them as degraded as the Irish in their worst days. On every side I saw the same yellow pictures of dirt and misery; the same sewer-like courts and alleys; the same close, sickening, over-crowded rooms. I took my samples from every quarter, examined them patiently, and drew the same melancholy conclusion from them all. As my examination was not formal and official, but necessarily superficial, I guarded myself from drawing inferences that might be too broad and unjust. I availed myself of the statistics and experiences of the hard-working clergy, in each particular neighbourhood, and I believe that I wrote nothing which was not endorsed by those gentlemen. The task of digging out so much social degradation became so monotonous, and the daily stories I had to tell seemed to be so painfully like each other, that I closed my note-book in less than a fortnight, worn out and depressed. By this time I had arrived at the same conclusion as a recent correspondent of the Times, who said, "In one of the largest parishes in London, two-thirds of the whole population are believed to be lodged, with their families, in single rooms; and, from limited personal observation, I am induced to think that at least one million in London alone are in this degrading position. Would not this form a fitting subject of inquiry for the census of 1861 ?"

After dwelling so long upon the "horrors of London," I naturally turned to the other side of the account, and looked at what had been done or was doing to improve the homes of the poor. I knew that the Board of Health" had come and gone, and was now represented by the Government Local Management Act Office-a shadow of a shade. I knew that a Common Lodging-Houses Act, to prevent the huddling together of different families in one room had been in operation for some years, and that its provisions were enforced, or not enforced, according to the energy and consciousness of the local Inspectors of Nuisances. I knew that many cellarrooms, called "kitchens," had been condemned in certain neighbourhoods; many ceilings had been compulsively whitewashed; many drains had been constructed; and many rotten dust-heaps had been removed. I knew that there had been much talk, and much writing, about the social condition of the labouring classes, and that if I only held up my finger I might be deluged with pamphlets on this deathless subject. Although a writer by profesgion, I have a constitutional horror of English composition about any real work that requires to be done. Receiving certain reports, tracts, and prospectuses, more as a guide to places than to results, I went once more into the holes and corners of London to see what model lodging-houses we have really got.

The first place I arrived at was a block of buildings in St. Pancras, lying between Agar Town and Chapel Street, Somers Town, the worst parts of the parish. They belong to a London Society, started to some extent upon commercial principles, called the " Metropolitan Association for improving the dwellings of the Industrious Classes." This society I believe was founded in 1842, and the St. Pancras buildings were the first large block of model-houses, or rooms in "flats," erected in London. They are laid out to accommodate about

one hundred and ten families, with about four hundred and twenty rooms, at a rental varying from three shillings and sixpence to seven shillings a week for each set of rooms. The highest prices give the command of three fair-sized rooms and a scullery, with every convenience. The plan of these rooms is very much like that of the "flat" dwellings in Edinburgh. The outer door secures the family from intrusion, and locks in the household at night. The sitting-room is equal in size to the two bed-rooms, and the latter are reached by two doors, one at each side of the sitting-room fireplace. The scullery is a narrow strip, about the length of the sitting-room. The fore-court is an enclosed play-ground for the children.

The height of the building is its chief structural defect, although, if the calculations have been carefully made, this ought to enable the Association to lower their rents. The tenure is leasehold; the building is apparently made to last for ages; and the nett dividend of the Society from all their model houses is only about two per cent. The inference is, that too much money has been expended in building for posterity. The rents are grumbled at by many of the tenants, although they are under the market price of the neighbourhood, and too low to meet the expenses of the building, and make a fair return upon the capital sunk, according to the average yield of London house-property. The winding well-staircases, running up perhaps about sixty feet, with no protection at the sides or landings but an iron railing, reaching no higher than the waist of a man, are sad mistakes of the architect and builder. These staircases, at any hour of the day, are like Jacob's ladders, swarming with children, and many accidents and deaths have occurred, so I was told, in the house, in consequence of these deep pits not being closed in. The necessary rail-guards should be fixed at once; such traps for careless, unwatched children, in a philanthropic building, are a disgrace that ought to be got rid of without an appeal to law.

