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Title: Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, - on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With Appendices
Author: Wheatstone, Charles, Chadwick, Edwin
Language: English
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SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT, FROM THE POOR LAW
COMMISSIONERS, ***
REPORT
TO
HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT,
FROM THE
POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS,
ON AN INQUIRY INTO THE
SANITARY CONDITION
OF THE
LABOURING POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN;
WITH
APPENDICES.
_Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty,
July, 1842._
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.
1842.
TO THE
RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES GRAHAM, BART.
HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT.
_Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
9th July, 1842._
SIR,
On the 14th May, 1838, the Poor Law Commissioners presented to Lord John
Russell a report “relative to certain charges which have been disallowed
by the auditors of unions in England and Wales;” together with two
supplementary reports; one a “Report on the prevalence of certain
Physical Causes of Fever in the Metropolis, which might be removed by
proper sanitary measures, by Neil Arnott, M.D., and James Phillips Kay,
M.D.;” the other a “Report on some of the Physical Causes of Sickness
and Mortality to which the Poor are peculiarly exposed, and which are
capable of removal by Sanitary Regulations exemplified in the present
condition of the Bethnal Green and Whitechapel Districts, as ascertained
on a personal inspection by Southwood Smith, M.D., Physician to the
London Fever Hospital.” (See Fourth Annual Report, App. A, No. 1.)
On the 29th April, 1839, the Commissioners received from Dr. Southwood
Smith a “Report on the prevalence of Fever in Twenty Metropolitan Unions
or Parishes during the year ended the 20th March, 1838,” which they
appended to their Fifth Annual Report. (App. C, No. 2.)
In August, 1839, Lord John Russell addressed the following letter to the
Commissioners:—
_“Whitehall, August 21, 1839._
“GENTLEMEN,
“The Queen having been pleased to comply with the prayer of an humble
address presented to her Majesty, in pursuance of an order of the
House of Lords, dated 19th August, 1839, that ‘Her Majesty will be
pleased to cause inquiry to be made as to the extent to which the
causes of disease stated in the Appendix A, No. 1, of the Poor Law
Commissioners’ Fourth Annual Report, and Appendix C, No. 2, of their
Fifth Annual Report, to prevail amongst the labouring classes in the
metropolis, prevail also amongst the labouring classes in other parts
of England and Wales, and that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased
to cause the results of such inquiry to be communicated to the
House’—I have to desire that you will cause inquiry to be made
accordingly, and that you will prepare a report upon the result of
such inquiry, and transmit the same to me, in order that it may be
laid before the House of Lords.
“I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant.
“J. RUSSELL.”
With the view of making the inquiry directed by Lord John Russell’s
letter, we addressed, in the month of November following, an instruction
to our Assistant Commissioners to report upon such parts of the subject
as were likely to come under their observation. We likewise addressed
letters to the several Boards of Guardians of Unions in England and
Wales, and their respective medical officers, requesting them to furnish
us with information in answer to certain queries. (App. Nos. 1, 2, and
3.)
The steps which we thus took for conducting the inquiry which we were
instructed to make have produced a large body of information, from which
we have selected for our present Report that portion which seemed to us
most important to the public, and most worthy of consideration by Her
Majesty’s Government.
From the reports transmitted to us by our Assistant Commissioners we
subjoin a report from Mr. Gilbert on the sanitary condition of the
labouring population in Devon and Cornwall: the reports from Mr. Mott
and Mr. Power with relation to the sanitary condition of the population
of Manchester and the adjacent manufacturing districts, which will be
found to be corroborative of the reports of Dr. Baron Howard and Dr.
Duncan: one from Mr. Twisleton with relation to the sanitary condition
of the population of Norfolk and Suffolk: one from Mr. Tufnell with
relation to the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Kent
and Sussex: a report from Mr. Parker on the sanitary state of the
labouring population in the counties of Berks, Bucks, and Oxford: one
from Mr. Weale on cottage accommodation in the counties of Bedford,
Northampton, and Stafford,—a report from Mr. Senior on the sanitary
condition of the labouring population in the counties of Leicester,
Lincoln, Nottingham, and Rutland: one from Sir Edmund Head on the
dwellings of the labouring classes, and on the means of procuring better
cottage accommodation in the counties of Gloucester, Hereford, Monmouth,
Salop, Worcester, Brecknock, and Radnor; three reports from Sir John
Walsham on the condition of the dwellings of the labouring population in
Durham, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Cumberland; and a
communication from Mr. Day on the cost of erection, repairs, and rents
of labourers’ cottages in Salop, Cheshire, and North Wales.
We have likewise received several valuable reports upon towns and
districts in England from medical men resident upon the spot.
We have obtained a report from Mr. Hodgson and a committee of medical
gentlemen of Birmingham on the sanitary condition of the labouring
population in that town.
We also append a report on the sanitary condition of the dwellings of
the labouring classes, &c., in Manchester, which we have obtained from
Dr. Baron Howard, physician to the Ardwick and Ancoats Dispensary of
that town:
Also, one on the condition of the labouring population in Liverpool,
from Dr. Duncan.
One on the condition of the labouring population in Derby, from Dr.
Baker.
One on the condition of the labouring population of Truro, from Dr.
Barham.
One on the condition of the labouring population of Brighton, from Dr.
Jenks.
One on the sanitary condition of the labouring population in the town
of Wolverhampton, by Dr. Dehane.
One on the prevalence of fever in the parish of Breadsall, Derbyshire,
by Dr. Kennedy and Mr. Senior.
One on the sanitary state of the town of Stafford, by Dr. Edward
Knight.
One on an improved description of cottage tenements for the labouring
classes, by Mr. Edmund Ashworth.
One on the sanitary condition of the town of Lancaster, Dr. de Vitrié.
One on the sanitary condition of the town of Leeds, by Mr. Robert
Baker.
The detailed statements which we received from the Boards of Guardians,
and the Union medical officers, were too voluminous for insertion at
length in the present Report; but we have caused them to be carefully
examined, and some of the most important results which they contained
have been extracted in the manner which we shall presently explain.
It will be observed that the inquiry which we were directed by Lord John
Russell to make, in accordance with the address of the House of Lords,
was limited to England and Wales. Subsequently, however, we received
instructions from the Marquis of Normanby, dated 28th January, 1840,
directing us to extend our inquiries to the causes of disease and
destitution amongst the working classes in Scotland.
On the receipt of these instructions, we caused a circular letter to the
medical practitioners to be sent to the provosts of all the Scotch
burghs, with a request that they would put us in communication with the
officers of the medical charities and establishments within their
jurisdiction. In the same letter we stated fully the objects of the
inquiry, and requested to be informed as to the general state of the
main sewers, drainage, &c., of the several towns. (Appendix, Nos. 4 and
5.)
In Scotland, with a few exceptions, none of the medical profession are
engaged in the public service as medical officers; and we were therefore
compelled to rely on the exertions of the private medical practitioners,
from whom we received extensive, zealous, and efficient aid. The
President of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh communicated to us a
resolution passed by that body, recommending that all members and
licentiates of the college should give every aid in their power to the
inquiry into the sanitary condition of the poor. We directed additional
queries to be issued to the members of the college, from some of whom we
received information similar to that obtained from the medical officers
in England.
With respect to the sanitary state of towns and districts in Scotland,
we subjoin the following reports from medical gentlemen:—
A report from Dr. Arnott upon Edinburgh and Glasgow:
One report from Dr. Scott Alison on the sanitary condition of the
colliery population of Tranent, and the adjacent districts:
One report on the condition of the labouring population of Musselburgh
from Mr. Stevenson, surgeon:
One report on the condition of the labouring population of Ayr from
Dr. Sym:
One on the condition of the labouring population, Stirling, from Mr.
