Their clothes are
sometimes so old and shabby they do not want to show them, poor
things." I thought this feature worthy of special notice.
In addition to all these improvements for the laboring classes, very
large bathing establishments have been set up expressly for the use of
the working classes. To show the popularity and effectiveness of this
movement, five hundred and fifty thousand baths were given in three
houses during the year 1850. These bathing establishments for the
working classes are rapidly increasing in every part of the kingdom.
When we returned to our carriage after this survey, I remarked to Lord
Shaftesbury that the combined influence of these causes must have
wrought a considerable change in the city. He answered, with energy,
"You can have no idea. Whole streets and districts have been
revolutionized by it. The people who were formerly savage and
ferocious, because they supposed themselves despised and abandoned,
are now perfectly quiet and docile. I can assure you that Lady
Shaftesbury has walked alone, with no attendant but a little child,
through streets in London where, years ago, a well-dressed man could
not have passed safely without an escort of the police."
I said to him that I saw nothing now, with all the improvements they
were making throughout the kingdom, to prevent their working classes
from becoming quite as prosperous as ours, except the want of a
temperance reformation.