The occupants are chiefly the higher class of labourers and artisans, and the regular payment of the different rents would show this, even if the friends of the Association had not stated it in their reports. This may seem a cheering fact to many people, but to me it bears a different aspect. I will state why I regard it unfavourably a little farther on.

The other London buildings of the Association are in different parts of the town. In Nelson Square, Bermondsey, there is a commodation in "flats" for one hundred and eight families; at Queen's Place, Dockhead, ten dwellings have been taken and re-arranged for ten families; and in Albion Buildings, Bartholomew Close, some old houses have been taken, and fitted up so as to lodge decently about twenty-four families. the east of London, in Albert Street, a block of family dwellings on the "flat" system, has been built for sixty families; in Pelham Street, twelve houses have been built for twelve different families; and similar accommodation has been provided for nine families in cottages in Pleasant Row. Albert Street, the Society has also built a set of

In

In

chambers for single men, with accommodation for 234 tenants; and they have long held an old house in Compton Street, Soho, in the West, which will lodge 128 single men on the same plan. In St James's, Westminster-not far from this latter place the Association has also built another block of family buildings, capable of housing sixty families. Altogether, we may reckon the population in the Society's model houses at the present time, as being nearly 2000.

I have not visited all the houses belonging to this Society, because they are not always open to inspection. The tenants, as before stated, belong to the best class of labourers and artisans, and they very properly object to be watched, counted, and inspected. Their wages are not lower than those of Hugh Miller, when he worked as a quarryman, and they show a certain degree of independence. The charity they receive through a sentimental standard of rent, is given to them in such a silent underground way, that they are not aware when they receive it. As long as they are allowed to remain in their rooms, and pay their rent punctually, they believe that they are under no obligation to a charitable body of ladies and gentlemen. It would be difficult to persuade them that a nett dividend of only two per cent. upon the capital of their landlords, must prove that something is really given to them, that they do not pay for.

At the chamber for single men in Albert Street, Mile End, I found a large coffee-room, well lighted, well warmed, and fitted up with a due regard to cleanliness and comfort. There was also a kitchen, where a number of the lodgers were cooking and eating their dinners, and a rather dull heavy library, where one man was writing a letter. About 174 lodgers were on the books (the place will house 234), principally clerks, labourers, and mechanics, with a few men living on small superannuations. The beds up stairs were in separate cupboards, very much like the baths at the public wash-houses, each lodger having a locker to himself, and a private key. The weekly rent for all this accommodation, which is substantially as good as what is generally given at a westend club, is only two shillings and sixpence a week. This sum pays for gas, fire, newspapers, water, soap, towels, and books, as well as the rest of the lodging.

Looking at the building, and its low charges, I was not surprised to find that its lodgers came from all parts, and that while its nett profits had only been a 'ittle over one per cent. upon the outlay, it had t benefited the neighbourhood in any perceptible degree. The Bethnal Green population-the low and really poor-are housed even more badly now than they were before the Society started in philanthropic business. They have been pushed on one side, compelled to crowd closer together, because their huts have been pulled down for "improvements' " and new buildings, and are looked upon by the managers of model houses with ill-concealed contempt. Even in the family houses at the side of these club-chambers, no weaver, or street hawker is to be found; the rents, although unremunerative, are pitched too high for such people, and there are standing rules

to keep them out. The Association is for improving the dwellings of the "industrious classes"a very loose and windy phrase-and, with one exception, hereafter to be noticed, these model buildings may be looked upon as intruders. At St. Pancras, they have done nothing for the worst class in Somers Town and Agar Town, and they have wasted their means on a class who are well able to help themselves. I can find hundreds of tenants who are attracted to these houses from all sides by the low artificial rents, who have no more right to be pensioners of a half-benevolent society than I have. The costermonger-the street hawker-the industrious poor, are still rotting up their filthy, ill-drained, ill-ventilated courts, while well-paid mechanics, clerks, and porters, willing to sacrifice a certain portion of their self-respect, are the constant tenants of all these model dwellings.