W. H. Forrest, surgeon:
One on the condition of the labouring population in Dumfries, from Dr.
M’Lellan:
One on the sanitary condition of the poor of Aberdeen, by Drs. Kilgour
and Galen:
One on the sanitary condition of the town of Lanark, by Mr. John
Gibson, surgeon:
One on the sanitary condition of the city of St. Andrews, by Mr.
Adamson, surgeon:
One on the sanitary state of the town of Greenock, by Dr. Laurie:
One on the sanitary condition of Tain and Easter Ross, by Mr. James
Cameron, surgeon.
We have likewise received a report on the sanitary condition of the
labouring population in Inverness, from Mr. Anderson, solicitor; and
one on the sanitary condition of the Old Town of Edinburgh, by Mr.
William Chambers.
As our inquiries led us to believe that considerable doubt exists as to
the provisions of the existing law of Scotland upon matters concerning
the public health, and as there is not in Scotland any local
administrative machinery similar to that of the English unions which can
exercise a superintendence over the health of the working classes, we
obtained the services of Mr. J. H. Burton, advocate of Edinburgh, to
report on the legal provisions existing in that city and in other parts
of Scotland, and on the additional legislative measures which appeared,
from the reports of the medical gentlemen, to be expedient for the
improvement of the sanitary condition of the population of that part of
the empire.
We also obtained the services of Mr. Charles R. Baird, of Glasgow,
writer to the signet, who was pointed out to our notice by the
circumstance of his having paid much attention to the condition of the
labouring population of that city to report on the powers with which the
local authorities are at present invested by law, and the additional
powers they may need for the protection of the health of the
inhabitants.
It will be observed that the letter of Lord John Russell, in accordance
with the address of the House of Lords to Her Majesty, merely directed
us to make inquiry as to the extent to which the causes of disease,
stated in the Reports of Drs. Arnott and Kay, and of Dr. Southwood
Smith, to prevail amongst the labouring classes of the metropolis,
prevail also amongst the labouring classes in other parts of England and
Wales, and to transmit the results of that inquiry to the Secretary of
State for the Home Department. We should, therefore, have complied with
the letter of our instructions if we had merely laid before you the
information which we have collected in answer to the inquiries which we
circulated. It appeared to us, however, that so large a mass of
miscellaneous evidence would not be likely to convey a distinct view of
the subject of inquiry if we presented it in an undigested form to Her
Majesty’s Government; and we, therefore, requested our secretary, Mr.
Chadwick, to peruse the information which we had received, (including
the returns from the boards of guardians and union medical officers,)
and, by comparing the different statements with such authentic facts
bearing upon the question as he might collect from other sources, to
frame a report which should exhibit the principal results of the inquiry
which we were instructed to conduct. We subjoin the Report which Mr.
Chadwick has prepared in accordance with this request; and we present to
you this, and the other accompanying documents, in the full assurance
that, as they contain matters seriously concerning the welfare of the
community in general, and particularly of the working classes, they will
receive the attentive consideration of Her Majesty’s Government.
We have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your very faithful and obedient Servants
GEORGE NICHOLLS,
GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS,
EDMUND WALKER HEAD.
APPENDIX.
1.—_Circular Letter of Instructions to the Assistant Commissioners in
England._
Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
8th November, 1839.
Sir,—I am directed by the Poor Law Commissioners to call your attention
to the following letter lately addressed to them by Lord John Russell.
Whitehall, August 21st, 1839.
“Gentlemen,—The Queen having been pleased to comply with the prayer of
an humble address presented to Her Majesty in pursuance of an Order of
the House of Lords, dated 19th of August, 1839, that ‘Her Majesty will
be pleased to cause inquiry to be made as to the extent to which the
causes of disease stated in the Appendix A., No. 1, of the Poor Law
Commissioners’ Fourth Annual Report, and Appendix C., No. 2, of their
Fifth Annual Report, to prevail amongst the labouring classes in the
metropolis, prevail also amongst the labouring classes in other parts of
England and Wales; and that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to
cause the results of such inquiry to be communicated to the House,’ I
have to desire that you will cause inquiry to be made accordingly, and
that you will prepare a report upon the results of such inquiry, and
transmit the same to me in order that it may be laid before the House of
Lords.
“I am, Gentlemen,
“Your obedient Servant,
“J. RUSSELL.”
The Commissioners consider this the proper time for making arrangements
to obtain the returns and information on which they may prepare a report
to be submitted to the House of Lords in the ensuing Session of
Parliament.
The Commissioners request your particular attention to the subject, as
one of great importance to the labouring classes, inasmuch as it may
lead to the removal of the causes of prevalent and fatal diseases, and
of consequent destitution and suffering.
The steps which the Commissioners propose to take for obtaining the
information required by the order of the House of Lords, are:—
1. To procure from the medical officers of unions returns of the number
of cases of contagious or infectious disease, the spread of which within
their respective districts has been promoted by the circumstances
referred to in the order of the House of Lords, with their observations
thereon; for which purpose the Commissioners will issue the necessary
circulars to the medical officers.
2. To obtain information from the Boards of Guardians of districts in
which these diseases appear to have prevailed to a considerable extent,
and where the guardians have applied to municipal or other authorities
for the removal of circumstances promoting the prevalence of such
diseases.
3. In large towns, to request some physician,[1] or general practitioner
of eminent reputation, to prepare a report (founded upon data obtained
from the various dispensaries, infirmaries, fever hospitals, and other
similar public establishments) respecting the circumstances promoting
the prevalence of contagious and infectious diseases in such large
towns.
The Commissioners will be glad to receive from you the name of any
physician or general practitioner of sufficient eminence to obtain the
requisite data, and who will be willing to furnish them with such a
report in each of the towns in your district named in the margin.
4. If the means already indicated should prove insufficient, to obtain a
report from yourself founded on personal examination, on spots where,
from the returns or from other information, such examination by yourself
or the medical officer of the district may appear necessary.
Some of the chief considerations bearing upon the subject are set forth
in the reports referred to in the resolution of the House of Lords, and
if within your district there were any Boards of Health appointed during
the prevalence of the cholera, it is probable that their reports founded
on an examination of the condition of those classes amongst whom the
prevalence of that disease was apprehended may furnish you with useful
information.
The Commissioners wish further to observe that the state of the
dwellings occupied by the labouring classes exercises an important
influence upon their health, and the nature and frequency of the
diseases to which they are subject, as well as indirectly upon the moral
state of themselves and their families.
The Commissioners therefore request you to investigate the state of the
dwellings of the labouring classes in your district, both in towns and
in the country, with reference to the following observations,—
It will be desirable generally, after informing yourself of the various
descriptions of cottage tenements in your district and the nature of the
accommodation or comforts which they contain, to observe—
1. What is the common cost of erection, and the average cost of
repairing each description of these cottage tenements.
2. What are the rents paid by the labourers for each description of
these cottage tenements.
3. What is the general proportion of the rent paid by the labourer to
his total expenditure.
You may find within your district instances where the employers of
labour (whether agricultural or manufacturing) have erected on their own
lands tenements of an improved description for the residence of the
labourers employed by them. You are requested to take notice of all such
instances which may come before you, and examine them as standards of
comparison with other tenements of an inferior kind. You will inquire as
to the comparative health and condition of the inmates, and whether the
advantage of improved dwellings has been observed to have any salutary
influence on the moral habits of the inmates;—whether the increased
comforts of his house and home have tended to withdraw the labourer from
the beer-shop, and from the habits of improvidence to which it
leads;—whether residents in separate and improved tenements are superior
in condition, as compared with the labourers who hold merely lodgings,
or who reside with other families in the same house.
