Lodging house

“ This house was under the management of respectable people—a man and his wife, with a fixed salary—who had one hundred boarders, all men. Five or six beds stood in each room. Fresh air, cleanliness, and good order prevailed every where. I saw also a lodging-house somewhat of this kind, but for decayed gentlemen. Each of these had—besides a small sum weekly—a bedroom, together with fuel and the privilege of reading in a common room. Each cooked his own food by his own fire. ”

“ In short, the idea of a lodging, of simply a case for our existence from day to day which shields us only from the cold and from being overlooked by other people, was absolutely inapplicable to this house, an assembly of rooms as real as a colony of people, living, it was true, in silence, but things which one was obliged to meet, to avoid, to appreciate, as one came in. ”

“ The usual objections taken to a lodging-house are to the effect that the furniture is dingy, the cooking execrable, the servant a slattern, and the landlady either a crocodile or a tigress. Now my indictment against my Wretchedville apartments simply amounts to this: that everything was too new. ”

“ During my previous sojourn in London I lived as a student, sometimes in lodging houses and for sometime in a boarding house. The landlady of a boarding or a lodging house engages the house from the owner, engages cook and servants, and looks after the food and the cooking, and the lodger therefore has no bother whatever except paying weekly for his room and attendance and food. ”

“ These provided for separate lodging houses for men, where each man had a room of his own, with an adequate amount of air space, and where bathing and toilet facilities were provided. Recreational needs were met by having a smoking room, reading room, and billiard room in each house, and, unless provided elsewhere in the community, bowling alleys in the basement. It has been repeatedly emphasized to us that the men would not be satisfied unless a lodging house for them were run by some one who could speak their language, knew their national tastes, and could understand their problems. ”

“ Bunting from the very first. The seaside place where they had begun by taking a lodging-house became the scene of an epidemic. Then had followed a business experiment which had proved disastrous. But before going back into service, either together or separately, they had made up their minds to make one last effort, and, with the little money that remained to them, they had taken over the lease of a small house in the Marylebone Road. ”

“ It is not a long street, nor is it a very new one; but is it a very striking one, nevertheless. Every house almost you come to is a lodging-house, and some of them are very large ones, holding as many as four hundred beds. ”

“ The lodging-house where we sleep is crowded with dirty, thieving half-breeds, who would as willingly slit a man's throat as a pig's. Though they hold us as guests against our will, we must e'en pay our own score ”

“ The keeper of a common lodging-house is required to limewash the walls and ceilings twice a year—in April and October—and to provide a proper water-supply. The whole of the house must be open at all times to the inspection of any officer of a council. ”

“ She keeps a shop attached to the lodging house," continued the downrighter, "and if strangers, not knowing this to be the case, when applying for lodgings, have bread, tea, sugar, meat, etc., in their hands, that is bought elsewhere, this eccentric old landlady declines to receive them as lodgers, and they are forced, often late at night, to walk to the next town. ”

“ In model lodgings movement is impossible, and there are only 'sitting' rooms. The sleeping rooms will just contain the bed, perhaps, but not by any means the necessary air. The lodging-house societies mean well, and have done partial good: their efforts so far are deserving of the public thanks. ”

“ I crept into the office of an all-night lodging house. When it was discovered that I did not want a bed and had no money I was requested to vacate. I thought of going at once to the restaurant where I was to work in the morning but I remembered the manager had told me not to come before two o’clock. Already wet from exposure I sought the shelter of the flower stand. Eight men ahead of me had taken refuge there, but they kindly allowed me to crowd in. While we were protected from the beating torrent of rain, we were thoroughly chilled and suffering intensely. ”

“ Hospitality is most freely exercised still by the very poor. By degrees some individual became known as willing to entertain strangers for a small charge, and so by degrees also evolved the common lodging-house. A description of one such formed by natural evolution will be found in Chap. II., pp. 97 et seq. It was simply an old house, probably once a farmhouse, now situated in a slum quarter of a northern town. The sanitary arrangements for numerous lodgers were a sink in the common kitchen, and a w.c., perfectly dry, and in a dreadful condition. ”

“ There is the herberge in question, but with no light—welcoming sign!—for it is already ten o’clock, and its guests are all in bed. Dripping with rain, and with a rueful aspect, I prefer my request for a lodging. The “vater” looks dubiously at me out of the corner of one eye, till, having inspected my passport, he brightens up a little, and thinks he can find me a bed, but cannot break through the rules of his house so far as to give me any supper. It is too late. ”

“ The closed-up lodging-houses and cottages which, under the influence of the summer sun, grow bright and cheerful with flowers and the faces of children, in winter stare with blank window eyes at the cold gray sky and monotonous level of the sea. ”

“ The usual lodgings in this country is hammocks, suspended across the house, in which a person accustomed to them can sleep very comfortably. Mrs. Peggy wishing to treat me with extraordinary kindness, I being a kinsman of hers, furnished me with what she called a crawl, fitted up in a spare bedroom, for my lodging. ”

“ There is no law to say that the beds in a lodging-house must be comfortable. This would be quite an easy thing to enforce–much easier, for instance, than restrictions upon gambling. The lodging-house keepers should be compelled to provide adequate bedclothes and better mattresses, and above all to divide their dormitories into cubicles. ”

“ The lodging-houses are the head-quarters for beggars. The people go about during the day pursuing their avocations, and return home at night to regale themselves with their earnings. These people lie in bed till very late, and, if visited in the forenoon, may be seen sitting beside the fire, roasting herrings or frying meat. They live well amidst their wretchedness. ”

“ Every hotel and boarding house inside the fence was full, and pleas were made to cottagers to open their doors to incoming guests. Many who could not find lodging places on the grounds found homes in the hotels and hamlets around the Lake and came daily to the Assembly by trolley or by boat. ”

