Notting Hill in Bygone Days: Portobello Road and Kensal New Town

There seems to be a natural break where the railway embankment crosses Portobello Road. At this point the old lane was interrupted by low marshy ground, overgrown with rushes and water-cress, and it is said that snipe were shot here almost within living memory. The stream which commenced close to Portobello Farm was blotted out in the building of the railway, but it is quite understandable that the existence of water still makes itself manifest from time to time in the basements along Lancaster and Cornwall Roads.

Portobello Farmhouse. From a sepia drawing by W.E. Wellings, developed from a sketch made in 1864.

North of the hidden stream the ground rises sharply, and here, before the year 1864, stood Portobello Farm in the midst of widely extended cornfields and meadow-land, with scarcely a house to be seen all the way to Kensal Green. But a footpath leading to Notting Barns diverged on the left before the farm-house was reached, and a ” lodge ” was situated by the gate where this footpath joined the lane. The elm trees bordering this path, and the lodge are shown in the drawing here. See also the map of 1850.

This lodge is still represented by a tiny house close to the railway.

In its later years Portobello Farm was known as Wise’s Farm. The farm-house is said to have been built by Mr. A. Adams shortly before 1740, see Chapter III, although Abraham Adams does not seem to be mentioned in the Rate Books until 1795, when a man of that name leased nearly two-thirds of the pasture land belonging to the Manor of Knotting Barns.

In 1816 William Wise appears on the scene. He took over the whole of Mr. Adams’ farm, rated at £410, and, before the year 1829, had added to his possessions portions of Knotting Barns land which had already passed through other hands. ” Porto-bella ” was now rated at £700 or even more, and ” Mr. Wise farmed all the land north of Cornwall Road.”

In 1854 the Misses Talbot offered ” the substantial Farm Residence ” with 12 acres of land for sale, and a further lot of 30 acres of freehold meadow land to the west of Portobello Lane. Probably this remained unsold. The illustration above is from a drawing made in 1864, shortly before the farm-house was bought by the Institution of the ” Little Sisters of the Poor ” belonging to St. Servan, Brittany.

St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged was placed on the site, and was opened by this community about the year 1866. The last piece of old wall only disappeared in the year 1882 when a wing was added to the large building in Portobello Road. All that now remains of the farmstead is the memory of the orchard, which occupied the site of the charming walled garden presided over by the coloured figure of St. Joseph. Two hundred or more aged men and women, of various creeds, are tended by the Sisters, and, until war-time restrictions made it impossible, the inmates were largely supported by contributions of food and money collected daily by two Sisters, accompanied by a covered cart driven by an old man.’

In 1862, nearly four years before Portobello Farm disappeared, a large Franciscan Convent, with St. Elizabeth’s Home for Children, was placed on the other side of the lane. (Since 1896 this convent has belonged to the Dominican Order, and the St. Elizabeth’s Home has been turned into St. Anne’s Home for Working Girls and a school for children suffering from diseases of the eye. Nuns in black and white habits may be seen sauntering among the beautiful trees in the garden behind the white brick building.) In the days of the Franciscan occupancy about a quarter of an acre of the grounds was reserved for the interment of the nuns. This cemetery, a triangular grass plot, edged with trees, was sanctioned by the Home Secretary in 1862. Eight nuns were buried there before the year 1895 ; then the coffins were re-interred in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green. ” Armed with the minute from the London County Council authorizing her to visit burial grounds ” a sister of the writer, in 1893, applied at the gate for admission, and was courteously shown this hallowed spot by the Mother Superior herself.

To return to about the year 1860, just north of Portobello Farm was a gate where the lane split into two. The footpath to the right passed through ” Meadowlands ” to Kensal Road by a five-barred gate and a level crossing over the Great Western line. The other footpath, afterwards the continuation of Portobello Road, reached Kensal Green by foot-bridges over the Great Western Railway and the canal. An interesting plan exists, dated March 1865, a ” Design for Laying out the Portobello Estate for Building Purposes,” signed Henry Currey, 5, Lancaster Place, Strand. The fields lying south of the Hammersmith and City Railway were then being built over (see page 178), and land had been taken already for the two convents ; but, in spite of this reduction in area, the remaining portion of the Portobello Estate was larger than the Hippodrome Estate. According to this plan it was proposed to build rectangular streets over the whole estate. The scheme was not carried out. The triangle of North Kensington east of Portobello Road is now a distinct district, which, with Kensal Town, forms the Golborne Ward. It was late in the sixties before any serious attempt was made to develop this district ; but, when once set in hand, streets of good-sized, middle-class houses soon covered the meadows and the cornfield on the site of Warnington or Wornington Road.