Where you meet with remarkable instances of improved tenements of this
description, you are requested to set them forth in your report, and
obtain the loan of the plans or drawings of them, together with any
information as to their cost and the probable returns in rent, and
whether on the whole (other advantages than the pecuniary return being
taken into consideration) they are deemed profitable; or what may be the
extent of pecuniary loss upon them, or how far it may be countervailed
by other considerations.
Although the facts collected by you may not lead to the adoption of any
legislative remedies, the publication of successful examples may be
useful in stimulating to the voluntary adoption of them.
The Commissioners wish you however to consider whether any legislative
measure in the nature of a Building Act (_i. e._ an Act prescribing
certain rules to be followed in the building of cottages) would tend to
introduce generally the improvements which may have been adopted
partially by public-spirited persons in your district.
This may be considered:—
1. In the case of tenements intended for the residence of the labouring
classes in towns;
2. In the case of cottage tenements in rural districts.
With regard to the former class of tenements, the wages of the labourers
in towns being commonly double those earned in the rural districts, they
may be well able to afford to procure such an increase of comfort in
their houses as may be obtained by means of a Building Act, even at the
cost of an additional rent. You are also requested, in your observations
on this subject, to bear in mind another question, namely, the
expediency of exempting small tenements from the payment of rates, or
wherever rents are collected weekly, of collecting the rates from the
landlord.
It has been stated that the exemption from poor’s rate tends to
deteriorate the tenements of the labouring classes, inasmuch as many of
such tenements are, for the purpose of obtaining the exemption, built of
such quality and appearance as may bring them within the exempted class.
It has been further stated, that the benefit of the exemption goes to
the landlord, the rent for cottages built for letting in towns being
very high as compared with rents obtained for other house property, and
that such increased rents have been demanded expressly on the ground of
exemption from rating. The causes affecting the construction of cottages
are not expressly mentioned in the reports referred to in the resolution
of the House of Lords, which treat chiefly of the external and
immediately-removable causes of disease, such as stagnant pools or other
out-door nuisances with which the parochial officers had to some extent
been heretofore accustomed to interfere. But the defective construction
of the cottages themselves, and the imperfect protection they may afford
against cold or damp—the want of means for the due regulation of warmth
or of conveniences for cleanliness, may often be the causes of the
prevalence of disease; and the Commissioners consider not only that
these subjects cannot with propriety be overlooked in any report on the
sources of disease among the labouring classes, but that the beneficial
moral results which may arise from the suggestion of improvements in the
habitations of the labouring classes justify the Commissioners in taking
this occasion to direct your attention to the heads of inquiry which are
noticed in this communication.
Signed, by Order of the Board,
E. CHADWICK, _Secretary_.
_To_
Assistant Poor Law Commissioner.
2.—_Circular Letter of Instructions to Clerks of the Boards of Guardians
in England and Wales._
Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
12th November, 1839.
Sir,—I am directed by the Poor Law Commissioners to inform you that they
have, in compliance with a communication from Her Majesty’s Secretary of
State for the Home Department, directed the enclosed letters to the
medical officers of your board, together with the accompanying forms for
their answers, and I am to request that you will transmit them
accordingly.
The medical officers will transmit to you the returns when completed,
and by you they will be forwarded when the information required is
obtained from all the medical officers to the office. In case of any
defect in the returns which cannot be remedied, you will state the
nature and extent of the same at the time of transmission.
Before transmitting the returns, you are to read them at a meeting of
the Board of Guardians, acquaint them with the answers, and annex any
further information which they may be enabled to communicate in aid of
the inquiry.
Signed, by Order of the Board,
EDWIN CHADWICK, _Secretary_.
To the Clerk to the Board of Guardians.
3.—_Circular Letter of Inquiry to the Medical Officers of the Unions in
England and Wales, transmitted to them, with Forms of Return, through
the Clerks to the Guardians._
Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
12th November, 1839.
Sir,—With the view of ascertaining the extent of the existence of
circumstances promoting the prevalence of contagious and infectious
diseases described in the reports referred to in the Order of the House
of Lords, set forth in the letter from Lord John Russell, a copy of
which is hereto annexed, you are requested to fill from the medical
relief Lists the enclosed returns, and transmit them to the clerk of the
union, with such observations as occur to you thereon.
You will observe that the object of the Commissioners is to ascertain
the existence and extent of the visible and removable agencies promoting
the prevalence of such diseases as are commonly found connected with the
defects in the situation and structure or internal economy of the
residences of the labouring classes.
The attention of the physicians who drew reports on the state of the
metropolis was almost exclusively directed to the causes affecting the
prevalence of various forms of _continued fever_, arranged under
distinguishing names adopted by nosological writers: but in rural
districts the prevalence of ague, and of small-pox, and scarlet fever,
may be worthy of notice when the causes promoting their prevalence
appear removable.
You will, in your observations on the class of cases returned, note the
situation, character and quality of the tenements in which the diseases
have occurred;—whether they are situated in a neighbourhood habitually
infected with malaria;—whether there are occasional causes of malaria,
such as floods, &c.; and in such cases, whether you have any suggestions
to make as to the best means of diminishing the evil;—whether they are
drained or undrained, whether tight or otherwise;—whether there are good
means of securing ventilation with a due regard to warmth;—whether there
are accumulations of filth, and if so, whether they are ascribable to
the slovenly or indolent habits of the inmates, or to the want of proper
receptacles for refuse;—whether the occurrence of disease amidst this
part of the population is regular or otherwise, and what are the seasons
at which it appears, and its characteristics.
The Commissioners request that you will favour them with any information
which you may have gained in the course of your medical experience, as
to the condition of the inmates of such residences;—whether there is a
need of superior cottage accommodation, or to what extent the
improvement of the residence would influence the habits beneficially;
as, for example,—whether you have witnessed any beneficial effects on
the habits of the inmates by providing cottages with a day-room,
scullery, pantry, three bed-rooms, and convenient receptacles for refuse
and for fuel;—whether within your district there are other labourers of
the like class, who occupy improved tenements in a superior situation,
and what is the general health and condition of the inmates as compared
with the general health and condition of the inmates less advantageously
situated;—whether you have seen any cottages constructed with a view to
the most economical management of fuel both in cooking and maintaining a
proper temperature in the rooms;—and further, any observations that may
occur to you on the subject of the health of the labouring classes in
connexion with what may appear to you to be available sanitary
regulations.
The accompanying portions of the report, and the appendix referred to in
their lordships’ order, are transmitted for your information as to the
causes of disease existing in the metropolis, which it is deemed
necessary to investigate in other parts of the country.
Signed, by Order of the Board,
EDWIN CHADWICK, _Secretary_.
To the Medical Officer of the District.
(COPY.)
Whitehall, August 21, 1839.
Gentlemen,—The Queen having been pleased to comply with the prayer of an
humble address presented to Her Majesty, in pursuance of an order of The
House of Lords, dated 19th August, 1839, “that Her Majesty will be
pleased to cause inquiry to be made as to the extent to which the causes
of disease stated in the Appendix A., No. 1, of the Poor Law
Commissioners’ Fourth Annual Report, and Appendix C., No. 2, of their
Fifth Annual Report, to prevail amongst the labouring classes in the
metropolis, prevail also amongst the labouring classes in other parts of
England and Wales; and that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to
cause the results of such inquiry to be communicated to the House,”—I
have to desire that you will cause inquiry to be made accordingly, and
that you will prepare a report upon the results of such inquiry, and
transmit the same to me, in order that it may be laid before the House
of Lords.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
(Signed) J. RUSSELL.