The club-chambers for single men, I cannot help looking upon as a benevolent mistake. The Soho Chambers never presented any hopeful feature from their commencement, and they have long been a financial failure. The Albert Street Chambers, as I have just shown, are the next worst property on the Society's books, and these are the only two establishments devoted to single men. Why charity—for charity it is, to a large extent

a

should lay itself out to help those who are best able to help themselves, I cannot possibly imagine. The tenants of the Soho Chambers have always largely consisted of the idle, not the industrious classes, and there is nearly as much dissipation in wasting whole days reading periodicals over coffee-room fire, as in playing at skittles or drinking in a tap-room. Idleness is idleness, whatever form it takes, and it may always be met with, in large quantities, at these club-chambers. Of all associations, the Society for improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes is the least bound to help it in certain localities, at a considerable annual loss.

The family dwellings in Albert Street are carefully arranged; the staircase has no well, and the wash-house is in the playing-ground. The rents vary from four shillings a week, for two rooms and a scullery, to five shillings a week; the rooms in the area being the lowest in price, and the middle rooms the highest. The rooms at the top of the houses are the most difficult to let, and have been for the last ten years. A great demand exists for model cottages, containing two sets of rooms of three each, for two families; and those near the clubchambers, belonging to the Society, are never unoccupied.

In another corner of Bethnal Green-in the worst and poorest part of this large and miserable district-Miss Burdett Coutts has partly built, and is now completing, a block of model lodginghouses. They are light, cheerful, and somewhat ecclesiastical in appearance, and form, at present, three sides of a large quadrangle. They stand upon ground formerly occupied by a notorious place called Nova Scotia Gardens, where the Italian boy was murdered, or burked," as it was called, some years ago, by Bishop and Williams. The east and west wings of these model houses are now filled with tenants. The tents in the east

wing are four shillings a week for three rooms, three shillings and sixpence a week for two rooms, and two shillings a week for one room. The rooms are small, but well ventilated; and there is every convenience throughout the house, even to baths. The laundry is at the top of the wing, well supplied with water, and the playing-ground for the children is in the quadrangle below. The staircases have two defects. There is a deep narrow well between the steps, which may lead to some serious accident, unless it be railed over; and the ventilation is too boisterous. Long, arched openings in the walls, running up nearly the whole length of the stairs, make the place too cold in the winter, although they are covered with thick blinds. Two hundred men, women, and children are in the east wing, and one hundred and fifty in the west wing-making a population of three hundred and fifty. When the place is finished this will be more than doubled, and the workmen are now busily employed in building the back row of rooms. The rooms in the east wing number about one hundred and eighteen, and in the west wing one hundred and five. The rents in the west wing are a little higher than those in the east wing; being five shillings a week for three rooms, four shillings a week for two rooms, and two shillings and sixpence a week for one room.

I feel a delicacy in criticising the charitable designs of an estimable lady, who has a perfect right to do what she likes with her own. Miss Coutts may have no intention of calling these buildings model lodging-houses, in the popular acceptation of the term, but the public will doubtless so name them for her, and look upon them as improved dwellings for the local poor. This they are not, and never will be, and the sooner the truth is told about them the better. The industrious poor of Bethnal Green are very sparingly represented in them, and then only on the east side. A weaver, who can only earn about seven or ten shillings a week in the present condition of his trade, would not be able to pay the rents of such rooms, even if they were large enough for his shuttle, which they are not, and even if the manager thought proper to admit him. Street hawkers and the old inhabitants of Nova Scotia Gardens are never found in such places, and the court and alley population are left exactly where they were. The clearance, like all clearances, must have raised their rents, and caused them to huddle more closely together. An analysis of the population in the west wing of these new buildings would show something like the following:-A clerk, employed in the city, who came here from Hoxton; a warehouseman, employed in the city, who came here from Clerkenwell; a workman, employed at Woolwich, who runs up and down by the Eastern Counties' Railway; a compositor, employed in the neighbourhood, who came here from the city; a railway guard employed at the railway; the family belonging to the mate of a ship who is in the East Indies; a working cooper, who came here from St. Luke's parish; two or three more warehousemen and clerks, who came here from the city; a printer who came here from the country; a labourer who works some distance out of London; with a few working mechanics, perhaps not more than half-a-dozen out of fifty tenants who really

