It is observable, that not two in a hundred
of the people who let lodgings, receive
lodgers for the sake of adding to their
income. They scorn such a mercenary
consideration. Their house is too large for
them; they are anxious to add "a few
companions to their social circle;"—or they
let their apartments, "not for the sake of
emolument, but to meet with a respectable
tenant." People who let lodgings are invariably
accustomed to the highest society, and
can give the most impressive references. The
attractions they offer are overwhelming:
Elysium can be nothing in comparison with
the comforts to be had in an Islington first-
floor, at fifteen shillings per week. The most
fastidious must speedily be accommodated.
It must be a real pleasure to appropriate one's
first-floor to a genteel tenant, since emolument
is never sought by "people of the highest
respectability."

How happy people in lodgings must be!
They may be "surrounded with all the comforts
of home without its cares" at a nominal rate of
payment; they are at liberty to join "a cheerful
musical circle," where "rent is a minor
consideration;" they may direct their luggage
to a serene establishment "where there are no
children, or any other nuisances," upon
promising to pay "the quiet and serious lady of
the house" no more than the mere weekly
sum of twelve shillings; and it is their
own fault if they do not catch at "an
opportunity which seldom occurs" of ensconcing
themselves in a family where there are "no other
lodgers, and where a man-servant is kept."

People who let lodgings, in addition to their
high respectability and carelessness as to the
payment of rent, are frequently prodigies of
learning. Conceive the cultivated state of
that circle whence our native language is
banished, and "French is the tongue daily
spoken at table." Lodgings may not
unfrequently be secured in a house that is attended
by the best professors of every distinct branch
of learning, where lessons in Hebrew and
Greek—together with boot-cleaning—are
included in the unusually low terms of one
guinea per week. This magnificent offer is
usually made for the sake of securing "a fellow-
student for the advertiser's son;" of course, the
guinea per week is merely a nominal matter.

Some let lodgings only to present
advantages to happy bachelors and maidens
"deprived of a home." For thirty shillings
weekly, it is possible to rent a first floor in a
highly respectable neighbourhood, of parties
whose "religious principles are in strict
conformity with the Established Church." The
beatitude of occupying parlours underneath
High Church people, is too evident to need
a syllable of elucidation. There are also
lodging-letting widows, whose only wish is to
lift the responsibility of housekeeping off the
shoulders of "a respectable bachelor or
widower," and with a touching self-sacrifice
to place the burden upon their own back;
benevolent housekeepers, who devote their
entire attention to their lodgers, to the exclusion
of every other earthly consideration; and
mothers, at the lowest possible charge, for
respectable young ladies "of limited income."

Words cannot adequately describe the
splendour and the beauty of some of these
homes. "They are offered to a homeless
public because, being furnished in the
handsomest manner, with particular regard to
comfort," they are too good for the occupant,
who is too well off, and benevolently wishes
to share his domestic bliss with a less
fortunate individual, "whose references will bear
the strictest investigation." Such domiciles
often command extensive and varied scenery;
they are, without exception, in the most
fashionable locality; they are lofty and well
ventilated; they have all been recently fitted
up; omnibuses pass the door every five
minutes; and they are throughout scrupulously
clean. They are Utopias of elegance,
comfort, learning, morality, and respectability.
No wonder marriages are on the decrease in
a country where a bachelor may hire a
paradise, kitchen fire included, for a mere trifle.

What a devoted, self-sacrificial race must
the lodging-house keepers of London be!
Their virtues defy computation. They offer
splendour, the highest respectability, morality,
music, French, and natural solicitude, at the
lowest possible figure; for "money is no object."
They are too genteel—too easy in their
circumstances for cash to be to them of the
slightest consequence. No, they advertise
their virtues and their splendour, for the
Samaritan pleasure of admitting strangers to
be partakers of their good fortune.

We have gathered this little history of
people who let lodgings from their own modest
autobiographies, as we find them in the
advertising columns of the morning papers.
It may, perhaps, vindicate that maligned
class of persons from certain prejudices very
generally entertained against them. People
to whom rent is no object, will not purloin
port; a serious family will not appropriate
a lodger's pomatum; no cheerful musical
circle can entertain a particular regard for
their lodger's lumps of sugar; no High
Church family would peep into their lodger's
tea-caddy; and certainly no housewife whose
maternal solicitude can be had a bargain,
would think it proper to appropriate her
adopted child's bread-and-butter. Therefore
the calumnies circulated to the prejudice
of people who let lodgings should be exposed,
and the authors of them be held up to public
obloquy. People who give and exchange the
highest references, and who let their best
rooms for the pleasure of living in the kitchen,
and not with any idea of emolument, would
not stoop to petty thefts of the above mean
and detestable description.

Thus the cause of people who let lodgings
may be vindicated. Their lodgings are let,
and their gentility is not compromised.