PUBLIC BATHS AND WASHHOUSES.

HL Deb 08 June 1846 vol 87 cc104-9

The BISHOP of LONDON

, on rising to present certain petitions respecting the institution of Baths and Washhouses for the Poor, said, that he was quite aware how difficult it was to attract attention at the present moment to subjects not connected with the great questions which now occupied the public mind; but the petitions he had to present were important, not only from the signatures which they bore, but from the subject to which they related. That subject nearly concerned the moral as well as physical welfare of the humbler classes of the population, affecting their moral welfare through their physical state; and, as such, he was sure it would meet with due attention from their Lordships. He wished to call their Lordships' attention to the advantage and importance of the establishment of baths and washhouses for the labouring classes; and the object of the petitions he was about to present was, to pray their Lordships to pass a Bill (which he had reason to believe would be shortly submitted to them) to enable parishes to borrow money on the security of the rates for the purpose he had mentioned. With respect to the interest of the money thus loaned, he apprehended that these institutions would amply repay the interest of the capital to be expended upon their establishment; but, even if no interest were to be returned, still the country would derive a great profit in the increased physical comfort and the improved moral state of the working classes. No one in the least acquainted with the subject could doubt how intimately connected with the good of the poor man cleanliness was. They must elevate the poor man from extreme destitution—they must take off from him the urgent pressure of misery before they could assail him, as a moral agent, with any chance of success. Without a change of this nature he was convinced it was not possible to effect any important amelioration in the condition of the working man. Experience had shown such beneficial results from the institution, when tried on a small scale, as to justify the strongest hopes of the greatest advantages if it were generally brought into practice. The petitions he had to present to their Lordships were the following:—One from the chairman and deputy-chairman of a Committee for promoting the establishment of Baths and Washhouses for the Labouring Classes; another from bankers and merchants of the city of London, signed by the heads of more than 100 firms; another from the chairman and deputy-chairman of the London Dock Company, employing several thousands of workpeople; another from the churchwardens, overseers, and guardians of the parish of St. Martin in the Fields; and another signed by 121 of the parochial clergy of London; and the petitions dwelt upon the importance of habits of cleanliness to the poor, and the duty of giving them the means of forming those habits. The evils, as the petitioners stated them, of the overcrowded state of the poor in the metropolis and other large towns, were well known to him, and he thought that it was a subject which had not been sufficiently attended to. He might be allowed to add that the great improvements which had been made in London of late years had not lessened the evil; on the contrary it was undoubtedly the case that great hardship had been inflicted on the poorer classes, who were driven out of the wretched tenements that were pulled down to make way for new streets, and driven to go and live in tenements still more wretched. The consequence was, that there were in the metropolis hundreds and hundreds of instances in which not one family, but two families at least, were living in the same room. He knew not whether any plan could have been adopted in making these improvements to prevent this result; but this at any rate was true, that no pains whatever had been taken to supply the defect, except by voluntary associations; but what they had been enabled to effect was but as a drop to the ocean. The effects were frightful to contemplate. A crowded state of a population led to a disregard of the common decencies and obvious proprieties of life; and he shuddered to think at the consequences to the miserable occupants, who had no choice but to occupy such places, or to perish in the streets; for uncleanliness certainly led to the loss of those appetencies for nobler objects which counteracted the baser attributes of our nature. But this was not all. From the evidence contained in the report on the sanatory state of towns, it appeared that overcrowding and want of cleanliness caused an aggravation of the general type of disease in the metropolis. There was a gradual deterioration of the constitution of the English labourer in the metropolis, and it was even necessary to have recourse to a totally different course of medical treatment to what had been formerly adopted, to so great an extent had this change of constitution gone. Where depletion was used formerly, tonics were now obliged to be given. Where tenements were so much overcrowded as at present, the necessary consequence was uncleanliness and loss of health. He himself remembered, when a parochial clergyman, 20 years ago, to have seen a tenement containing sixteen families, in all sixty-four persons, in sixteen different apartments; but that was nothing to the present state of things, where two families with five or six children each were often crowded into one room. It was obvious that a great boon would be conferred on persons so situated, if they had the means put in their hands of washing their clothes and linen apart from their dwellings. The practice of washing linen and clothes at home among the poor was open to objections. It was almost necessarily done in a manner that scarcely deserved the name; the things being often put into water that had been used for other purposes, and substances that he would only allude to substituted for soap. Then it was difficult to get the clothes properly dried after they were washed. The other part of the institution to which he solicited their Lordships' favour consisted of baths; and baths, he could assure their Lordships, were necessary to the health of those who had but few opportunities of purifying themselves from the dirt derived from their employments, and from the perspiration caused by hard labour. At Liverpool, where the scheme had been first tried, the greatest desire had been manifested by the labouring classes to avail themselves of the institution. In the year ending May 28, 1844, there were of cold bathers 3,882; warm bathers, 16,704; and the receipts were 303l., being an increase of 103l. as compared with the preceding year. In London a meeting had been held a year ago on the subject, but owing to various causes no great progress had been made. He must not omit to mention that he had last Saturday spoken to some women who were washing at the institution he was about to mention, and they had assured him of the great comfort and convenience which the opportunity of washing their clothes away from home was to them. Lately an association of charitable persons had opened baths and washhouses in Glasshouse-yard, in the city, on a small scale, and although the accommodation was of the most ordinary kind, nevertheless the following were the results, viz., that in the half-year ending November, 1845, there had been 13,538 bathers; 15,643 washers, being persons in the very lowest ranks of labour; and 140,034 articles washed. In the second half year there were 14,124 bathers, 19,934 washers, and 143,432 articles washed. So that in one year they had 27,662 bathers, and 35,680 persons, who had washed 260,526 articles. Now, if they added the other members of the families of those persons who had used the washhouses, they would find that, including the bathers, there were 87,000 persons who had either directly or indirectly benefited by this establishment. The whole cost of these advantages, exclusive of the money sunk in the apparatus, &c., was no more than 400l., being about one penny and half a farthing a head for the 87,000 individuals benefited indirectly, and of 1½d. per head for the number directly benefited. These baths were gratuitous: that, however, was not the case with respect to the baths of Liverpool, nor would it be the case in the institutions which the petitioners sought to establish. The eagerness displayed by those persons to avail themselves of cleanliness made it certain that the respectable portion of the labouring classes would gladly pay so small a sum as 2d. for a warm bath. The effect of this system could not be otherwise than beneficial to the poorer classes; and Mr. Owen, the surgeon, who had been mainly instrumental in the formation of the association, said the beneficial effects of bathing and washing on the poor were most striking to all those who come into contact with them. The outlay on building establishments of the kind proposed to be erected could not be very great, and a return upon the outlay of 13½ per cent was confidently expected, so that there could be no great ground for any apprehensions as to the amount of the parish rates which might be laid out. He thought, after what he had said, it was unnecessary to take up the time of their Lordships; but he would just add that the principle which he entreated their Lordships to sanction whenever the Bill to which he had alluded was brought before them, had been already recognised by the Legislature in a measure which authorized town-councils to raise rates for the erection of museums, or for the instruction and amusement of the people, an application of public money of which he entirely approved. Great credit was due to the Government of this country for having during the last few years paid so much attention to the instruction and amusement and needful recreation of the people—matters which had been too much neglected for a long period in this country; but it must be obvious to every one, that before these objects could be attained, before museums and public places of instruction could be made available, habits of cleanliness, and the means of maintaining those habits, must be diffused throughout the whole of the community.