Portobello Bridge, a brick bridge with a small signal-box beside it, replaced the level crossing over the railway, and the path from Portobello Farm to Kensal Road was planted with trees, and was known as Britannia Road. Later on the trees were cut down and the name was changed to Golbourne, and, still later, to Golborne Road. Golborne Hall, ” a plaster-fronted brick chapel,” belongs to this early time. It was erected by Mr. Allen, a local builder and seems first to have been used for Church of England services. Then the hall was bought by the Rev. Mr. Davies, a Congregational minister. (It is now Golborne Road Protestant Church.) But the building of a large Gothic Church was soon commenced in a field north of the Great ‘Western Railway, close to Golborne Road. At this spot the parishes of Paddington, Kensington and Chelsea meet. The Order in Council describes the new parochial district as ” certain extremities of the parish of All Saints, Notting Hill, of the Consolidated Chapelry of St. John’s, Kensal Green, and of the new parish of Holy Trinity, Paddington.” The church, designed by E. B. Keeling, Esq., for a considerable time was left unfinished, but was eventually consecrated during a furious gale on January 8, 1870. The Rev. Robert Towers had been appointed incumbent in 1869 ; he remained in charge of the parish until 1902. It had been arranged that the church should be dedicated to St. Andrew, but, at the suggestion of the Bishop of London, the name of St. Philip was added in order to distinguish it from St. Andrew’s Lancaster Road, which had been destroyed by fire in 1867 (see page t 53). Christ Church, Faraday Road, was not built until 1881. Christ Church is a simple Gothic church with the unusual feature of a narthex or vestibule. There is also a vicarage and parish-room and an enclosed garden containing tall plane-trees ; showing that there was land and to spare when the church buildings were planned. The Rev. Edward Wrangles Clarke was vicar from the commencement, and lived to see his parish entirely covered with houses. (The Christchurch Oxford Mission is now in charge.)

Proposed plan for part of the Portobello Estate, signed Henry Currey March 1865.

” Green Lane Park ” was the name proposed for the new district. This was followed by ” Portobello Park,” and later by ” Upper Westbourne Park,” a name still occasionally used. Originally it had been intended that Golborne Road should cross Kensal Road and the canal, so as to connect North Kensington with Harrow Road. The Paddington Canal Company stopped this design by placing a footbridge over the canal where no thoroughfare existed. Wedlake Street Bridge, built by the London County Council, after-wards took its place, and the halfpenny toll was discontinued. Had the original plan been carried out probably the whole district would have developed in a more satisfactory manner. Between the Great Western Railway and Portobello Road the growth of population was so rapid that the school accommodation provided by churches and chapels was quite inadequate, and Wornington Road School was actually the first Board-school to be built in North Kensington. It opened on March 2, 1874 ; and has twice been enlarged. At that time the surrounding streets were inhabited by superior mechanics and railway employes. To a limited extent this character has been maintained. It is difficult to trace the origin of the names of the streets in this quarter. Golbourne, now Golborne Road may be derived from Dean Goulbourne, the beloved vicar of St. John’s, Paddington. Swinbrook is probably the name of a person, not, as suggested, the name of the brook which rose close to Portobello Farm. St. Ervan’s Road is named after a holy man whom Prebendary Denison, formerly of St. Michael and All Angels, sought for in vain in the Calendar of Saints. (Could the name be derived from St. Servan, Brittany, page 187 )

