six persons only at most. Here are the young woman and young man of 18 or 20 years of age lying alongside of the father and mother, and the latter actually in labour. It will be asked what is the condition of

the inmates? Just such as might be expected."

Dr. Gilly, the canon of Durham, whose appeal on behalf of the border peasantry, and description of the sheds into which they are placed have been cited, observes, upon the crowding of these small places, 24 feet by 16, with 8, 10, or even 12 persons:

"How they lie down to rest, how they sleep, how they can preserve common decency, how unutterable horrors are avoided, is beyond all conception. The case is aggravated when there is a young woman to be lodged in this confined space who is not a member of the family, but is hired to do the field-work, for which every hind is bound to provide a female. It shocks every feeling of propriety to think that in a room, and within such a space as I have been describing, civilized beings should be herding together without a decent separation of age and sex. So long as the agricultural system in this district requires the hind to find room for a fellow-servant of the other sex in his cabin, the least that morality and decency can demand is that he should have a second apartment where the unmarried female and those of a tender age should sleep apart from him and his wife. Last Whitsuntide, when the annual lettings were taking place, a hind, who had lived one year in the hovel he was about to quit, called to say farewell, and to thank me for some trifling kindness I had been able to show him. He was a fine tall man of about 45, a fair specimen of the frank, sensible, well-spoken, well-informed Northumbrian peasantry-of that peasantry of which a militia regiment was composed, which so amazed the Londoners (when it was garrisoned in the capital many years ago) by the size, the noble deportment, the soldier-like bearing, and the good conduct of the men. I thought this a good opportunity of asking some questions. Where was he going? and how would he dispose of his large family (eleven in number)? He told me they were to inhabit one of these hind's cottages, whose narrow dimensions were less than 24 feet by 15, and that the eleven would have only three beds to sleep on; that he himself, his wife, a daughter of 6, and a boy of 4 years old, would sleep in one bed; that a daughter of 18, a son of 12, a son of 10, and a daughter of 8 would have a second bed; and a third would receive his three sons of the age of 20, 16, and 14. 'Pray,' said I, 'do you not think that this is a very improper way of disposing of your family?" Yes, certainly,' was the answer; it is very improper in a Christian point of view; but what can we do until they build us better houses.'"

Mr. Riddall Wood was examined as to the effects of overcrowded tenements on the moral habits observed in the course of his visits from house to house in the various towns he was engaged to examine:

"In what towns did you find instances of the greatest crowding of the habitations?-In Manchester, Liverpool, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Pendleton. In a cellar in Pendleton, I recollect there were three beds in the two apartments of which the habitation consisted, but having no door between them, in one of which a man and his wife slept; in another, a man, his wife and child; and in a third two unmarried

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females. In Hull I have met with cases somewhat similar. A mother about 50 years of age, and her son I should think 25, at all events above 21, sleeping in the same bed, and a lodger in the same room. I have two or three instances in Hull in which a mother was sleeping with her grown up son, and in most cases there were other persons sleeping in the same room, in another bed. In a cellar in Liverpool, I found a mother and her grown-up daughters sleeping on a bed of chaff on the ground in one corner of the cellar, and in the other corner three sailors had their bed. I have met with upwards of 40 persons sleeping in the same room, married and single, including, of course, children and several young adult persons of either sex. In Manchester I could enumerate a variety of instances in which I found such promiscuous mixture of the sexes in sleeping-rooms. I may mention one; a man, his wife and child sleeping in one bed; in another bed, two grown up females; and in the same room two young men, unmarried. I have met with instances of a man, his wife, and his wife's sister, sleeping in the same bed together. I have known at least half-a-dozen cases in Manchester in which that has been regularly practised, the unmarried sister being an adult.

"In the course of your own inquiry, how many instances, if you were to look over your Notes, of persons of different sexes sleeping promiscuously, do you think you met with ?—I think I am speaking within bounds when I say I have amongst my memoranda above 100 cases, including, of course, cases of persons of different sexes sleeping in the

same room.