_Form of Return transmitted with the above Letter to the Medical
Officer._
_For the Year ended September 29, 1829._
A RETURN from Mr. ________ Medical Officer of the ________ District of
the ________ Union.
┌───────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ CASES. │Occupation │ Situation │ OBSERVATIONS. │
│ │ of │ and State │ │
│ │Applicants.│ of │ │
│ │ │Residence. │ │
├───┬───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│No.│Nosological│ │ │(If there should not be │
│of.│ Names of. │ │ │ sufficient space for the │
│ │ │ │ │ requisite Observations, │
│ │ │ │ │ space for the requisite │
│ │ │ │ │ Observations, they may be │
│ │ │ │ │ continued on the back of │
│ │ │ │ │ the Return, or on a │
│ │ │ │ │ fly-leaf, to be attached to│
│ │ │ │ │ the Return.) │
├───┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
└───┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
Signature of Medical Officer: ________
4.—_Circular Letter to the Provosts of Burghs in Scotland._
Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
London, 1840.
Sir,—The Poor Law Commissioners have received from Her Majesty
directions to extend to Scotland the inquiry they have, in compliance
with an address from the House of Lords, been directed to make in
England as to the causes of disease and destitution arising from the
situation and construction of the dwellings of the labouring classes,
and from other similar circumstances affecting their sanitary condition.
The Commissioners request your aid in conducting the inquiry in the
of The Commissioners have obtained valuable
information in England from the medical practitioners who have the care
of hospitals and dispensaries, where those contagious febrile diseases
to which their attention has been specially directed come under the
observation and treatment of experienced professional men.
The Commissioners ask of you the favour of putting them in communication
with the officers of the medical charities and establishments in the
of , whether supported by the voluntary subscriptions
of the inhabitants or by payments out of the town funds, or both.
The Commissioners desire to ascertain, either from the officers of
such institutions or from the medical practitioners of the most
extensive practice amongst the poorer classes, or from those who visit
them in their habitations, to what extent continued fever, and other
contagious febrile diseases, are prevalent amongst the poor;—what is
the character of the streets and houses in which these maladies most
frequently arise, or spread with the greatest rapidity; the state of
the paving,—scavenging, and sewerage of such streets,—their width,—the
drainage of the houses,—their size,—their state of repair,—the number
of families living under one roof,—the number living in cellars;—and
other circumstances relating to the structure and situation of the
habitations of the poorer classes, and their habits, by which they may
be rendered more susceptible of the influence of contagion.
The Commissioners would also be glad to obtain information whether the
main sewers of the town have been constructed in a satisfactory manner,
and kept in good repair; and to what body, and with what powers this
duty is confided;—whether there are any sanitary regulations of a local
character for the enforcement of the paving of streets, and of drainage
on the owners of houses erected within a reasonable distance of
sewers;—whether any local body has power to interfere in the removal of
any, and if so of what, nuisances injurious to health; or to cause
lodging-houses, and dwellings liable to be infected with fever, to be
cleansed and whitewashed from time to time, and by whom the expense of
such interference is sustained.
The Commissioners are further desirous of ascertaining whether the
authority possessed by the town council, or other local body intrusted
with the paving, scavenging, sewerage, the removal of nuisances and
other causes of disease, are sufficient, or might in any respect be
increased with advantage to the sanitary condition of the town, and
especially of those parts of the town which are inhabited chiefly or
exclusively by the working classes, and which are therefore
comparatively remote from the observation, and less subject to the
interference of the middle classes.
The Commissioners will be glad to obtain from you or from the town
council of any suggestions which you may be desirous to make on
the subject; and they trust they may have the benefit of your advice and
assistance in the inquiry with which they are charged in the of
and its suburbs.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your very obedient servant,
EDWIN CHADWICK, _Secretary_.
_To_
The Provost of
5.—_Circular Letter of Inquiry to Dispensary Surgeons and Medical
Practitioners in Scotland._
Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House,
London, 19th June, 1840.
Sir,—The Poor Law Commissioners have been directed to extend to Scotland
the inquiry which in the past year they received Her Majesty’s commands
to conduct in England, for the purpose of ascertaining what
circumstances in the condition of the poorer classes promote the spread
of continued fever and other contagious febrile diseases.
They are desirous that this inquiry should be conducted with care in
large towns, where the sources of contagion or the circumstances which
promote its rapid diffusion among the population are more rife than in
the rural districts; they are anxious to obtain the assistance of the
medical practitioners having charge of hospitals and dispensaries in
such towns, because such institutions afford the best means of observing
under what circumstances febrile contagious diseases are disseminated;
of defining the districts of the town in which they spread; of
ascertaining the character of the streets and houses in such districts;
the comparative attention paid to the paving, sewerage, and drainage of
these districts; and whether or not they are subject to malarious
influences.
The structure of the dwellings of the labouring classes; the nature and
extent of their internal accommodation, and of the means for securing
cleanliness, for removing filth, for promoting ventilation, and for
providing warmth with due economy, can be most easily ascertained by
medical gentlemen who devote their time to the frequently gratuitous
services of public institutions; they also are most competent to
discriminate between the direct influence of the habits of the poorer
classes, and of the external circumstances by which they are surrounded,
on their sanitary condition; while on the other hand they will not be
liable to fall into the error of supposing that these habits are
independent of arrangements which administer to domestic comfort.
The Commissioners trust, therefore, they may rely with confidence on
your affording them your valuable assistance in the inquiry which they
are directed to pursue. They trust you will permit them to suggest that
if the cases recorded in the books of your hospital were grouped
according to the districts from which the patients were removed, you
would at once be able to define in a map those parts of your town most
subject to contagious febrile diseases, and to furnish the Commissioners
with the number of cases of each febrile disease occurring in each of
these districts, and would possess the means of ascertaining and
delineating the features of those districts in all that relates to the
sanitary condition of the inhabitants, and to medical police. Besides
the general influences alluded to in the former part of this letter, you
will probably find it useful to ascertain whether any injurious
consequences are clearly attributable to certain classes of
manufactories surrounded by the habitations of the poor, to the location
of slaughter-houses, tanneries, ancient burial grounds, &c., amidst
dense masses of the population.
In the course of this inquiry it may be found necessary to distinguish
the extent of disease caused by physical or removable agencies, by
malaria created by defective drainage, or the bad construction of the
dwellings of the labouring classes, from disease caused by destitution
of the proper means of subsistence arising from poverty. It may be
expected of the medical practitioners from whom the Commissioners hope
to obtain reports, that they will make the distinction wherever it is
found to exist.
The Commissioners will value any suggestions you may have to offer
respecting the removal of the injurious agencies which may fall under
your observation. You are probably well acquainted with the nature of
the powers confided to the municipal authorities or other local bodies
respecting the paving, sewerage, and drainage of the town, and
especially of those parts of it which are inhabited chiefly or solely by
the working classes. The Commissioners request you to observe whether
those powers enable the municipal or other local body to complete the
sewerage, and to enforce the paving and drainage of the streets
partially or wholly at the expense of the proprietors of these houses.
The spread of contagious diseases is greatly facilitated in many towns
by the extreme filth of lodging-houses to which mendicants and vagrants
resort, and of the habitations of certain of the lowest portion of the
poorer class; measures of medical police have been resorted to on the
occurrence of epidemic fevers, and at the period of the invasion of
cholera, for cleansing and whitewashing these habitations at the expense
of the inhabitants. The Commissioners request you to state under what
circumstances you conceive such measures might be usefully resorted to,
and under what superintendence, and whether the expense should fall on
the owners of such habitations or on the inhabitants generally, and
whether this interference should be habitual or casual.
