A TYPICAL LONDON SLUM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1055, 21 January 1884, Page 2

A TYPICAL LONDON SLUM.

Mr G. R. teims, who is writing a series of articles to the Daily News under the heading of “ Horrible Loudon," primarily to show the necessity of improved dwellings for the poor of the metropolis, thus graphically describes life in one of the London alums :—One London alum, says the writer, is very like another, but for my purpose now I will select a district in Southwark where the houses are in such a condition that they are bound to come down under,any scheme of sanitary improvement, however half-hearted it may be. We enter a narrow court, picking our way with camion among the nameless filth and garbage and the decaying vegettable matter that, flung originally in heaps outside the doors, has been trodden about by the feet of the inhabitants until the broken flags are almost undiscetnible beneathj a thick paste of indiscribable filth. The outsides of the houses prepares us for what is to come. Inside them we find the staircases rotten and breaking away. A. greasy cord stretched from flight to flight is often the sole protection they possess. Wooden rails there may originally have been, but the landlord has not replaced them. He does not supply his tenants with firewood gratis. The windows are broken and patched with paper, or occasionally with a bit of board. The roofs are dilapidated, and the wee of a rainy season has soaked through the loose tiles, and saturated the walls and ceilings from attic to basement. And the rooms themselves. To describe them with anything like truth taxes my knowledge of euphemisms to the utmost. Let me put it in this way. In some of the single rooms of the worst districts the sanitary officer has found pigs and other animals living and sleeping in a cellar with a man and woman and their children. The family did not find any extra i.-cmveninca from the animals because their hrbits—the pigs’ and the family’s were in most matters essentially the same. The rooms in'these houses are pigstyes aud nothing more, and in them, men, women, and children live and sleep and eat. More I cannot say, except that the stranger entering one of these rooms for the first time has every sense shocked, |and finds it almost impossible to breathe pestilent atmosphere without being instantly, sick. And in such rooms as these there aro men and women now living who never leave them for days and weeks together. They are sometimes discovered in an absolute state of nudity, having parted with every rag in their possession in order tq keep. body and soul together through times when no work is to be had. So much for the district which is to be levelled and the general habits of the inhabitants who are to he ‘‘rehoused.’’ Let us take a few of the families that will have to be somebody’s tenants under any scheme, and see what their circumstances are. The cases are all selected from the district I have endeavored to hint at I will begin with the workers:—T. Harborna, stonemason, occupies two dilapidated rooms, which are in a filthy condition, has five children ; total weekly income, through slackness,-8i ; rent 4s 6d. E. Williams, costermonger, two rooms in a court, which is a hotbo(J of vice and disease, has eight children; total earnings, 17s ; rent, 5s 6d. T. Beiges,, laborer, one room, four children ; rent, 4s ; no furniture, all sleep’on floor; daughter answered knock, absolutely naked ; ran in aud covered herself with a sack. Mrs Johnson, widow, one room, three children; earnings, 6s; rent, 3s fid. W. Leigh, fancy boxmaker, two awful rooms, four children ; earnings, 14s; rent, 6s. H. Walker, hawker, two rooms, seven children ; earnings, 10s ; rent, 5s 6d. R. Thompson, out o'f work, five children; living by pawning goods and clothes ; wife drinks ; rent, 4s. G. Garrard, laborer, out looking for work ; eight children ; no income ; rent, 6s 6d ; pawning last rags ; no parish relief; starving ; declines to go into workhouse. These people may fairly be described as workers. They will accept employment if they can get it, but they positively refuse to go into the workhouse when they cannot. If they fail to get the rent together they will go into a “furnished apartment”—i.e., a frightful hovel with an awful bed, a broken table, and one chair in it. These places can be had by the night, and vary in price from sixpence to a shilling. They are largely used by the criminal classes, who do not care to accumulate household goods, which their frequent temporary retirements from society would leave at the mercy of others. In the same district and in the same houses, mixing freely with their psora honest neighbors, and quarelling, fighting and drinking with them, we find another class whose earnings are also precarious. I will quote one or two cases as these people must be dislodged when the present buildings come down :—Mrs Smith : Husband in gaol; one room, three children. She earns 6s a week, and pays 2s 6d rent. The man has been away fourteen years for burglar}. The day of his release ho came home. The woman gave him what money she had, and he went out at once and got drunk. In the evening he came back quarrelled with his neighbor, and stabbed a woman in a fight. He was taken to the police station, tried, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. F. Barker : One dreadful room, three children ; father and mother both criminals. Have been getting three and six months at intervals for years. Sometimes both in gaol together. Their neighbors take the children and mind them till the parents come out. W. Moggs, Raspberry Court—a sweet name for a hideous place —one room, four children Rent, 4a. Father, professional thief ; constantly in and out of prison. These oases are fair samples of the class of people we call “the abject poor,” people who will not go to the workhouse under any circumstances, and who are at present herding together in the rookeries we are all agreed must be demolished and replaced by something batter. Add to them the people carrying on objectionable trades in one or two rooms:—and who must carry them on to live wherever they go—and the reformers will have a fair idea of the tenants for whom houses must be provided somewhere if their present dwellings are to be pulled down. At the first glance it seems almost impossible to cater for them. Fancy turning these people into nice clean rooms and expecting 5 per cent, for your money. Besides, putting their habits on one aide, they are never sure of regular work. They may pay the rent one week and be penniless the next. Then 5 per cent philanthropy must turn them out, having given them a glimpse of Paradise which will make the return to Hades a terrible trial to those who have had their better instincts aroused.