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Victorian Housing for the Poor- Slums |
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From the The Victorian Dictionary compiled by Lee Jackson " It was one dense mass of houses, through which curved narrow tortuous lanes, from which again diverged close courts- one great mass, as if the houses had originally been one block of stone, eaten by slugs into numberless small chambers and connecting passages." John Timbs, Curiosities of London, on St Giles Rookery "Wreteched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper; every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three- fruit and "sweetstuff" manufactures in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a "musician" in the front kitchen, a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one- filth everywhere- a gutter before the houses, and a drain behind- clothes drying, and slops emptying from the windows:...men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting and swearing." Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1839 on St Giles Rookery "By the time have finished their pipes (on a Saturday half-holiday) it is probably two o'clock, and they then proceed to clean themselves up-that phrase being equivalent among "the great unwashed" to the society one of performing your toilet. The first part of the cleaning-up process consists in "a good wash", and it is completed by an entire change of dress. A favourite plan of the cleaning-up on Saturday afternoons is-among those who live within easy reach of public baths-to take their clean suits to the bath, and put them on after they have bathed, bringing away their working suits tied up in a bundle. Some of the higher-paid mechanics present a very different appearance when cleaned up from that which they presented an hour or two before, when we saw them sauntering out of the shop gates." Thomas Wright, Some Habits and Customs of the Working Class, 1867
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