11 MAY 1861, Page 16

THE COTTAGES OF lab POOR.

SIR, L. Palk has done the public a service in introducing a bill for the improvement of labourers' cottages. His measure will scarcely pass, for it is encumbered with details, and introduces too many new principles for members to accept them all at once. It takes a session or two to let a new idea permeate society. But the introduction of the bill, and the respectful treatment it has received, gives the question a Parliamentary standing, and paves the way for more feasible reforms. The mere admission that the lodging of the poor is not a subject only for landlords is an immense advance, sure to produce its ultimate result. As to the need of interference, opinion seems to be tolerably de- termined. There are doubtless wide differences in the cottage accom- modation on various estates, and in distant counties, but after making all allowances, a large section of English agricultural labourers are housed in a style which imperatively demands reform. Their cottages want drainage, air, light, and,, above all, room. The first three evils Affect only the health of the people, but the last impairs, and in too many cases destroys, their morale. In thousands of cottages families have only one sleeping-room, in which the inmates of both sexes and all ages pig along together. Owing, moreover, to the growth of the population in excess of cottage accommodation, and the reluctance of landlords to admit new settlements on the parish, a system has grown up of cramming houses already overcrowded with single lodgers, Thus in a single village, whose condition was reported to the Social Science Association by the Rev. J. Montgomery, there were generally four families under each roof. He affirms that "these twenty-nine families had is all seventy-three apartments, many of these apart• ments being however mere bed-closets, or no better; that there were in all ninety beds, without reckoning those which might be made upon the floor; and that the population, members of these twenty-nine families, consisted of forty-five male and forty-eight female persons above twelve years of age ; twenty-five males and thirty-four females under twelve years of age ; and in addition nineteen male and four. teen female lodgers."

And this was a decent village compared with many of those filled with manufacturers. Of course with an average of four persons to a bedroom, for these rooms are not all sleeping-rooms, the most ordinary rules of decency must be suspended or laid aside. The par- ticular crime on which Sir L. Palk dwelt is probably still ex- ceptional, it being uncommon in countries where the entire population is lodged in this style—but there can be no doubt that this close packing is the first cause of the want of chastity so often visible in country districts. People who are lodged like beasts, will live like beasts, be Morning Service never so regular, and the only wonder is that the proportion of illegitimate births still remains so low. The evil, moreover, repeats itself. Girls brought up in such circumstances make but indifferent mothers, and the class which has forgotten the first laws of civilization tends daily to increase. This crowding, moreover, leads of necessity to the exclusion of light and air, and so creates the disease which it intensifies. Living during the day in fresh air, the labourers escape some of the results which follow over- crowding in towns ; but the excessive mortality among their children, the worn-out frames of their wives, and their own liability to all forms of malarious disease, are due mainly to this one cause. To this, too, is owing, in no small degree, that hunger for alcohol which distin- guishes some classes of our labourers, the drink removing the de- pression the fetid sleeping-room has produced.

The first remedy for this evil is increased room, and this Sir L. Palk proposes to secure by additions to existing cottages. He would enable life tenants, with the consent of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, to raise a sum not exceeding 1401. for each cottage, as a first charge on the estate. The proposal strikes too many rights of heirs, widows, mortgagees, and other encumbrancers to be accepted as it stands, nor does it embrace all the causes of the evil. Doubtless the life-tenant is often unwilling or unable from mere want of funds to repair or build cottages, but even in new buildings we have to guard against the avarice both of landlord and labourer, against cottages too cheap and cottages let off in lodgings. But the mode in which Parliament can best interfere is still perhaps hinted in the measure,—though the assistance might be applied in a less cumbrous fashion. The principle of the Drainage Act might, for example, be extended, and money lent to landlords at three per cent., on condition that sub-letting be absolutely prohibited. This would secure two great ends : the abolition of lodgers in new oottages, and cheap capital to build them with. A law extending the principle of the Lodging-house Act, and rendering the occupant of a house liable to penalties for lodgers in excess of accommodation, might also be beneficial, and might be worked through the Union surgeons, but the root of the evil would still remain to be removed.

Cottage property, though not very profitable, is still a fair invest- ment, and cottages world be gradually built in sufficient numbers but for the operation of the Poor Law. Landlords dread bringing men into the parish who may ultimately be chargeable on the rates. They, therefore, encourage overcrowding in neighbouring parishes, and small towns, preferring to lose the strength the labourer expends on his long walk to his work, to any risk, however remote, of swelling the rates. The only remedy for this feeling is to levy the rate equally over areas so wide that the labourer must reside and work within the same area of taxation. So strong is the existing feeling on this point, that it is quoted in the debates as one of the many causes which tend to the depopulation of the country districts, which the census will show to be still in progress. There are objections to equalization of a different kind, such as the dread of the extravagance which follows the removal of personal responsibility, but it is to some such alteration that we must look for the removal of the dislike to new houses for the poor. As matters stand, it seems possible that the evil may be ameliorated by an unexpected agency. As labour tends to the towns, wages in the country rise, and with two masters seeking one man, cottage accommodation may become a labourer's demand.