sprung from the district. Whatever good such buildings may do, they can never improve the neighbourhood they stand in. They fly over the heads of those who are most in want of improvement, instead of burrowing under their feet. They attract a crowd of sharp-sighted tenants from outside districts who are a little more advanced in cleanliness and civilisation, and are quick to see where ten shillings' worth of comfort is selling at less than half-price.

The other building belonging to the Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, which I have spoken of as an exception to the general rule of misappropriation, is the model lodging-house in St. James's, Westminster. Here the sixty families are chiefly working tailors-the staple poor of the district; and although the site is not very cheerful, every room is occupied. Three rooms, on the "flat" plan, let here for seven shillings and sixpence a week; and a second class of rooms, let in blocks of three, at six shillings and twopence a week.

The "Healthy Houses," a small private speculation near here, in Husband Street, are very dark and badly constructed, the bedrooms having no chimneys or fireplaces. Eight families are housed in this block, paying five shillings and sixpence a week for three rooms on the ground floor, and six shillings and sixpence a week for similar rooms at the top. The best feature about them is the glazed bricks in the passages and staircases, which present a surface that rejects the dirt, and is easily kept clean.

Passing by the parochial model lodging-houses which exist in St. James's, Westminster, Marylebone, and other parishes, I come to the buildings belonging to the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes. There are nine establishments; one in George Street, Bloomsbury, for one hundred and four single men; another in Hatton Garden for fifty-four single men; a "renovated lodging-house" in Charles Street, Drury Lane, for eighty-two single men; and a similar house in King Street, Drury Lane, for twenty-two single men. There are also the renovated dwellings for families in Wild Court, Drury Lane, with one hundred and six rooms; a similar building in Clark's Buildings, Broad Street, St. Giles's, containing eighty-two rooms; the Thanksgiving Model Buildings in Portpool Lane, Gray's Inn Lane, for twenty families, and one hundred and twenty-eight single women, with a public wash-house; the renovated dwellings for families and single men in Tyndall's Buildings, Gray's Inn Lane, containing eighty-seven family rooms, and forty beds for men; and the building in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury, for fifty-four families.

The Society is supported by donations, subscriptions, and loans borrowed at interest, and it has now been in existence for nearly twenty years. It has doubtless done much good in improving the habits of many of the dirty poor, but it has also met with the same bitter experiences as the other leading Association. The people it has gathered under its wing are not often the class it ought to have started to benefit. In the Streatham Street houses, I saw indications of comfort in those dwellings I could look into which told me that certain

well-paid workmen were accepting a lodging partly paid for by charity. One of the warm friends of the Association has recently said that "they find no reluctance on the part of the working classes to accept this kind of benevolence." I can only The standard of morals say, I am sorry for it. must be very low where men with health, strength, and skilled hands are content to accept anything that they do not fully pay for.

The building in Streatham Street is rather gloomy, built in a very heavy style to last for centuries, and disfigured by galleries with broad flat brick columns, when iron would have been so much lighter. These columns make the entrances dark, and throw a gloom into the bed-rooms in front. The rents are about six or seven shillings a week for three rooms, and five shillings a week for two rooms. The rent-book shows the superior class of tenants who have been sucked into these houses. In the week ending Feb. 2, hard as the times are supposed to be, there were only two gaps of a few shillings each in a rental of fourteen pounds sterling. One of these gaps was caused by a death, the other by a want of work. Can any houseagent, dealing with working people in London, show an equally clear rent-book at the present

moment?