"Was it so common as to be in nowise deemed extraordinary or culpable amongst that class of persons ?—It seemed not to be thought of. As a proof of this I may mention one circumstance which just occurs to me:-Early in my visitation of Pendleton, I called at the dwelling of a person whose sons worked with himself in a colliery. It was in the afternoon, when a young man, one of the sons, came down stairs in his shirt and stood before the fire where a very decently-dressed young female was sitting. The son asked his mother for a clean shirt, and on its being given to him, very deliberately threw off the shirt he had on, and after warming the clean one, put it on. In another dwelling in Pendleton, a young girl 18 years of age, sat by the fire in her chemise during the whole time of my visit. Both these were houses of working people (colliers), and not by any means of ill-fame.

"During your inquiries were you able to observe any further demoralization attendant upon these circumstances?—I have frequently met with instances in which the parties themselves have traced their own depravity to these circumstances. As, for example, while I was following out my inquiries in Hull, I found in one room a prostitute, with whom I remonstrated on her course of life, and asked her whether she would not be in a better condition if she were an honest servant instead of living in vice and wretchedness. She admitted she should, and on asking the cause of her being brought to her present condition, she stated that she had lodged with a married sister, and slept in the same bed with her and her husband; that hence improper intercourse took place, and from that she gradually became more and more depraved; and at length was thrown upon the town, because, having lost her character, the town was her only resource. Another female of this

description admitted that her first false step was in consequence of her sleeping in the same room with a married couple. In the instance I have mentioned of the two single women sleeping in the same room with the married people, I have good authority for believing that they were common to the men. In the case which I have mentioned of the two daughters and the woman where I found the sailors, I learned, from the mother's admission, that they were common to the lodgers. In all of these cases the sense of decency was obliterated."

Mr. Baker, in his report on the condition of the labouring classes in Leeds corroborates this statement :

"In the houses of the working classes, brothers and sisters, and lodgers of both sexes, are found occupying the same sleeping-room with the parents, and consequences occur which humanity shudders to contemplate. It is but three or four years ago since a father and daughter stood at the bar of the Leeds Sessions as criminals, the one in concealing, and the other in being an accessary to concealing, the birth of an illegitimate child, born on the body of the daughter by the father; and now, in November, 1841, one of the Registrars of Leeds has recorded the birth of an illegitimate child born on the body of a young girl, ouly 16 years of age, who lived with her mother, who cohabited with her lodger, the father of this child, of which the girl had been pregnant five months, when the mother died."

The overcrowding of the tenements of the labouring classes is productive of demoralization in a mode pointed out by Mr. Barnett, the clerk to the Nottingham Union, who states

"That the houses are generally too small to afford a comfortable reception to the family, and the consequence is that the junior members are generally in the streets. Girls and youths destitute of adequate house-room, and freed from parental control, are accustomed to gross immoralities."

Hereafter, when considering the pecuniary means of defraying the expense of sanitary measures, it will be shown how much less of such consequences in most districts than may be supposed is ascribable to absolute poverty or real inability to pay for better accommodation. To obviate even immediate impressions of this description, I might adduce much evidence of the character of the following testimony of Mr. J. Thomson, of Clitheroe :

"What is the number of persons whom you have in your employment?-Men, women, and children, between 900 and 1000.

"Are you the owner of any of the tenements where they reside?— Very few; not more than 12 or 15.

"What description of tenements are they?-Houses with two rooms above, two rooms below, and a yard; and letting at a rent of from 71. to 81. per annum. These are occupied by foremen in various departments, and the better description of artisans.

"What wages do this description of persons earn?-Various, from 30s. to 31. weekly; averaging, perhaps, 24. weekly; out of which they y3s. per week for rent.

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"What is your experience in respect to the habits of the workpeople in these tenements ?-The remark which I have to make is on the very low state of feeling prevalent amongst even a high class of workmen as to The tenements sufficed for them when they were decency or propriety. young, but when the female children become young women, and the boys advance to puberty, and decency requires them to have separate rooms, the usual practice of the parents is to take the young women into their own sleeping-rooms. I have one highly respectable foreman who has one daughter aged 20, and another aged 22, sleeping on each side of the bed in which himself and his wife sleep. The next bedroom is filled with the younger children of both sexes, boys and girls, up to 16 years of age. The earnings of this family must have been 50s. per week. The rent they paid was 3s. weekly, which was little more than the interest on the money invested. I have remonstrated on the indecency of such habits, and on their bad effects, but the expense of the extra shilling a-week for a house with another bed-room was considered In my own tenements I have a sufficient answer to my remonstrance. built the additional room, and notwithstanding the remonstrances, I have required the additional rent. When they have remonstrated, I have told them of the fact, that the cost of the additional room would only be a beneficial deduction from the money spent in liquor."