But immediately surrounding Christ Church is an interesting group of streets representing leaders in the world of science and engineering : Wheatstone, Faraday, Murchison, Telford and Rendle or Rendel. The names of Hazelwood Crescent and Appleford Road do not refer to earlier conditions. In olden times there may have been nut-bushes in this part of Middlesex Forest, but no apple trees grew beside a ford, for there was no stream here until the canal was made along Harrow Road. Murchison Road was formerly known as Queen Anne’s Terrace, probably because the houses were of red brick. There are few other signs of colour or variety. The upper end of Portobello Road is peculiarly depressing. The long unbroken line of houses and shops on either side of the way look shabbier than the more uneven buildings in the older parts of ” the Lane,” and the shops have a dreary habit of keeping their blinds drawn half-way down. Naturally the street is the playground of children and dogs. Most of the houses are let out in floors, although built for a single family and quite unsuited to the needs of three or four. ” I can imagine, if I try hard,” writes Dr. Paget, ” a world of dull tints and stupid outlines with no more claim to good looks than a house in Portobello Road might care to make.” 3 It is only through an intimate knowledge of the heroic lives passed in these uninspiring surroundings that any enthusiasm can be aroused. The lowest depths of untidiness are reached in some of the mews

Yet, just at the corner where Portobello and Wornington Roads meet, Lavie Mews carries the mind back to semi-rural days. Forty or more years ago a circus stood on this spot. Later on donkeys, used on Wormwood Scrubbs, were stabled here, and a half-penny was charged for a ride from one end of the mews to the other. This is the reason why ” Donkey Mews ” is its local name.

Immediately to the north of the Portobello Area is Kensal Town which covers the detached portion of Chelsea parish lying south of the Paddington branch of the Grand Junction Canal. Since the London Government Act of 1899 came into force, this ” outland ” of Chelsea has been reckoned as belonging for municipal purposes to the boroughs of Paddington and Kensington, though for parochial and parliamentary purposes it is still part of Chelsea. The portion belonging to Kensington now embraces Kensal Road between Bosworth Road and Ladbroke Grove, and, crossing the line of the Great ‘Western Railway, includes some houses on the north side of Wornington Road. Blocks in the pavement indicate the boundaries of the parishes. The map of 1833 (see 4o), shows the ” outland ” when it was divided by Harrow Road and the canal but was not yet hemmed in by the railway. It was still entirely rural.

The larger portion lying north of Harrow Road remained as fields, chiefly used for the grazing of sheep, right up to about 1875 when the land was required for the building of Queen’s Park Estate. The early history of the Chelsea ” Outland,” first as part of Middlesex Forest, and then as four fields covering the whole 1371 acres of the enclosure, has been told in Chapter I. Its temporary connection with Knotting Barns ceased in 1543, when Robert White was obliged to give up possession of all his lands in Kensington, Paddington and Chelsea, and these fields, as part of the Manor of Chelsea, were given by Henry VIII to Catherine Parr, as her marriage portion. As early as the middle of the fifteenth century part of this land was included in the ” Manor of Malures ” which Henry VI ceded to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford. That college still owns land in Kensal Green, and its name is perpetuated in All Souls Cemetery. In 1557, during Queen Mary’s reign, Thomas or Alexander Hues, Esq., one of the Queen’s ” phicisions,” bought part of Chelsea and other lands from the Queen in order to found two or more scholarships at Merton College, Oxford. The names of the Chelsea fields in 1544 and 1557 are given in Chapter I. From the deed of 1557 it would seem that the wedge-shaped portion, now included in North Kensington, covered part of the field called Darking Busshes and part of the field of Baudelands. Two later surveys are recorded.

Early in the eighteenth century a List of the Chelsea Fields was made by Dr. John King, rector of Chelsea. By this time the quaint names given in Chapter I had been replaced by the Mead, the Wood Ground called Bushfield, the Barn Field and the Four Hills. These names suggest that groups of trees or thick undergrowth still existed. The second survey was made and a map drawn in 1767, by order of a later rector, the Rev. Reginald Heber. This map was preserved in St. Luke’s vestry when Faulkner wrote his History of Chelsea. The land was then divided into eight or nine ” pieces ” distinguished chiefly by the number of acres they contained. At the end of the eighteenth century one building stood perhaps on the south side of Harrow Road. This was a mill for preparing from woollen rags a flock-dust, which was sprinkled on paper hangings to give them the appearance of cloth. This mill was said to be in ” Little Chelsea in Kensington parish.” Up to the middle of the nineteenth century these pastures were sometimes called ” Chelsea Reach ” ; ” Upper Chelsea ” is another and more suitable name. Little change in the rural character of the district was produced by the making of the Paddington Branch of the Grand Junction Canal between the years 1795 and 1801. Some thirty years later the Flora Tea Gardens and a few small houses appeared on Harrow Road at the point where the canal turns southwards. See pages 76 and 194 The back of these buildings overlooked ” the canal with the rich pastures leading to the Uxbridge Road and the Surrey Hills.” These words were written in 1838.