The single men's lodging-houses are very similar to many established by private individuals in different parts of London, particularly those opened by Mr. Sartoris in Commercial Street, Whitechapel. I went to the one in Charles Street, Drury Lane, where beds are made up for eighty-two men at fourpence a night each, or two shillings a week for each lodger. The beds are clean, and not too close together, and the house has seldom many vacant. In the kitchen, about a dozen men were standing about the room, some cooking at the fire, others talking and idling. One old man was writing in one of the boxes, which are like the compartments in common coffee-rooms; and another was asleep, with his head and arms lying amongst some broken potatoes on one of the tables. They looked to me all greasy, faded men-men difficult to keep clean, who smelt of onions, and were mostly out of employment. The old lady, who regarded herself as the mother of them all, told me that many were lawyers' clerks, linendrapers' assistants, and mechanics. One lodger, a compositor, not then in the house, she had had for years. Some stopped a night only, some a month, some came from the country; and occasionally a few thieves crept in as lodgers, and stole a few of the other lodgers' clothes. She had never had but one costermonger -a most superior man of his kind, who lived there for two years, until he got married, when he left, most probably to live up a court.

Nearly all the kitchens of these places reminded me very much of a low ward in a debtor's prison, particularly the kitchen in Charles Street.

an Association, which is well-intentioned, and royally supported in its operations. It would be rather difficult to define who the "labouring classes" really are, and I am afraid that many lodgers sheltered by this Society would hardly bear a strict examination into their claims as labourers. Without any wordy flourishes, the Society is a clean, wholesome lodging-house company, providing decent accommodation for any one who knocks at their doors, if he is not a costermonger, or a confirmed dweller in courts. No one seems to touch the lowest of the low, or their putrid hiding-places, and the depths in education reached by ragged schools, are not yet reached by philanthropists in providing model dwellings. Our benevolent societies are all either too large-minded, or tied to the log of a rumbling title. We have heard a good deal lately about muscular Christianity, and if it is anything more than a mere name, a splendid field of action is open before it. In no part of the world,-not even in the remotest dens of savage wildernesses,-is there such a field for labour as in our London courts and alleys. Peel off the stucco at any point, and there is the mass of dirt, vice, and social degradation festering beneath. I have lived in it and amongst it ever since I could walk and talk, and I speak with some authority when I say that I know what it is. one has ever properly grappled with it, has ever thoroughly understood it, or perhaps tried to understand it. The attempts at reform have been mere pickings at the surface,-feeble, half-supported efforts to do good. We all know what home influence is for good or evil, and here are one hundred and fifty thousand families living in dens that are worse than sewers. The most awful thing in connexion with these people, is to find them utterly blind to their dirt and misery. Their senses are blunted by long familiarity, they cannot see the overcrowding, the mass of rotten filth that surrounds them; they cannot smell the stench; they are choked with dirt, and yet feel clean; and they slink up the foul back streets, and are satisfied with their condition. The six thousand dwellers in London model lodging-houses* look down upon them with contempt, the very porters spurn them from the model doors, and they sink back a million of hopeless lepers that no man will touch.

*

JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD.

No

Population in Model Houses in London, Estimated. Persons Metropolitan Association's Buildings, 2200 Society for improving the condition of the Labouring Classes, in all buildings, The Strand Building Company, Eagle Court, Strand,

