Page:Dwellings of working-people in London.djvu/22

 town in the kingdom. No doubt very greatly improved legislation is required with reference to the dwellings of the labouring classes in every town of the kingdom; but with respect to London it is particularly so, and I admit that here in London we cannot follow altogether the example of Glasgow in one particular. We cannot meet the necessities of the case by erecting dwellings in the suburbs in the stead of those demolished in the city. The suburbs of London are so much farther removed from the centre than those of other towns, that at least those people whose work is not at regular times cannot live in the suburbs and follow their occupations too. Those, for instance, who have regular work between fixed hours in the morning and the evening, who don't work extra hours and who have sufficient means to enable them to go to and fro by railway, and to bear the increased expense of taking their mid-day meal apart from their wives and families, these may benefit by living in the suburbs. But a large class who must take their work to their employers at various uncertain hours (I might mention the case of tailors, for instance), and those who depend on having their mid-day meal with their families, and those whose wives or children earn money in town occupations, cannot go to dwellings in the suburbs. I may say parenthetically that it would be a misfortune in my estimation to have the large mass of working men toiling far from their homes all day while their families reside in the suburbs. Men would lead a working life quite distinct and apart from their home life. It is a happy thing for them to be able to return to their families for their mid-day meal; and, where they cannot do that, to have the wife or child taking the dinner to the father, and sharing it with him. That would be materially affected by obliging the working classes to any great extent to avail themselves of railways to travel to and from their work.

I say, therefore, the case of Glasgow is very different in that respect from London, where the centre of the town is so far distant from the suburbs. But there is this similarity, that there existed in Glasgow large districts where the buildings were overcrowded, where the sanitary arrangements were bad, which were perfect rookeries of crime, disease, and every kind of disorder, and which could only be got rid of by demolition. And we have the same evil to deal with in London as in Glasgow. It may, therefore, be profitable, and it is not uninteresting to examine what has been done.

What is it that we propose to do in London? What is it that the Memorials which have been presented to the Government by the College of Physicians and the Charity