ve boarders and lodgers in it, that such lodgers of both sexes by no
means rarely sleep in the same bed with the married couple; and that the
single case of a man and his wife and his adult sister-in-law sleeping in
one bed was found, according to the "Report concerning the sanitary
condition of the working-class," six times repeated in Manchester. Common
lodging-houses, too, are very numerous; Dr. Kay gives their number in
1831 at 267 in Manchester proper, and they must have increased greatly
since then. Each of these receives from twenty to thirty guests, so that
they shelter all told, nightly, from five to seven thousand human beings.
The character of the houses and their guests is the same as in other
cities. Five to seven beds in each room lie on the floor--without
bedsteads, and on these sleep, mixed indiscriminately, as many persons as
apply. What physical and moral atmosphere reigns in these holes I need
not state. Each of these houses is a focus of crime, the scene of deeds
against which human nature revolts, which would perhaps never have been
executed but for this forced centralisation of vice. {65} Gaskell gives
the number of persons living in cellars in Manchester proper as 20,000.
The _Weekly Dispatch_ gives the number, "according to official reports,"
as twelve per cent. of the working-class, which agrees with Gaskell's
number; the workers being estimated at 175,000, 21,000 would form twelve
per cent. of it. The cellar dwellings in the suburbs are at least as
numerous, so that the number of persons living in cellars in
Manchester--using its name in the broader sense--is not less than forty
to fifty thousand. So much for the dwellings of the workers in the
largest cities and towns. The manner in which the need of a shelter is
satisfied furnishes a standard for the manner in which all other
necessities are supplied. That in these filthy holes a ragged, ill-fed
population alone can dwell is a safe conclusion, and such is the fact.
The clothing of the working-people, in the majority of cases, is in a
very bad condition. The material used for it is not of the best adapted.
Wool and linen have almost vanished from the wardrobe of both sexes, and
cotton has taken their place. Shirts are made of bleached or coloured
cotton goods; the dresses of the women are chiefly of cotton print goods,
and woollen petticoats are rarely to be seen on the washline. The men
wear chiefly trousers of fustian or other heav