It would require much time and various opportunities of observation to attempt to make an exact analysis of the combined causes, and an estimate of the effect of each separate cause which operate to produce the masses of moral and physical wretchedness met with in the investigation of the condition of the lowest population. But it became evident, in the progress of the inquiry, that several separate circumstances had each its separate moral as well as physical influence. Thus tenements of inferior construction had manifestly an injurious operation on the moral as well as on the sanitary condition, independently of any overcrowding. For example, it appears to be matter of common observation, in the instance of migrant families of workpeople who are obliged to occupy inferior tenements, that their habits soon become " of a piece" with the dwelling. A gentleman who has observed closely the condition of the workpeople in the south of Cheshire and the north of Lancashire, men of similar race and education, working at the same description of work, namely, as cotton-spinners, mill hands, and earning nearly the same amount of wages, states that the workmen of the north of Lancashire are obviously inferior to those in the south of Cheshire, in health and habits of personal The difference is traced cleanliness and general condition. mainly to the circumstance, that the labourers in the north of Lancashire inhabit stone houses of a description that absorb moisture, the dampness of which affects the health, and causes personal uncleanliness, induced by the difficulty of keeping a clean house. The operation of the same deteriorating influences were also observable in Scotland, and it may be illustrated by several instances which I have met with in the course of my own personal inquiries.

One of the circumstances most favourable to the improvement of the condition of an artisan or an agricultural labourer, is his obtaining as a wife a female who has had a good industrial training in the well regulated household of persons of a higher condition. The following instance of the effect of the dwelling itself on the condition of a female servant when married, was brought to my notice by a member of the family in which they had been brought up. One was of a young woman who had been taught the habits of neatness, order, and cleanliness most thoroughly as regards household work.

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"Her attention to personal neatness," says a lady who is my informant, was very great; her face seemed always as if it were just washed, and with her bright hair neatly combed underneath her snowwhite cap, a smooth white apron, and her gown and handkerchief carefully put on, she used to look very comely. After a year or two, she married the serving man, who, as he was retained in his situation, was obliged to take a house as near his place as possible. The cottages in the neighbourhood were of the most wretched kind, mere hovels built of rough stones and covered with ragged thatch; there were few even of these, so there was no choice, and they were obliged to be content with the first that was vacant, which was in the most retired situation. After they had been married about two years, I happened to be walking past one of these miserable cottages, and as the door was open, I had the curiosity to enter. I found it was the home of the servant I have been describing. But what a change had come over her! Her face was dirty, and her tangled hair hung over her eyes. Her cap, though of good materials, was ill washed and slovenly put on. Her whole dress, though apparently good and serviceable, was very untidy, and looked dirty and slatternly; everything indeed about her seemed wretched and neglected, (except her little child,) and she appeared very discontented. She seemed aware of the change there must be in her appearance since I had last seen her, for she immediately began to complain of her house. The wet came in at the door of the only room, and when it rained, through every part of the roof also, except just over the hearth-stone; large drops fell upon her as she lay in bed, or as she was working at the window: in short, she had found it impossible to keep things in order, so had gradually ceased to make any exertions. Her condition had been borne down by the condition of the house. Then her husband was dissatisfied with his home and with her; his visits became less frequent, and if he had been a day labourer, and there had been a beer-shop or a public-house, the preference of that to his home would have been inevitable, and in the one instance would have presented an example of a multitude of cases.

"She was afterwards, however, removed to a new cottage, which was water-tight, and had some conveniences, and was built close to the road, which her former mistress and all her friends must constantly pass along. She soon resumed, in a great degree, her former good habits, but still there was a little of the dawdle left about her; the remains of the dispiritedness caused by her former very unfavourable circumstances."

I visited some other dwellings not far from the one above described, and met with another instance of a female who had been brought up as a servant in a well-ordered house, and who, for her