Suggestions have been made to the Commissioners that the nature of the
thoroughfares, and the structure and internal arrangement of the
buildings in districts inhabited by the working classes in large towns
would be greatly improved if subject to the regulations of a Building
Act enforced by the municipal authorities, or by a local board of
health; they invite you to reflect on the provisions of such a law, and
to state under what circumstances and to what extent you conceive such
interference desirable.
Generally the Commissioners are desirous to receive your impressions
respecting the means of improving the sanitary condition of the working
classes, especially in those parts of your town in which contagious
febrile diseases most frequently prevail.
Copies of the forms and exemplifications of the mode of entering the
particulars of the information sought in the returns circulated in
England, and the reports on the sanitary condition of the labouring
classes in the metropolis, are herewith transmitted for your use. The
Commissioners have not asked for returns in any prescribed form from the
medical practitioners in the towns of Scotland, because they are
uninformed as to the nature of the existing records of facts relating to
medical statistics in the towns, and they wish to consult the
practitioners’ convenience, and be guided by them as to the best use to
be made of the local circumstances for obtaining information.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your very obedient Servant,
EDWIN CHADWICK, _Secretary_.
_To_ ________
6.—_Form of General Queries addressed to Medical Practitioners and
others for Information as to the Condition of the Labouring Classes in
Scotland._
1. Have diseases of the various forms of continued fever, and other
contagious febrile diseases, been prevalent in any, and what, parts of
your parish or district, and do such diseases recur at regular
intervals, or are they rare and occasioned only?
2. What are the seasons at which such diseases appear amidst any part of
the population, and what their characteristics?
3. Did the cholera at the time of its general prevalence prevail to any,
and what, extent within the district?
4. What is the _external_ condition, in the following respects, of the
residences of the population amidst which such diseases occur?
(_a._) As to the contiguity of vegetable or animal substances in a state
of decomposition, stagnant pools or undrained marshes, accumulations of
refuse, either thrown from houses or otherwise?
(_b._) As to the means adopted or the means available for the _removal_
of such substances, or the prevention of the generation of malaria;
whether there are sufficient drains or sewers, adequately well supplied
with water to dilute, and sufficiently sloping to carry off all such
refuse; whether such drains are sufficiently _closed_ to confine noxious
exhalations from them; whether there is any regularly appointed service
of scavengers or otherwise for the removal of such substances; whether
there is such ventilation around the residences of, as to dissipate the
noxious vapours apparently irremovable?
5. Describe the _internal structure and economy_ of the residences of
the population amidst which contagious febrile diseases arise,—
(_a._) State whether they, as well as the surrounding land, are drained
or undrained?
(_b._) Whether they are properly supplied with water for the purposes of
cleanliness of the houses, persons, and clothing?
(_c._) Whether there are good means of ventilation with a due regard to
warmth?
(_d._) Whether there are proper receptacles for filth in connexion with
the cottages?
6. As to the internal economy of such residences, describe further,—
(_a._) Whether they are unduly crowded, and several families or persons
occupy the space which would properly suffice only for a less number?
(_b._) Whether there are any inferior lodging-houses crowded by
mendicants or vagrants?
(_c._) Whether there is gross want of cleanliness in the persons or
habitations of certain classes of the poor?
(_d._) Whether there is a habit of keeping pigs, &c., in
dwelling-houses, or close to doors or windows?
(_e._) Whether there is an indisposition to be removed to the hospitals
when infected with contagious disease?
7. Of the diseases described in question 1, are any or what proportion
ascribable to other causes than those specified in questions 4, 5, and
6? if so, distinguish those other causes so far as you are able, and the
extent of diseases resulting from them.
8. What is the common cost of erection and average cost of repairing
each description of the tenements or cottages inhabited by the labouring
classes?
9. What are the rents paid by the labourers for each description of
tenements or cottages?
10. What is the general proportion of the rent paid by the labourer to
his total expenditure?
11. What is the common cost of the lodgings to persons of the labouring
classes?
12. Are you of opinion that any, and what, legislative measures are
desirable or available for remedy of any of the evils existing within
your district?
13. Have any, and what, voluntary exertions been made to improve the
external or internal economy of the residences of the labouring classes
within your district? and if so, describe their nature and effects.
_Name of the parish or district to which the preceding answers│
refer._ │————————
_Name of the medical practitioner or other person by whom the │
answers are given._ │————————
NOTE.—Where the space opposite to any question does not suffice for
the full answer which it may be desirable to give, it may be written
on the blank space at the back of the sheet, or on a separate sheet,
reference being made to the number or letter of the question.
Any general observations may be hereunder annexed.
It is requested that the answer may be transmitted by the post to “The
Poor Law Commissioners,” according to the address on the inside of
the envelope which may be used for the purpose.
REPORT
ON THE
SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN.
BY
EDWIN CHADWICK, ESQ.,
BARRISTER AT LAW, AND SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS.
CONTENTS.
GENERAL PREVALENCE OF EPIDEMIC, ENDEMIC, AND CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.
PAGE
Return of the number of deaths in 1838, in each county, from
epidemic, endemic, and other diseases, most powerfully affected
by the physical state of a district 2
Extent of evils which are the subject of inquiry 3
I. GENERAL CONDITION OF THE RESIDENCES OF THE LABOURING
CLASSES, WHERE DISEASE IS FOUND TO BE THE MOST PREVALENT— 5
In Tiverton union, Cornwall 5
In Truro, Cornwall 6
In Cerne union, Dorset 8
In Axbridge union, Somerset 10
In Chippenham union, Wilts 11
In Bedford union, Bedford 12
In Woburn union, Bedford 12
In Ampthill union, Bedford 12
In Bishop Stortford union, Hertford 12
In Witham union, Essex 13
In Windsor, Berks 13
In Epping union, Essex 14
In West Ham union, Essex 14
In Bromley union, Kent 14
In Bilston, Leicester 15
In Stafford (town of), Stafford, 16
In Macclesfield union, Chester 17
In Heaton Norris, Stockport union, Chester 17
In West Derby union, Lancaster 18
In Wigan union, Lancaster 19
In Durham (city of), Durham 20
In Barnard Castle, Durham 20
In Carlisle, Cumberland 21
In Gateshead, Durham 21
Condition of the Border peasantry 22
In Lochmaben, Scotland 23
In Glasgow and Edinburgh 23
II. PUBLIC ARRANGEMENTS, EXTERNAL TO THE RESIDENCES, BY WHICH
THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POPULATION IS
AFFECTED— 25
Drainage.