Mr. Hiiliard's Houses at Shadwell,

1900

125

560

5785

400

6185

Ir is surprising what a catalogue might be made of interesting imprisonments: how frequently character has been developed, and important work achieved, in the solitary cell, or even in the more public prison. Every reader will at once recall a long list of distinguished men, who, in confinement, have produced works, literary and scientific, philosophical and religious, which have rendered that which was an evil to their authors a great good to their cotemporaries and successors. But apart from this, there is something in the history of imprisonment itself, as indicating peculiar phases in personal character and national progress, "that is necessarily of interest to a mind not specially fond of exciting horrors, but just normally endowed with that element, be it what it may, which leads us naturally to derive a kind of pleasurable sensation from the contemplation of tragedy. It is our purpose in this paper to sketch a few of the most noted imprisonments in the East; and in the course of it we shall have occasion to indicate -for we shall not harrow the feelings of our readers by minutely describing-scenes of heartless cruelty and appalling barbarity. At the same time, we shall have to notice instances of noble endurance and faithfulness, that will tax to the uttermost our powers of admiration. It is, indeed, a melancholy reflection that, in the circumstances in which the real disposition of man towards man is evinced with the least of control or modification, that disposition is seen in its most unfavourable light. Men will, of course, account for this fact variously. For ourselves, we do not shrink from the declaration of the opinion that it indicates a degree of native depravity deeper and more pervading than men generally are willing to admit the existence of; and that, as this disposition is manifested the more in proportion as it is less restrained by modifying circumstances, so the great amount of good, that is confessedly in the world, is far more due to God's providential arrangements than to the good feelings of man's natural heart.

Our readers are all acquainted with the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta, in which 146 prisoners were shut up on the evening of midsummer's day in 1756, and out of which only twenty-three were taken alive on the following morning. We must also assume that our readers are not ignorant of the cruelties perpetrated by Hyder Ali, and his son, Tippu Sahib, who from time to time held multitudes of our countrymen in bondage, and subjected them to sufferings almost inconceivable.

PRISONERS IN BURMAH.

In the year 1823, a war broke out betwixt the English and the Burmese. We have nothing to do now with the causes which led to it; but we may be permitted to say that it appears to have been unavoidable on the part of the English. At this time there were at Ava, the capital of Burmah, three Englishmen and three Americans, one of the latter being a lady. The Burmese authorities, suspecting, or affecting to suspect them, of being spies, committed the males

to prison. The story of their imprisonment has long been familiar to the public, especially to those interested in the work of missions, through the narrative of Mrs. Judson, published long ago in her Life. This narrative, we think, no one can read without having his ideas raised, however lofty they may have been before, of the power of doing and of enduring, with which Christian principle and devoted love can endow a Christian woman and a faithful wife. Substantially the same account is given, in a more condensed form, in the Life of Dr. Judson, published seven or eight years ago. These books, especially the latter, have necessarily had a comparatively limited circulation. A much more detailed account of the imprisonment, and of the almost unparalleled sufferings undergone by the captives, has just been published by Mr. Gouger,* another of their number. This account establishes the absolute accuracy of the statements of the Judsons, and shows that, instead of exaggerating, they had not told half of what the prisoners endured, nor of what Mrs. Judson did for the alleviation of their sufferings.

The Englishmen at Ava were Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Gouger, and Captain Laird. Rodgers was a fair specimen of a class of men that used to be found in considerable numbers at all the native courts, and in all the native armies, in India and the neighbouring nations. The race is probably well nigh extinct now, because native courts and native armies are extinct within India. The class to which we refer consisted mainly of fugitives from justice, and deserters from the army. They found their way into the native states, and took service under the native princes, sometimes managing to sell at a high price the prestige of their European birth and European skill. They generally led a wretched life, obliged perpetually to stand on the defensive against envy and intrigue, and dependent for their safety on their power to outdo the natives in the peculiarly "native" qualities of duplicity and unscrupulousness. A most graphic picture of the class is sketched in the late Sir Henry Lawrence's Adventurer in the Punjab. Whether the opportunities of this class were smaller in Burmah than in India, or whether Rodgers was deficient in the qualities essential to success in such a career, he certainly did not succeed. He had indeed held the office of harbour-master, or collector of customs, at Rangoon, but had lost the appointment, and had not got another. He had been originally an officer in an East-Indiaman, had quarrelled with his superior officer, and demanded satisfaction." When that was refused, he had assaulted him furiously, and left him, as he supposed, dead. He was concealed for some time by the cadets who had come out passengers in the ship, was supplied by them with money, and escaped to Chittugong, and thence into Burmah. There he adopted the habits, and gradually acquired the feelings, of a native. He was in fair repute with the king, and

*Personal Narrative of Two Years' Imprisonment in Burmah. By Henry Gouger. London, John Murray.