A frightful account is published of a small district near
St. George's Church, Southwark, inspected by Sir Charles Dilke. This district, of which the centre is called Vine Yard, has always' been squalid, but recently the clearances in the City have driven in the poorer labourers, till the conditions of life are unendurable. Rooms 6 ft. by 7 ft. are let furnished with a few sticks at 5s. 9d. a week, though the windows are bulging out and the floors rotting, and " sanitary arrangements totally non-existent." The lanes, sometimes only 3 ft. broad, are covered with filth, whole families live in one room, and the people declare with one voice that no clergyman, or missionary, or visitor, except the Roman Catholic priest, ever visits them. No civilised person, in fact, has anything to do with them except the School-Board officer, and the lessees who take the rent and are believed to hold, in many cases, under either the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or the Metropolitan Board. The people cannot go out of town, because they work in the City, and their hours do not permit of their using the railway. This is an exact illustration of the gravest difficulty to be met in rehousing the very poor. Nothing will permanently improve this district ex- cept demolition, followed by rebuilding, and where are the people to go meanwhile ? Moreover, what is to be given to the lessee for his 58. 9d. per room And the tendency to swarm towards London, as the only place where the chances are great, rather increases than diminishes, till if a pestilence broke out we should never be able to get it fairly in hand. Ultimately, the only way will be to declare such quarters nuisances, and deal with them with a very rough hand, and with small respect for landlords' or lessees' so-called " rights ;" but even then, where are the people to go ?
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