_Town drainage of streets and houses._ 26
Instances of the effects on the public health of the neglect
of town drainage—
At Derby 26
At Stockport 28
Comparative mortality in two similar towns, one drained, the
other undrained—
At Beccles and Bungay, Suffolk 28
State of town cleansing at Leeds 29
At Tamworth 30
At Knutton and Chesterton, Stafford, &c. 30
At Liverpool 30
At Brighton 31
At Birmingham 32
At Edinburgh 33
At Tranent and Ayr 33
At Stirling 34
At Clitheroe, Lancashire 35
_Street and road cleansing—road pavements._ 36
Defective from want of skill or proper combination of means 36
Different influence on the public health of paved and
unpaved streets, instance of, in Portsmouth 37
Instance of the effect on the public health of street
cleansing in Macclesfield 37
Instances of the neglect of street cleansing—
In Manchester 38
In Leeds 39
Instances of the consequences on the public health of the
neglect of road cleansing in rural districts in England
and in Scotland 42
Discipline in respect to cleanliness of the army superior to
the civic economy of the towns 44
_House cleansing as connected with street cleansing and
sewerage._
Instances of the sanitary condition of houses in the
metropolis where the cesspools do not communicate with the
drains 45
Small value of refuse in London, in consequence of the
expense of cartage 46
Effects on the health of the accumulation of refuse near the
residences of the labouring classes: examples in
Greenock 46
Leeds 47
Cleansing by means of water-closets applicable to the poorer
districts as being the most economical 48
Instance of the removal of the refuse of the city of
Edinburgh by sewerage, and of its application to
agriculture by irrigation 48
Objections by the citizens of Edinburgh to irrigation by
sewers in the immediate vicinity of the city 49
Value of the refuse of London, on the scale of value of the
refuse of Edinburgh 51
Modifications of the mode of sewerage of Edinburgh, to make
a system of cleansing innoxious and profitable, and extend
it to the residences of the poorer classes 52
Expense of street cleansing in Manchester 53
Defects of the prevalent mode of removing the refuse of
houses by cartage, or otherwise than by sewerage 54
Instances of defective construction of sewers 55
Evidence on the action of improved modes of sewerage 55
Effects of different descriptions of streets upon the public
health 59
Proposed mode of cleansing streets by sweeping the refuse
into the sewers 60
Similar mode proposed of cleansing Paris 61
_Supplies of water._ 63
Necessity of improved supplies of water for house and street
cleansing 63
Instances of the want of water in the houses, and of the
effect on the personal and domestic habits of the lower
classes of the population in towns 63
In Manchester, 64; in Truro union, 65; in Audley district of
Newcastle-under-Lyme union, 65; in Dunmow union, 65; in
Bishops Stortford union, 65; in Lexden and Winstree union,
65; in Wootton, Bedford, 66; in Edinburgh, 66; in Glasgow,
66; in Aberdeen, 67; in Stirling, 67; in Dundee, 67; in
Greenock, 67; in Ayr, 67; in Arbroath, 67; in Renfrew, 68;
in Dunfermline, 68; in Tain, 68; in Tranent 68
Inapplicability of the supplies of water to be obtained by
fetching from the public wells 69
The supplies of water in London by machinery and pipes, and
in Paris by cartage and hand carriage, compared 70
Cost of laying on water in labourers’ tenements and the
economy of supply in such a mode 71
Supplies of water by private companies, not applicable to
rural districts of small population 72
Complaints against the modes of supplies of water by private
companies 72
Private companies do not ensure the best practicable
supplies to the public 73
Instance of supplies of water obtained by the public without
private companies 74
Necessity of general provisions of supplies of water 77
Unwholesome effects of bad water 77
_Sanitary effect of land drainage._ 80
General land drainage, effects of, on the health of the
population, instances of in—
The Isle of Ely, 80; the Newhaven union, 81; the Ongar
union, 81; the Gravesend and Milton union, 81; the Eastry
union, 81 and 82; the Dunmow union, 82; the Epping union 82
Instances of—
In Scotland 83
Instances of the effect of land drainage upon the health of
cattle 83
Instance of the effects of land floods and deficient land
drainage in—
The Langport union, 85; the Chesterfield union, 87; the Dore
union, 87; the Bicester union, 88; the Leighton Buzzard
union, 88; the Foleshill union, 89; the Malton union, 89;
Lochmaben, Scotland 90
Foreign illustrations of the effect of drainage upon the
health of the population 90
Interests opposed to the cleansing of Paris 93
Class similar to the Chiffoniers found in English towns 94
Their personal habits 95
Collateral benefit of more effectual cleansing of towns in
diminishing degrading employments 96
III. CIRCUMSTANCES CHIEFLY IN THE INTERNAL ECONOMY AND BAD
VENTILATION OF PLACES OF WORK; WORKMEN’S LODGING-HOUSES,
DWELLINGS, AND THE DOMESTIC HABITS AFFECTING THE HEALTH OF
THE LABOURING CLASSES. 98
Various effects of overcrowding places of work, as shown in
the case of one class of workmen 98
Comparative ease and economy of measures of prevention
rather than of relief 104
Sanitary effects of ventilation on workpeople at Glasgow 107
Effects of defective ventilation on the health of milliners
and dressmakers in the metropolis 107
Instances of the effects of defective ventilation of
sleeping rooms of the working classes 108
Effects of the defective economy of lodging-houses and
places of repose exemplified in the duration of life of
one class of workmen 112
Instances of errors in respect to the sanitary effects of
particular occupations 113
Injurious effects of deficient ventilation in schools 119
_Bad ventilation and overcrowding private houses._ 120
Great apparent increase in the proportionate number of
houses according to the last census attributable to a
different mode of making the return 120
Instances of great overcrowding in cottages in—
Greenock, 121; Tranent, 121; Sleaford union 122
_The want of separate apartments and overcrowding of private
dwellings._ 122
Effects of the overcrowding of private dwellings on the
morals of the population, instances of, in—
The Ampthill union, 122; the Leighton Buzzard union, 123;
the Bicester union, 123; the Romsey union, 123; among the
border peasantry, 124; in Manchester, Liverpool,
Ashton-under-Lyne, and Hull, 124; in Leeds, 126; in
Nottingham, 126; in Clitheroe 126
Instances of the injurious influences of bad tenements upon
the personal condition and moral habits of the inmates 128
Effects of noxious agencies in preventing frugality and
promoting intemperance 129
In preventing the influence of education 132
Force of habits of intemperance in the use of spirituous
liquors against all habits of decency, or frugality, or
morality 133
Misconceptions as to casualties occurring among the indigent
or profligate 134
Intemperance the cause of fever 136
_Domestic mismanagement a predisposing cause of disease._ 137
Mismanagement of earnings obstructive to the domestic
improvement of the sanitary condition of the labouring
classes.
