(8) Lincolnshire
Langtoft. A man lives here, in Wright’s house, with his wife, her mother, and 5 children; the house has a front kitchen, scullery, bedroom over the front kitchen; front kitchen and bedroom, 12 feet 2 inches by 9 feet 5 inches; the whole ground floor, 21 feet 2 inches by 9 feet 5 inches. The bedroom is a garret: the walls run together into the roof like a sugar-loaf, a dormer-window opening in front. “Why did he live here? On account of the garden? No; it is very small. Rent? High, 1s. 3d. per week. Near his work? No; 6 miles away, so that he walks daily, to and fro, 12 miles. He lived there, because it was a tenantable cot,” and because he wanted to have a cot for himself alone, anywhere, at any price, and in any conditions. The following are the statistics of 12 houses in Langtoft, with 12 bedrooms, 38 adults, and 36 children.
TWELVE HOUSES IN LANGTOFT
House Bedrooms Adults Children Number of Persons House Bedrooms Adults Children Number of Persons
No. 1. 1 3 5 8 No. 7. 1 3 3 6
No. 2. 1 4 3 7 No. 8. 1 3 2 5
No. 3. 1 4 4 8 No. 9. 1 2 0 2
No. 4. 1 5 4 9 No. 10. 1 2 3 5
No. 5. 1 2 2 4 No. 11. 1 3 3 6
No. 6. 1 5 3 8 No. 12. 1 2 4 6
(9.) Kent
Kennington, very seriously over-populated in 1859, when diphtheria appeared, and the parish doctor instituted a medical inquiry into the condition of the poorer classes. He found that in this locality, where much labour is employed, various cots had been destroyed and no new ones built. In one district stood four houses, named birdcages; each had 4 rooms of the following dimensions in feet and inches:
Kitchen: 9 ft. 5 by 8 ft. 11 by 6 ft. 6
Scullery: 8 ft. 6 by 4 ft. 6 by 6 ft. 6
Bedroom: 8 ft. 5 by 5 ft. 10 by 6 ft. 3
Bedroom: 8 ft. 3 by 8 ft. 4 by 6 ft. 3
(10.) Northamptonshire
Brinworth, Pickford and Floore: in these villages in the winter 2030 men were lounging about the streets from want of work. The farmers do not always till sufficiently the corn and turnip lands, and the landlord has found it best to throw all his farms together into 2 or 3. Hence want of employment. Whilst on one side of the wall, the land calls for labour, on the other side the defrauded labourers are casting at it longing glances. Feverishly over-worked in summer, and half-starved in winter, it is no wonder if they say in their peculiar dialect, “the parson and gentlefolk seem frit to death at them.”
At Floore, instances, in one bedroom of the smallest size, of couples with 4, 5, 6 children; 3 adults with 5 children; a couple with grandfather and 6 children down with scarlet fever, &c.; in two houses with two bedrooms, two families of 8 and 9 adults respectively.