Already the Great Western Railway crossed the landscape. It was the building of this line, between the years 1832 and 1838, that effectually isolated the strip of land lying between the canal and the railway. From this time onwards a village, to which was given the name of Kensal New Town, began to develop on lines of its own. The map of 1841, on page 76, shows Kensal Road with some houses on the northern side. They had gardens opening on to the towing path, and a group of cottages stood by the ferry where the road emerged on Green Lane. East Row, Middle Row, West Row and South Row were built by 1850. It is evident, therefore, that Kensal New Town came into existence between 1835 and 185o ; and this agrees with the date of St. John’s, Kensal Green, a church which was commenced late in 1843. See illustration on page 214. For a good many years the village consisted only of the ” Rows ” and Albert, otherwise Kensall Road. The staple industry was laundry work, ” in fact Kensal New Town was a laundry colony.” In this trade men and women alike were engaged. But a good many pigs were kept, and in the evenings the cottagers employed themselves in their gardens, the produce from which proved a further source of profit to the family exchequer. ”

Fifty years ago there were more roses than houses in Kensal New Town,” and part of it remained very countrified, although so near London, nearly up to the end of the nineteenth century. A friend remembers how pleased she was as a child to accompany her mother to the cottage where their laundress lived, for she was always given beautiful flowers from the garden which bordered the canal. The following particulars will become clearer by consulting the Weekly Dispatch map of about 1855 on page 194. In 1845 a trotting match attracted a great concourse of people to the village. A pony, belonging to a Mr. French, harnessed to a light trap, accomplished one hundred miles well under the allotted sixteen hours. The race started from ” The Friend in Hand ” in Middle Row, and must have been run on ground known as ” the Common,” ground now occupied by the Omnibus Garage and St. Mary’s School. From the late fifties to ” some time in the seventies ” a noted beer-house, known as the ” Beehive,” stood where the pathway from Portobello Lane, afterwards Golborne Road, joined Kensal Road. A cheap-jack sold his wares outside this tavern ; but further west, apparently on the space now represented by Wedlake Street, a Saturday night market was held : Edgware Road, the nearest shopping centre, being difficult to reach across the fields. Frequent rowdy scenes took place in this open market, until at last the Rev. Bee ‘Wright, well-known at the time for his opposition to Sunday trading, got permission to put up an iron chapel on the ground. But the first place of worship erected in the village was the tiny Primitive Methodist Chapel in Middle Row, now overshadowed by the lofty elementary school beside it. It has been claimed that this chapel has existed on this spot for more than one hundred years. This, however, is incorrect. Two Wesleyan Chapels are shown on the map on page 194, and the map also gives the names of six public-houses in the village. Besides laundry-work there was another recognized local profession : that of dog-fancying and dog-stealing. The most noted character in the dog-fancying line was ” Bill George,” a famous ” pug ” or prize-fighter in earlier days, who lived first at the Paddington end of Kensal Road, but later on moved into the heart of the village. At ” Canine Castle ” he kept a remarkable collection of valuable dogs, and was often visited, so the story goes, by members of the aristocracy, as also by anyone who had lost a dog. For a consideration Mr. George could generally find the missing pet : in blunter language ” money would get your dog back.”

Many of the inhabitants were Irish, and racial jealousy under the guise of religious feeling ran high, just as it ran high in Notting Dale. ” Who are you for, the Pope or Garibaldi ? ” was the favourite challenge. Then the opposing camps would range themselves for battle. There was a serious riot of this kind in Middle Row about the year 1860 ; while two or three hundred policemen were assembled beside the canal to be called on if necessary. This riot gave a bad name to Kensal Town.

The organized fights between Kensal Road and Lisson Grove boys have been already referred to. See page 169. The canal formed an integral part of the village. Wharfs existed along Kensal Road, as they exist to this day. Taft’s Wharf was situated where Elcom Street now stands. There was a good-sized stone wharf which occupied the site of the Paddington Baths and Wash-houses until 1866, and also the large wharf at the western end of the road, from which barges still carry bricks, sand, straw, hay, or rubbish to be burnt in the brickfields beyond the limits of London.8 But bargees, who have always been an hereditary and distinct race of people, unlettered, hard-working and spotlessly clean, never seem to have seriously influenced the inhabitants of Kensal Town.