“ The chief characteristic of the house was that it looked like a home, its tasteful decoration and contents indicating that the inhabitants had come to stay. Most houses in the East have an unmistakeable air of being mere temporary shelters, where the owners are lodging till they can get away to their household goods now warehoused "at home." ”

“ In some streets you find lodging-houses inhabited by three distinct classes, who are as much separated from each other as if they lived fifty miles apart. The poor inhabitant in the attic may be dying while the first-floor lodger is entertaining a party of friends ”

“ I have nowhere to go to but the publichouse, nowhere to sit down, often nowhere to take my meals. We young men lodgers often sleep in one room, with two or even three generations of the same family, including young women and girls, unless, indeed, we can get into the model lodging-houses. Coffeehouses might save us, model lodging-houses might make model men of us ”

“ The keepers of common lodging-houses are required to limewash their walls and ceilings in the months of April and October in every year, and if paupers or vagrants are received to lodge, they may be required to report as to the persons who have resorted thereto. ”

“ In the sleeping room there is a long row of beds on each side, as many as sixty or eighty in a single room. In many lodging-houses the two sexes are permitted to lodge together without any regard for the commonest decency. ”

“ But after every available lodging device had been resorted to there were many people unprovided for. And so the coke-ovens were the best accommodation that could be offered those still unhoused.
In one of these unusual lodging-houses a candle cast its dim light over the figures of two men and a woman who were kneeling in the attitude of prayer. In one corner a black box rested on two backless chairs. It had been made an hour or two before by the local carpenter, and covered with black cloth by the kindly hands of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson. ”

“ It is even in vain that we issue directions for the cleansing of the rooms, or regulations, in the case of lodging-houses, for limiting the number of persons to be taken into them, or that we form model lodging-houses, in which a certain number of persons may be decently accommodated. ”

“ Lodging-houses.—The laws relating to the light, ventilation, plumbing, and drainage of tenement-houses in New York also apply to the numerous lodging-houses which shelter for a night at cheap rates the unemployed laborer, the homeless poor, and in some cases the vagrant and the outlaw. ”

“ From a lodge so neat and trim that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door, which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain, by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor. ”

“ We would either have to spend the night curled up among coils of rope, with no shelter except a windowless, furnitureless cupboard of four feet by three, which maybe called itself a cabin, or we would have to crawl humbly back to the inn and sue for a night's lodging. ”

“ Usually the ten- and seven cent lodgings are different grades of the same abomination. Some sort of an apology for a bed, with mattress and blanket, represents the aristocratic purchase of the tramp who, by a lucky stroke of beggary, has exchanged the chance of an empty box or ash-barrel for shelter on the quality floor of one of these "hotels." A strip of canvas, strung between rough timbers, without covering of any kind, does for the couch of the seven-cent lodger who prefers the questionable comfort of a red-hot stove close to his elbow to the revelry of the stale-beer dive. ”

“ I know when I am beat as well as the next man, and, losing no more time there, I ran as fast as I could along the wall, out of the lane, and so to the front of the house. The main entrance was protected by great gates of wrought iron, which were opened on occasion by a man in a little cubby of a cabin that stood for a porter's lodge. ”

“ It was made of iron grating and afforded a view of the interior. The lodge was a great stone house, standing in the middle of a clearing within an enclosure. In the rear were the stables. Not a soul was within sight and the gate was locked. ”

“ Some cottages, built near each other for common safety, are owned and possessed by the cultivators of the surrounding soil. Daylight has disappeared, and the inhabitants of the hamlet, wearied with their toil, have all retired to rest. Meantime a benighted traveller is threading his way to the spot expecting food and shelter in the house of his friend. ”

“ Our lodging was in log huts, of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth, in which ten or a dozen persons—men, women, and children—might sleep, but which could not protect them from dampness and cold, nor permit the existence of the common decencies of life. ”

“ Seven lodgings, that is bedchambers, were to have portals only; sixteen other lodgings were to be "seelyd" to the pendant's foot, and on the pastry house a wardrobe was to be made, with one close press, and open presses round about. ”

“ Having done this, they both issued forth to the lodge door. “You see yonder gulf, said he, and the wide stretching blue plains beyond. It is the land of souls. You stand upon its borders, and my lodge is the gate of entrance. But you cannot take your body along. Leave it here with your bow and arrows, your bundle and your dog. You will find them safe on your return.” So saying, he re-entered the lodge, and the freed traveller bounded forward, as if his feet had suddenly been endowed with the power of wings. ”

“ In the dim light you distinguish a little cottage, the dwelling of a sorceress; in the back-ground a lake surrounded by mountains, some of whose peaks are clothed with snow. All as yet is misty and indistinct;—the sun then rises triumphantly, chases the morning dews, and the hut, with the village in the distance, now appear in perfect outline. ”

“ A family of eight persons using three rooms in a house of this kind might let off the lower front room to an aunt or a mother at a rent of 2s. 6d. a week, live in the kitchen, and sleep in the two upstairs rooms. The advantage of such a way of living is its privacy. The single lodger, even if not a relative, is less disturbing than would be another family sharing another house. When the lodger is a relative, a further advantage is that a child is often taken into its grandmother’s or aunt’s room at night, and the terrible overcrowding is relieved just to that extent. ”

“ In the most remote hamlets, in the most solitary cottages among the mountains, the societies of lace workers still gather, in summer before their doors, in winter in the cottage of la béate. The house of this woman is surmounted by a little bell-cott. One such is to be found in the smallest cluster of cottages. The house consists uniformly, on the ground floor, of one large room that serves as chapel, refuge, school, and place of assembly. ”