THE LONDON POOIL
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPEOTATOR:1
SIR,—Your reviewer of the "Homes of the London Poor" shuns
up admirably much that needs to be said on the subjects of legislative interference as to sanitary measures, but he lays so much stress on the need of legislative action, and so little on the efficacy of personal effort and individual work, that I 'think a careless reader of the article might suppose that I had found reason to distrust the power of personal work, and was disposed to rely mainly, if not entirely, upon law and public administration for the improvement of London dwellings, and that the aim of my book was to enforce, that lesson. So little is this the case, that I beg you will allow me to say what my view really is. The book was written by me, solely in the hope of interesting individual workers in undertaking supervision of such courts as those described, as the one sure way of improving them and their- inhabitants. I have tried to show that personal influence is- needed, my experience having proved to me that Mrs. Browning,. whom your reviewer quotes, is right when she says :—
"It takes a high-souled man To move the masses even to a cleaner stye."
"Your Fouriers failed, Because not poets enough to understand That life develops from within."
Or to quote evidence more likely to be generally received, the Glasgow authorities said to me :—" The people displaced by the
wynds are making many of their new houses nearly as unhealthy as the old ones, from their fearful habits ; they have not bee. improved by mere change of surroundings."
I would not have troubled you with this explanatory letter,
but that the Spectator is read by many possible future workers. I should be sorry for them to think that the result of my many years' work had been that I think legislative action the most potent cure of the evil. On the contrary, my only aim in writing was
that people should first read, and then look for themselves whether they think such work worth doing in other courts.
Requests come to me almost daily from various parts of London, from those who have seen the operation of our work, asking us to extend it to additional places. We have abundant money waiting to be used; there are courts beyond courts which might be purchased and improved. It is the need of workers only which is preventing the further extension of the plan.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
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