Instances of in—
Derby, 137; Birmingham, 138; Manchester, 139; Preston union,
140; Ayr, 141; Tranent, 141; Dundee 142
Attacks of fever most frequent on workmen in full employment
and ordinary health 145, 147
Irrelevancy of controversy on the generation of fever, in
respect to practical means of prevention 148
Concurrence of medical opinions as to the most efficient
means of preventing fever 150
IV. COMPARATIVE CHANCES OF LIFE IN DIFFERENT CLASSES OF THE
COMMUNITY. 153
Instances of the comparative chances of life amongst the
gentry, tradesmen, and working men—
In Truro, 154; in Derby, 155; in Manchester, 157; in
Rutland, 157; in the Bolton union, 158; in Bethnal Green,
159; in Leeds Borough, 159; in Liverpool, 159; in the
Whitechapel union, 160; in the Strand union, 160; in the
Kensington union, 161; in Wiltshire, 161; in the Kendal
union 161
Tabular views of the ages at which deaths have occurred in
different classes of society 162
Comparative mortality of differently circumstanced districts
of the metropolis 164
Comparative prevalence of fever in different districts of
Leith 167
High mortality not essential to towns 167
Comparative mortality in three classes of the community at
Bath 168
Corroborative experience from Paris as to the influence of
local circumstances on mortality 170
Improvements in the health of large towns chiefly confined
to improved districts 171
Instance of progressive improvement in the social condition
of the population concurrently with its increase in
numbers 175
Prevalence of disease no evidence of the pressure of
population on food 177
Variations of the proportion of deaths and births in
different districts of the same town 178
Proportion of births to the population greatest where there
is the greatest mortality 179
Proof that pestilence or excessive mortality does not
diminish population 182
Numbers merely not the test of strength or prosperity of a
community 185
Deterioration of the strength of the population by disease
without diminishing its numbers 185
Increase of food or production concurrently with the
increase of population 188
V. PECUNIARY BURDENS CREATED BY THE NEGLECT OF SANITARY
MEASURES:— 188
Cost of remedies for sickness and of mortality which is
preventible 188
Average ages of death of the heads of families of widows and
orphans chargeable to the Manchester, Whitechapel, Bethnal
Green, Strand, Oakham and Uppingham, Alston with
Garrigill, and Bath unions 190
Table of the number of widows and dependent orphans
chargeable in eight unions 191
Table of the chief cause of death producing widowhood and
orphanage in eight unions 192
Detailed instances of the causes of widowhood and orphanage
in Alston with Garrigill 193
Examples of the sanitary effects of superior care in the
residences and the places of work of labourers—in the
Reeth union, North York, 196; in Gwennap, Illogan, and
Camborne, Cornwall, 198; in Great Bradford and Horton,
West York 199
Comparison of a young population under favourable and a
mature population under unfavourable circumstances 200
Effects of noxious physical agencies on the moral and
intellectual condition of the working classes 202
Jurisprudential measures for the prevention of deaths from
accidents 203
Cost of disease as compared with cost of prevention,
instances of in Glasgow and Dundee 206
VI. EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECTS OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN RAISING
THE STANDARD OF HEALTH AND THE CHANCES OF LIFE:— 211
Former health of gaols as compared with the present state 211
Effects of sanitary measures of prevention on the health of
prisoners 214
Comparison of the experience of sickness amongst different
classes of people 216
Amount of sickness experienced by the labouring classes 217
Defects of Insurance tables 218
Effects of sanitary measures in the prevention of disease in
the army and navy 219
_Cost to tenants and owners of the public measures for
drainage, cleansing, and the supplies of water, as
compared with the cost of sickness_:— 222
Cost of measures of prevention as compared with the cost of
sickness and mortality 222
Means of payment for improved accommodation 227
Impolicy of exemptions of tenements from proper charges 229
Injurious effects of exemptions of labourers’ tenements 230
Inability of workmen to improve their own condition 231
Necessity of extrinsic aid for the improvement of the
condition of the working classes 232
_Employers’ influence on the health of workpeople, by means
of improved habitations_:— 233
Advantages to labourers of holding tenements in connexion
with their employments 233
Instance of a superior moral and sanitary condition enjoyed
by workers in a cotton factory 236
Elevation of a manufacturing population by improvements in
the condition of their dwellings 238
Most advantageous construction of manufactories for the
health of the workpeople 240
_The employers’ influence on the health of workpeople_:— 245
By modes of payment which do not lead to temptations to
intemperance 245
By the promotion of personal cleanliness 253
By the ventilation of the places of work and the prevention
of noxious fumes, dust, &c. 256
By promoting respectability in dress 261
Employers’ or owners’ influence in the improvement of
habitations and sanitary arrangements for the protection
of the labouring classes in the rural districts 261
Instances of, in the Bedford Union, 262; Stafford Union,
263, in Norfolk and Suffolk, 264; at Harlaxton,
Lincolnshire, 266; at the Earl of Rosebery’s estate,
Scotland, 266; at Closeburn, Dumfries, 266; Turton and
Bollington, Lancashire, 267; Birmingham 267
Instances of the influence of the materials used in building
upon the health of the inmates in Cheshire, Lancashire,
Buckingham and Berkshire 267
Instances of efficient improvements in the detail of
labourers’ dwellings in Scotland 270
Improvements proposed for the construction of the dwellings
of the lower classes in towns 272
_Effects of public walks and gardens on the health and
morals of the lower classes of the population_ 275
VII. RECOGNISED PRINCIPLES OF LEGISLATION AND STATE OF THE
EXISTING LAW FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH:— 279
Necessity of legislative interference for the protection of
the health of the population 279
Spread of old evils in unprotected new districts by
inefficient legislation 280
Dangers of increased charges for inefficient sanitary
measures shifting without improving the population 282
Expulsion of labourers from old tenements without providing
appropriate new ones, not invariably beneficial 286
Advantages in the regulation of the sites of dwellings 287
_General state of the law for the protection of the public
health_:— 288
Medical police in Germany 288
Existing laws for the protection of the public health in
England 289
Early state of the law for the protection of the public
health 291
_State of the special authorities for reclaiming the
execution of the laws for the protection of the public
health_:— 296
General desuetude of the laws for the protection of the
public health 296
State of the administration of the laws for the protection
of the public health, by court leets and local trusts 299
_State of the local executive authorities for the erection
and maintenance of drains and other works for the
protection of the public health_:— 302
State of the obstructions to land drainage and works of
private profit redounding to the public health 302
Injuries to private property as well as to the public
health, occasioned by defective administration 305
Continuance of the causes of disease in the face of
representations of their effects on the population 307
Areas of jurisdiction for drainage inconsistent with
efficient operations 309
Prevalent misconceptions as to the objects and state of
management of existing sewerage 311
Objections made to the existing local administration of the
sewers’ rate 315
Securities requisite to obviate opposition to new
expenditure for sewerage 316
Necessity of the subordinate drainage of private tenements
being comprehended as part of one system 319
Disturbing local interests opposed to efficient management
of expenditure in new districts 322
Obstacles arising from defective local arrangements for
efficient expenditure in local public works 323
Inconveniences of legislation on details, and the want of
scientific and trustworthy direction 328
High rates of charges, by fees, for superintendence of
imperfect structural arrangements 329
Extent of waste in expenditure on local public works, and on
separate collections 333
Public facilities for private land drainage afforded by
consolidation 337
Grounds of unpopularity and distrust of new local
expenditure 339
_Boards of Health or public officers for the prevention of
disease_:— 340
Inefficiency of Boards of Health, as ordinarily constituted 340
Failure of Boards of Health in Ireland 342
Importance of the functions of medical officers in connexion
with the executive authority 343
Means and economy of skilled services for the prevention of
diseases 348
Administrative measures for the prevention of disease
amongst the labouring classes 349
Administrative means for promoting the extension of medical
science 352
VIII. COMMON LODGING-HOUSES THE MEANS OF PROPAGATING DISEASE AND
VICE:— 356
State of the common lodging-houses in the Barnet union, 357;
in Birmingham, 357; in Brighton, 358; in Manchester, 358;
in the Stockport union, 360; in the Macclesfield union,
360; in Durham, 361; in the Teesdale union, 361; in the
Tynemouth union, 361; in Newcastle-on-Tyne, 362; in
Tranent, Haddingtonshire, 362; in Tain, Ross-shire, 362;
in the borough of Warwick, 363; in Chelmsford 364
Grounds for subjecting common lodging-houses to the
responsibilities of public-houses and beer-shops 364
Practical illustration of the regulations of common
lodging-houses 366
IX. RECAPITULATION OF CONCLUSIONS:— 368
Recapitulation of the chief conclusions deduced on the
information obtained in the course of the inquiry 369
Conclusions as to the available means of prevention 370
Grounds for uniformity of legislation 372
APPENDIX.