The MARQUESS of NORMANBY

concurred in what had been so well said by the right rev. Prelate; but the petitions which he had presented referred to only one feature of this great subject. He hoped that, when their Lordships were considering this question, the state of the dwellings of the poor would not be overlooked. He could assure the right rev. Prelate, who had referred to this point among others, that he had more than once witnessed the condition of many of those dwellings; and the impressions left on his mind were still fresh as to the necessity of the Legislature interfering for the comfort of the people. He hoped the right rev. Prelate would not content himself with merely pressing upon the attention of the House the matter of baths and washhouses, but that he would give his valuable assistance in introducing some measure for the improvement of the dwellings of the poor.

LORD KINNAIRD

had also visited many of the poorer parts of the metropolis; and it was impossible to conceive the amount of wretchedness which had come under his observation. It was absolutely necessary that steps should be taken to prevent the dreadful overcrowding in many portions of the city, and also to secure the comfort of the inhabitants otherwise. Let their Lordships look to what was taking place in Bethnal-green. They were building houses every day, and yet there was not a single sewer in the district. The inhabitants complained bitterly of the stagnant water and filth which prevailed in that neighbourhood; but nothing was done to remedy the evil. The evils arising from want of drainage and from overcrowding were such as private enterprise could not reach, and therefore they ought to be grappled with by the Legislature.

Petitions read and ordered to lie on the Table.