Near the site of the Dust Wharf, opposite the gas-works, stood two little cottages, in one of which a son of William Mulready lived for many years. He used to paint scenes visible from this high spot, and the drawing of Notting Hill Farm is probably from his brush. See page 62. The canal was exposed all along this portion of the Harrow Road, and the tow-path always had, and still has, a great fascination for the boy population of the neighbourhood, although beyond Kensal Green, even in the seventies, it was very lonely and was infested with bad characters. In the present condition of the canal it is difficult to realize that pleasure trips were ever a favourite form of recreation. The accommodation barges of earlier days had disappeared (see page 73), but many drawings exist showing passenger steamboats laden with ladies and gentlemen in the costumes of 1840 to 1865, taking advantage of cheap trips arranged during the summer months. Almost to the end of the nineteenth century row-boats might be hired from Piner’s Boat-yard, near the Great Western Road, or Sunday-school treat parties might be taken to Greenford by means of Brooks’ barges.

As soon as Golborne Road connected Portobello Lane and Kensal Road the isolated character and village life of Kensal New Town began to disappear. As already stated the new roads south of the railway line were inhabited by a respectable working-class population, largely recruited from railway men. The roads planned north of the railway were intended for the same class of inhabitants. Unfortunately most of the houses were at once claimed by a rougher set of people, and have since become more and more degraded. Mr. Charles Booth describes this as one of the worst districts in London, and social workers recognize that Southam Street (with its 140 nine-roomed houses in which 2,500 people were living in 1923, an average of two persons to every room in the street), and the equally crowded roads in the immediate vicinity, for bad housing accommodation surpass even the Special Area of Notting Dale. It is the basements which are so appalling, those ” slum basements, where rheumatism and consumption and drink scribble their names on the dirty wall-paper “. Naturally this part of North Kensington figures week by week in the police news.

But from the earliest days of the colony the Powers of Light have contended against the Powers of Darkness. Kensal New Town, being part of Chelsea, belonged to the parish of St. John’s, Kensal Green, but after 1870 the church of St. Andrew and St. Philip also served the growing population.

Bosworth Hall was opened for worship in the same year. From 1870 to 1878 this was a branch of Westbourne Grove Chapel, and was ministered to by the Rev. H. W. Meadows. Bosworth Hall was then acquired by Mr. Hammond of Edgware Road, and continued to be used for Divine Service until Mr. Hammond handed it over to the Rev. Dr. John Clifford, in 1884, for a Mission Centre connected with Westbourne Park Chapel. (Clifford’s Inn, a public-house without drink, was added in 1901, and Bosworth Hall was rebuilt in 1903.)

In 1872 a Roman Catholic Mission was established in Absolom Road, now part of Golborne Gardens. It is represented by the fine, lofty, brick church of ” Our Lady of the Holy Souls ” in Bosworth Road opened in 1882, by the ” Convent of Mercy ” in Hazlewood Crescent, and by St. Mary’s Schools in East Row, accommodating nearly seven hundred scholars. For many years St. Andrew’s Parochial Schools have stood in Bosworth Road facing Southam Street. But the Mission day school held at Bosworth Hall was of still earlier date. This little school, twenty-one feet long, twelve feet wide, and nine feet high, with one small window to the outer light,u became woefully inefficient for the teeming multitude of children for whom little other school accommodation was available. But it was not until August 1878 that a Board-school was opened in Middle Row. (Middle Row School has been twice enlarged and now accommodates 1,600 scholars.)

