Homes of the English Working Classes.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 122, 3 October 1885, Page 6

Homes of the English Working Classes.

The bill produced by the Marquis of Salis* bury, "An Act to Amend the Law relating to Dwellings of the Working Classes," grovides for the adoption of the Labouring lasses' Lodging Houßes Act for the Metropolis and any urban or rural sanitary district. In the event of removal from their Present sites of Milbank Penitentiary, entonville Penitentiary, and Coldbathfields Prison, such sites may be conveyed to the Metropolitan Board of Works, so that that body may be enabled, without incurr- ; ing serious 'loss; to Appropriate' them o foi the purposes of labouring-olass lodging- J houses, The Artisans' .Dwellings Aot.wttr; be amended, and extended to all urban v sanitary districts in England. The general" 7 sanitary' law will also' be amended, ancTin , ' any 1 contract for letting an unfurnished " house there shall be implied a conilitio* ' that the house is in all respect ereaeonably fit for human 'habitations "- *' ! ' s cr-.o

to mn wring brother x>r sister $ that, regards the sins and mistakes of fellow creatures with a kind of fiendish gratK ficat.on, or, under the influence of '* vtn eo-guidism'* turna shudderingly away From the morally afflicted ; that especially his no mercy upon the deviation of women from the strict paths of virtue ; that would cast her out as a leper for a first offence $ thit is pitiless in connection with, ber laches, a rul bids her have ho hope. Thtift are facts. It is thus erring wwnti »re u^ated, as a rule, in town and cotlntry, and it is thus that \re create fiends of the first water, for lid greater -devil need be looked for than «n ottWaged woman rendered thoroughly selfish and stripped of ail moral consideration. It is fiends like these and their progeny that do the devil's work in London and Paris and New York, and nearer home, in Sydney and Melbourne. And if care—^the greatest care «— ; is not exercised, the infection will continue to be, as it is,— endemic — wherevr&c people do congregate in large numbers, where extremes of wealth and poverty superstition, and her twin sister ignorance, prevail. Not only are the police indirectly inirlicited in the hcrrid traffic, but duly qualified medical men (to their shame be it said) lend themselves to it in giving certificates, after examination, as to the condition of girls about to be sold. The social ulcer is fleep-seated indeed. Referring to the same subject the New Zealand Tablet, <of 4th September says : — Since a note which appears elsewhere was wril.ten we have m\d an opportunity of reading the revelations of the Pall Mall Gazette. "We hare found in them nothing to justify the charges of M>sceiuty brought Hgninst that paper — nothing which could tfxeite in any mind but the most foul and debased, feelings other than those of liorror, indignation an ahum. Nothing is told that, the circumstances bi»ing what they are, it is not necessary tl».it every discreet person should know, so that all may be upou their guard against an evil that is certainly not confined to Lon lon •lone, bat universal. We say, again, that it is to be desired that whatever steps are taken by the Imperial Parliament should also be adopted by our own legislature. And even although the abominable practices revealed may be in their infancy among ourselves, the old proverb holds good that prevention is better than cure,"