"
He added the following anecdote to show the effect of poor lodgings in
degrading the character. A fine young man, of some considerable taste
and talent, obtained his living by designing patterns for wall paper.
A long and expensive illness so reduced his circumstances, that he was
obliged to remove to one of these low, filthy lodging houses already
alluded to. From that time he became an altered man; his wife said
that he lost all energy, all taste in designing, love of reading, and
fondness for his family; began to frequent drinking shops, and was
visibly on the road to ruin. Hearing of these lodging houses, he
succeeded in renting a tenement in one of them, for the same sum which
he had paid for the miserable dwelling. Under the influence of a neat,
airy, pleasant, domestic home, the man's better nature again awoke,
his health improved, he ceased to crave ardent spirits, and his former
ingenuity in his profession returned.
"Now, this shows," said Lord Shaftesbury, "that hundreds may have been
ruined simply by living in miserable dwellings." I looked into this
young man's tenement; it was not only neat, but ornamented with a
great variety of engravings tastefully disposed upon the wall.
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