Many social and philanthropic agencies have been situated at the Paddington end of Kensal Road, and their number has been added to in recent times. The Cobden Club, affiliated with the Club and Institute Union, was largely helped in early days by Mr. Passmore Edwards, and the foundation stone of the present tall building was laid by Lord Lyttelton in November 1880. Before 1899 the Cobden Club had a membership of nearly 1,000. The part played by this Club in social welfare is differently estimated by different persons. There was also the little Mission Room where Jim Salmon, a painter, and Owen Murphy, the evangelist, from their own experience of slum life and its temptations, were able to influence for good many of their former companions; and the ” Railway Mission ” (now known as the West London Open-Air Mission), largely supported by Mr. C. J. D. Derry, the founder of the drapery business in Kensington High Street. The first Mission building to be placed in Kensal Town itself seems to have been the Gospel Mission Hall, built by Miss Thompson about 1882, between Middle Row and West Row, where a number of small houses had formerly stood. Here Miss Thompson has lived for over forty years, and no account of Kensal Town could be written without mention of her self-sacrificing labours for the good of the people. She came to the district in 1873 when it was still a village, with flower-bedecked cottages, in order to help Miss Merrington with her Infant Day Nursery in Edenham Street. This was one of the very earliest Crèches to be opened in England, and, as pioneer work, is worthy of special notice. (A Crèche is locally known as ” the Screech.”) In 1877 Miss White of Porchester Gate, with the aid of Miss Thompson, opened a Coffee Room and Centre for Mission work in Golborne Gardens, which was shifted at a later date to 21, Appleford Road.

About the year 1890, a Free Medical Mission was added to the other forms of charitable relief. ” Nurse Thompson’s,” as the Medical Mission is generally called, is popular in the neighbourhood, and is interesting as being a unique effort of its kind. By 1885 the whole of Upper Chelsea, both north and south of Harrow Road, was covered with houses, and the parish of St. John’s, Kensal Green, contained some 20,000 souls. At this juncture the Rev. G. W. Lawson was induced to take up work in Kensal Town. In a letter to the present writer Mr. Lawson tells how at first services were held over a butcher’s shop. The room soon filled in spite of odours which were anything but pleasant. An iron building belonging to the London City Mission was then used. ” It soon became evident that a church was required. . . . And, as St. Thomas in the Liberty of the Rolls was being pulled down, the proceeds in part were devoted to the new St. Thomas’s Church . . . the rest was raised by subscriptions and donations.” The foundation stone was laid by H.R.H. Princess Christian in May 1889. With its steeple and the large Parochial Hall this church forms an effective group at the corner of Kensal Road and East Row. Mr. Lawson was inducted to the living, and was faced with a flock of over 3,000 souls, closely packed and somewhat uncivilized. But he reckons that between Mr. Towers, at St. Andrews, North Kensington and himself ” there must have been some 14,000 people.” It is a significant fact that, for health reasons, the vicarages of both these churches are outside their respective districts. (The fourth vicar is now in possession.) Very little has been put into print about this corner of London, and, in gathering together the story of Bygone Days, it has been necessary almost entirely to rely on the reminiscences of persons still living. Few distinctive features remain and ” Kensal,” as it is familiarly called, is fast becoming much like other suburban slums. But in South Row and at the west end of Kensal Road some vestiges of village life may still be found, and certain corners and courtyards lower down the road retain a strangely old-world appearance. Most of the cottages in the centre of ” the Town ” have disappeared, for houses, left empty, become derelict in an incredibly short space of time. (The story is told of two or three dwellings in Middle Row from which all the available woodwork was stolen within two days.)

Cottages have been replaced by poor shops or by rows of uninteresting houses, and factories and other trade premises now cover what used to be gardens and drying grounds for linen. But typical one-storied houses stood on the east side of East Row until they made way for the dainty Japanese water garden and Children’s Recreation Ground known as Elmslie Horniman Park or The Pleasance. The illustrations on page 202 are of these houses shortly before they were pulled down in 1911. It was on open ground between these houses and Bosworth Road that a group of gipsy families used to establish themselves during the winter. A fair was held in the encampment, and other members of the group helped at the annual entertainment in the Agricultural Hall. This was at the beginning of the present century, but may be regarded as a survival of a former age.

Besides distinctive features, the special characteristics of the inhabitants are being lost. On good authority it is stated that before the War nearly two-thirds of the women supported their husbands. Steam laundries have replaced hand laundries. But far less laundry work is done, and many of the women of Kensal, like their sisters of Notting Dale, have had to take to other employments. It may be that moral conditions are not so bad as has sometimes been asserted ; but they are bad enough, and the enormous rateable value attached to some of the public-houses tells its own tale. A dweller of long standing in Kensal Road confessed that, though he had carried on business with these people for many years, he could not fathom their ways, for people who live in degraded conditions become very deceptive and refuse to be interfered with. And in graphic language he added : “As long as four or five families inhabit one house so long there will be awfulness!”