The habitations of the industrial classes : their influence on the physical and on the social and moral condition of these classes, showing the necessity for legislative enactments : being an address, delivered at Crosby Hall, November 27th, 1850 / by Hector Gavin.
- Hector Gavin
- Date:
- [1851]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The habitations of the industrial classes : their influence on the physical and on the social and moral condition of these classes, showing the necessity for legislative enactments : being an address, delivered at Crosby Hall, November 27th, 1850 / by Hector Gavin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![licensed and regulated are Liverpool (under a local Act), and those towns where the Public Health Act is being brought into operation. Tlie metropolis, where stringent measures of license and regulation are most needed, is altogether without any means of grappling with one of the chief evils of the country. This is the more a matter of surprise when it is considered— First. That Dr. Ferriar, in 1795, prominently brought before the public the evils, more especially the physical evils, connected with the state of the lodging-houses, and suggested efficient remedies.* Secondly. That the condition of the metropolitan lodging-houses has been prominently brought before the public by many philanthropists and sanitary refoi’mers, and by the public press. Thirdly. That the efforts of Lord A.shley, Lord Kinnaird, Sir Ralph Howard, and the other noblemen and gentlemen connected with the various societies and associations now inexistence for improving the con- dition of the poorer classes, and affording better house accommodation, have proved not only sufficiently successful as monetary speculations, but in demonstrating that better arrangements, more healthful, econo- mical, and conducive to morality, may be substituted without injury, even to those who speculate in a traffic which, as at present conducted, is scarcely better than the worst form of the slave-trade. It is impossible that the licensing and regulation of lodging-houses in the metropolis can too soon be brought before the legislature. The evils are now enormous, and must necessarily become aggravated, not only by the increase and the influx of population, but by the increase in numbers of those who will resort to them through the strictness of the regulations of the lodging houses in those towns which are coming under the operation of the Public Health Act. The following is the most recent evidence,— ]Mr. Worsley, author of the prize essay on Juvenile Depravity, classes the arrangement of cottages and lodging-houses under one head, as a cause of rural juvenile crime:— “ Because tlie moral influence of both is much of the same nature, the lodging-house being a more malignant form of the overcrowded labourer’s cottage. The moral eflfect of both is the destruction of all modesty in either sex; and the almost universal absence of chastity and purity among the labouring class in our country villages at the pre- sent day, is notorious to every one at all acquainted with them.”f Mr. H. J. Paine, says, in reference to the lodging-houses— “ It is the common practice for these rooms to be occupied by relays of sleepers some of them being engaged on work during the night, and some during the day. I once found a bed-room, lii feet by 10 feet, in a small house, which contained four beds. In the day time there were six men asleep in three of the beds, and I was informed * See Appendix, + See Prize F.ssay on Juvenile Depravity.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22334622_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
