MODEL LODGING HOUSES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

MODEL LODGING HOUSES.

In. Rowtoii House, London, there are 476 ■cubicles, the price of^ each being 6d per night. Bach is provided with a chair and an iron bedstead'with a spring mattress, ■a hair mattress, bolster;- blankets, sheets, and coverletf-in short, the complete furnishing of any bed. The price charged for this is 6d per night. The tirst year showed a profit of 5 per cent., and the enterprise •has now been taken over by a companyt of which Lord ftowton is chairman.^ During, the last three months before the company entered' into possession «the profits averaged 6 per. cent. The work is being: extended, and , similar lodging-houscis built in different, parts of London. The question was teoently'asked, 'Why not a Rowton House for clerks?' Why not, in-' , deed?. Many clerks earn less,than an artisan, as little as a casual labourer. They : can '111 afford to pay more than 3s a week for their lodging-, and for this sum the or-' ; dinary.. landlady gives • them ipopf accomf modation. It can hardly >be doubted that j-the lodgings, of young men of'the poorer i middle class are inferior'in both comfort and;healthfulness. to the houses We have been describing. Why should all the '.efforts of philanthropists' be" concentrated on those who wear rough clothes and who jdo MJnly manual labour? rln a complex 1 civilisation like ours the 'horny-handed son of toil' is not the only worker, not even .the hardest worker; and- the Very fact .that the clei'k has to spend jriore, out of earnings:■ whiqh are no greater than, those of the" working man (so 'called -par excellence) o'ri'clothes, on railway journeys, and -the like, makes ciieap good ■lodgings and cheap; good food a greatev boon to him than to" the other.;' It may be' said that the clerk is free to gO to Howtott House eVen now. He is, but- except In rare instances he won't dp it., Like 'draws to" like, and the sense of incompatibility of temper.and .taste, which would ke6p him from free association with those around him, would soon drive him away. —'The Hospital.' < - ,