large numbers, drink to excess; and their conduct on such occasions is riotous and disgusting in the extreme. The general charge for such lodgings is 2_d._ per head for the night, with an ample allowance of whisky to the landlords by way of perquisite. These individuals are unfortunately the means of introducing infectious diseases, such as fever, small-pox, measles, &c.”
In Edinburgh and Glasgow, as the confluence of vagrants, and especially of Irish vagrants, becomes greater, such receptacles become more numerous and crowded, and the evils attendant upon them more intense.
The injury done to the health of the public in general, and to the health of portions of the operative classes, by the generation or propagation of disease in such places, forms only one part of the evils which call for interference by preventive measures. These evils appear to require for their correction powers to be put in operation by the concurrent exertions of the officers charged with sanitary measures, or the prevention of disease; of the officers charged with the administration of relief to destitution and the prevention of mendicity, and of the officers charged with the protection of the public peace and the prevention of crime. Further, to complete the view of the chief evils arising from these receptacles, we may refer to the report and evidence for the state of them, collected by my colleagues and myself, on the inquiry as to the state of crime, under the Constabulary Force Commission on the state of the lodging-houses in respect to crime:—
“§35. We found only few of the magisterial divisions from which we obtained information that were not seriously afflicted by the existence of such receptacles, and in any arrangements for the prevention of crime within the rural districts the means of suppressing or controlling the common lodging-house must have a prominent place. The trampers’ lodging-house is distinct from the beer-shop or the public-house, or any licensed place of public accommodation: it is not only the place of resort of the mendicant, but of the common thief; it is the ‘flash-house’ of the rural district; it is the receiving-house for stolen goods; it is the most extensively-established school for juvenile delinquency, and commonly at the same time the most infamous brothel in the district.
The magistrates of the division of Warwick state—
“‘That in the borough of Warwick such houses are both numerous and a very general receptacle of petty offenders. Here the common vagrants and trading beggars assemble in great numbers at nightfall, or take up their quarters for very many days, making the lodging-house the common centre from whence they issue in the morning, traverse their several beats, and return at night. It is not unfrequent for such vagrants to make the immediate neighbourhood their regular walk even for some weeks, changing their beats, which are carefully arranged among themselves, and only quitting their quarters to avoid detection in some petty pilfering, or because, from becoming too well known, they can no longer successfully impose on the public in the quarter they have so long frequented.’
“The magistrates of the Chelmsford division state:—
“‘There are several lodging-houses in the town of Chelmsford where in the course of the year it is supposed upwards of 2000 trampers or vagrants resort. The greater number of these persons shelter themselves from apprehension and punishment under the Vagrant Act, by professing to be match-sellers. This is made a cloak for begging alms, and the pretext for going from house to house, and pilfering, as opportunity offers. The lodging-houses at Chelmsford are made the centre of a kind of circuit which these people make almost periodically.