MODERN DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.
BY H. G. REID,
Author of ' Pasf and Preseitt,' ' L$e of fhc Rev.John Skinner,' tit.
ONE morning in the year 1861, the inhabitants of Edinburgh were startled
by the intimation of an occurrence which left sorrowful memories, redeemed
only by the influence which it had in helping on a great social reform.
During the night a huge pile of old buildings had gven way and fallen,
burying many of the dwellers amidst the ruins. Prompt exertions were made
to remove the dkbrk, and save as many of the unfortunate sufferers as might
be possible, A large space had been almost cleared; the workmen had
mounted the ladder to complete some portion of their dangerous and disagreeable
task, when they heard a voice cry-' Heave awa', chaps, I 'm no
dead yet I" Over an archway in the High Street is carved the figure of the
little hero, and this motto marks the spot. The event aroused much sympathy,
and called attention at once to the defective condition of workmen's
dwellings in Edinburgh, and the efforts that were being made to effect an
improvement. To one movement in particular, which has assumed large
dimensions, and exercised a widely beneficial influence here and elsewhere,
it is our special purpose to call attention.
Various causes had combined to produce the state of matters that
existed, and still unfortunately exists to a large extent, notwithstanding all
that has been done.
Edinburgh, beautiful for situation, and rich in noble and historic buildings,
had long been deficient in respect to the dwellings of the people. In course
of years the Old Town mansions, spacious for their time and purpose, and
picturesque even in their ruins, were deserted by their wealthy occupants, and
converted by a process of partitioning into tenements for the working classes.
80 EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT.
In the march of progress it was necessary to construct new streets, and erect
railway stations and public buildings. To make way for these improvements,
whole blocks of buildings occupied by the poor were swept away, and no
adequate provision was made for those whose dwelling-place had been
removed. Thus, while the demand for houses was necessarily increasing,
from the natural growth of the population, the number of houses was being
steadily diminished.
The inevitable result was that tenements already too small and overcrowded
were further subdivided ; families and lodgers were crowded into
hovels having neither light nor air nor seclusion ; the High Street, and the
lanes and alleys which extend from it on either side like so many arteries,
formed the chief centre for the working people; and many of the sober
and industrious, able and willing to pay a reasonable rent for a comfortable
house, were compelled to seek shelter in these abodes. Some
conception may be thus conveyed:-An archway four or five feet wide
leads through the breadth of the first ‘land’ into a close, not much wider,
where the houses rise story above story till the light of heaven is almost
excluded. A long, narrow, winding stair leads through darkness and dilapidation,
to what is meant for a door. Knock ; the door, hingeless and broken
perhaps, is opened, and. you are admitted with ostentatious civility. Here,
then, is a room ten feet by eight, with what seems but a hole in the wall,
dignified with the name of ‘a dark bedroom;’ the roof is cracked; the
walls bear traces of damp and rain; the window is small, and the light
admitted scarcely sufficient to reveal the faces of seven inmates,-a father, a
mother, and five children, doomed to this living death. In another apartment-
or rather over the slender partition-four children and their parents,
a son-in-law, and a lodger, who could find no other .place, live together.
The census of 1861 revealed the startling facts that in Edinburgh 121
families lived in one-roomed houses, without a window ; and that 13,000
families-not less than 66,000 individuals-lived in houses of a single apartment,
1500 of which had from six to fifteen inhabitants in each. .
Some time before the occurrence of the sad event already mentioned, a
few working men had banded themselves together, with the view of seeking
deliverance from the position in which they were placed. One evening in
the month of April 1861, six or seven masons met with a friend in a dingy
room, down a dingy close, not far from where Hugh Miller, the prince of
masons, used to write his sagacious leaders,’ and issue those chapters in his
life-history which have inspired and directed many a lowly worker in Scotland.
