At the far end of the living-room, two
doors lead into two little chambers, nine feet
by five feet nine inches, with good windows;
and in one a little stove and ventilators. In
these are iron bedsteads; these are children's
sleeping-rooms. A door at the side of the
living-room leads into the scullery, which runs
partly behind the stairs, and is fitted with a
ventilated meat-safe, sink, plate-rack, and
is to be supplied with water on the constant
system in the year—???? when that system
will be introduced into London. A door from
the scullery on one side opens into the parents'
bed-room, eleven feet six inches by nine feet,
separated from the living-room by an
intervening piece of scullery. The scullery door
being shut at night, that apartment becomes
a dressing-room, supplied with water, to
which wife or husband may retire and wash
in privacy, as sanitary fellows say they ought
to do every morning.

Under the sink is the coal-box; under the
plate-rack is the entrance to the dust-shaft,
the dust-bin being under the external stairs.
It's an infamous fact, sir, that all these things,
—these five rooms and a closet , leaving out the
lobby—are specially so contrived that they can
be let to tenants at a weekly rent of four
shillings and sixpence. I wanted to go up-stairs,
but to do that we had to go out of doors
again; the stairs are outside in that covered
recess, in order that each family may go
home without crossing a neighbour's threshold.
Up we went, and having mounted the slate
staircase and got upon a little first-floor porch
or balcony, turned to the left. Well, there
we had the arrangement of down-stairs over
again, and we came out; and I was going
down disgusted, when Molly was for seeing
number three, on the right-hand side
upstairs, but a policeman stops her; says he, it's
the office there for giving information. Round
I turn, and sure enough there's a notice
stuck up to the same effect. I immediately
look bland, and give a wink to my Tartar,
which she immediately twigs; we look as
much like spoonies as we can, and pretend
such uncommon satisfaction when we go into
the office, that we desire the amplest information;
for reason why, says I, sir, I've got a
little money, and I'd like to build some
cottages on this here plan. There are a lot
of plans laid out on the shutter, as if they
only wanted taking to a hospital to be mended;
bad enough, no doubt, they are, but I could'nt
make much out of them. There were
pamphlets and prospectuses, and we seemed to
have got into a nest feathered all round with
bits of edifying paper, in the middle of which
were two male birds, one of whom I addressed
in the way I've mentioned. Thinks I, as
another Ben says, Ben Jonson, somewhere—

"I am a gentleman come here disguised
Only to find the knaveries of this citadel;"

I'll get this chap to talk, and he will soon
commit himself. So, says I, sir, I 've got a
little money, and I 'd like to build some
cottages on this here plan.

I'm very glad to hear you say so, sir, says
he, and I shall be delighted to give you every
necessary information. Many gentlemen have
left these cottages, expressing their intention
to adopt the main ideas. Yes, I reply, feeling
as I do, doubtless. Exactly so, says he; and
I put my tongue in my cheek, and look at
Molly. Sir, I remark, as far as I can see,
you are a little hard upon existing landlords.
Lanes and allies yield a profit. Certainly, he
answers, smiling—nine, twelve, twenty per cent.
Seven, say I, with a chuckle; but look at the
losses. It's necessary that rents of poor folks'
dwellings should be high, because so many
don't pay, that we must hope to get a living
out of those who do. He looks at me.
Certainly, sir, says he; people reduced by
filth and disease rot upon gin, and don't
respect their landlord. Nevertheless, as you
observe, ordinary hovels are a source of no
small profit. He takes up one from a heap of
pamphlets lying on the table, and, says he,
Here's an Address upon the Habitations of the
Industrial Classes, by Dr. Gavin. It contains
a multitude of facts. Look here, in Leicester,
"there are eleven houses of one room each, at
first used as pigstyes, but the speculation
failing, they were converted into dwellings,
each fourteen feet by ten, by six feet six
inches high, with an average of five persons
in each room." Elsewhere "some of the
worst description of dwellings are those called
the cellars. These are small two-roomed
houses, situated in a dip, or hollow, between
a line of road and a vast cinder-heap. In
these miserable tenements, which are closely
packed together, and with nothing in front
and between them but stagnant pools of
liquid and house refuse, it is said that nearly
one thousand five hundred human beings are
congregated." In Clitheroe, "in order to
induce the people to live in them, the
landlords made an agreement with the tenants, by
which, whenever the cellars were flooded, no
rent was to be paid for the month in which it
occurred." "In these haunts of wretchedness,
I found," says Mr. Babbage," everybody toned
down to the same dull round of dirt, foul air,
and damp, and all the better feelings long
extinguished, unable to exist in such an
atmosphere." People toned down in that way, my
dear sir, can neither work nor pay their landlord
like more healthy men. You know how
it is in London, sir, says he. I think I do,
says I, turning up the whites of my eyes;—
shocking. Look, too, here, he continues—"Mr.
Richmond adverts to places in Chorlton-upon-
Medlock, termed cellars, which are unfit for
the habitation of any living thing higher in
the scale of creation than toads and vermin."
If you 've ever been into such places, you will
knowthat the expression is not a bit too strong.
I've been into such places, certainly, says I,
and I consider the expression very strong.
But now I'll trouble you for information on