1. Evidence of Mr. John Roe, civil engineer, on the practical
improvement in sewerage and drainage tried in the Holborn
and Finsbury divisions of the metropolis 373
2. Evidence of Mr. John Darke, contractor for cleansing, as to
the obstacles to cleansing, and the conversion of the
refuse of the metropolis to productive uses 379
3. Evidence of Mr. John Treble, contractor for cleansing, as to
the obstacles to cleansing, and the conversion of the
refuse of the metropolis to productive uses 380
4. Extract from the report of Fourcroy and others, showing the
calculation of the extent of pollution of the Seine from
the discharge of the refuse of the streets of Paris 381
5. Communication from Captain Vetch, of the Royal Engineers, on
the structural arrangements of new buildings, and
protection of the public health 382
6. Evidence of Mr. George Gutch, district surveyor, on shifting
and building inferior tenements in the suburbs, to avoid
the provisions of the Metropolis building Act 394
7. Estimate by Mr. Howell, of the cost of structural
arrangements of sewerage, drainage, water-tank, and means
of house cleansing for labourers’ tenements in the
metropolis 394
8. Description of specification of Mr. Loudon’s agriculturists’
model cottage 395
9. Statement of the requisites of cottage architecture, by Mr.
Loudon 396
10. Specification of the cost of erection, weekly rents,
interest on the capital invested, and the numbers of the
tenements and cottages occupied by the poor and labourers;
taken from returns made by the relieving officers of their
respective districts in 24 unions in the counties of
Chester, Stafford, Derby, and Lancaster 400
11. Tables of the expense of building cottages and repairs, in
England and Scotland 401
12. Examination of the Rev. Thomas Whateley, Cookham, Berks, on
cottage allotments and the keeping of pigs by cottagers 403
13. Arrangement of public walks in towns: plan of the arboretum
at Derby, laid out by Mr. Loudon 405
14. Boards of Health: report on the labours of the “Conseil de
Salubrité,” of Paris, from 1829 to 1839, by M. Trebuchet 409
16. Qualifications of officers of public health: statement by M.
Duchâtelet 423
17. Instance by MM. Duchâtelet and D’Arcet, of the erroneous
medical inferences as to the insalubrity of particular
trades 424
18. On the habitations of the lower orders of Paris 426
19. On the habitations and lodgings of the lower orders in Paris 428
20. Extract from the report of the commission appointed by the
Central Board of Public Health, to ascertain the condition
of the dwellings of the working classes in Brussels, and
to suggest means for their improvement 429
21. Principles of sanitary police in Germany: extracts from
Professor Mohl 431
22. A report on the statements of Dr. Mauthner, regarding the
sanitary condition of the operatives in the new cotton
manufactures, Vienna, given at the monthly meeting on the
2nd of November, 1841. By Herr L. M. Von Pacher 432
23. Typhus fever, the vast amount of, produced amongst the poor
of Liverpool, from want of ventilation and cleanliness:
extract from Dr. Currie’s medical reports 441
24. Extract from Dr. Ferriar’s “Advice to the Labouring Classes
in Manchester,” given in 1800 441
25. Principles of jurisprudence and responsibility for
accidents: extract from the First Report of the
Commissioners of Inquiry into the Labour of Children in
Factories 442
26. Extract from the report of Mr. John L. Kennedy,
barrister-at-law, to the Commissioners for inquiring into
the Labour of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactories 445
27. Tables of Sickness in prisons 449
28. Tables of Sickness in the wynds of Edinburgh 452
29. Suggested form of notification to owners or occupiers, for
the distribution of the expense of permanent alterations
and the avoidance of overcharges on persons enjoying only
portions of the benefit 453
30. Extracts from evidence as to the moral and physical evils
that may be created by defective arrangements for hiring
and paying workpeople 454
LIST OF PLATES.
Map, exhibiting the track of fever and cholera, and the
badly-cleansed portions of the town of Leeds 160
Map, exhibiting the numbers and places of death from epidemic and
other diseases affected by locality, in the parish of Bethnal
Green, during one year 160
Linear representation of the comparative numbers and progress of
deaths from consumption, from epidemics, and other classes of
disease, in the metropolis, during the two years ended the 1st of
January, 1842 167
Plans and views of habitations for the labouring classes 266
Group of Northumberland cottages, copied from a view given by Dr.
Gilly, canon of Durham;—Group of cottages at Harlaxton, erected
by Gregory Gregory, Esq.;—Plans and elevations of cottages,
erected by the Rev. Benyon de Beauvoir, at Culford,
Suffolk;—Plans of labourers’ cottages, erected by the Earl of
Leicester, at Holkham; by the Earl of Roseberry in Scotland;—Plan
of a new form of labourers’ cottages, erected by Sir Stewart
Monteath, at Closeburn;—Plan of labourers’ cottages, erected by
Messrs. H. and E. Ashworth, at Turton; by S. Greg, Esq., at
Bollington.
Plan, by Mr. Sydney Smirke, of lodging-houses for workmen in towns 274
Section of the chief forms of sewers used in the metropolis 378
Plan of the arrangement of the future increment of towns for the
protection of the sanitary condition and convenience of the
population, by Captain Vetch, of the Royal Engineers 384
General plan of house and street sewerage, and of the construction
of streets favourable to cleansing and dryness, by Captain Vetch 389
Isometrical view of a model agricultural labourer’s cottage, by Mr.
Loudon 396
Isometrical view of a mechanic’s model double cottage, by Mr.
Loudon 398
Furniture of cottages: plans of construction of beds and windows 399
Plans and elevations of labourers’ cottages erected by the Messrs.
H. and E. Ashworth;—Plans and elevations of houses in Birmingham 402
Plan for the arrangement of public walks in restricted space in
towns, as shown in the arrangement of the Arboretum, in Derby, by
Mr. Loudon 406
REPORT
ON THE
SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POPULATION,
AND ON
THE MEANS OF ITS IMPROVEMENT.
London, May, 1842.
GENTLEMEN,—Since my special attention was directed to the inquiry as
to the chief removable circumstances affecting the health of the
poorer classes of the population, I have availed myself of every
opportunity to collect information respecting them. In company with
Dr. Arnott I visited Edinburgh and Glasgow, and inspected those
residences that were pointed out by the local authorities as the chief
seats of disease. I also visited Dumfries. An inspection of similar
districts in Spitalfields, Manchester, Leeds, and Macclesfield, and
inquiries formerly made under the Commission of Poor Law Inquiry, and
inspections of the condition of the residences of the poorer classes
in parts of Berkshire, Sussex, and Hertfordshire, had supplied me with
means of comparison. Abandoning any inquiries as to remedies, strictly
so called, or the treatment of diseases after their appearance, I have
directed the examinations of witnesses and the reports of medical
officers chiefly to collect information of the best means available as
preventives of the evils in question. On the documentary evidence of
the medical officers, and on the examinations of witnesses, aided by
personal inspections, I have the honour to report as follows:—
Partial descriptions of the condition of the labouring classes, in
respect to their residences and the habits which influence their
health, afford but a faint conception of the evils which are the
subject of inquiry. If only particular instances, or some groups of
individual cases be adduced, the erroneous impression might be created
that they were cases of comparatively infrequent occurrence. But the
following tabular return made up from the registration of the causes
of death in England and Wales, which is the most complete yet
attained, will give a sufficiently correct conception of the extent of
the evils in question, when illustrated by the evidence of
eye-witnesses, the medical officers whose duty it has been to attend
on the spot and alleviate them. The table comprehends the abstract of
the returns of the deaths from the chief diseases, which the medical
officers consider to be the most powerfully influenced by the physical
circumstances under which the population is placed—as the external and
internal condition of their dwellings, drainage, and ventilation.
_To the Poor Law Commissioners._
_Deaths in Counties from Diseases governed by Locality._
┌───────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ COUNTIES. │Number of Deaths during the Year ended │
│ │ 31st December, 1838 from │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ ├───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ 1 │
│ │ Epidemic, Endemic, and Contagious │
│ │ Diseases. │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ ├───────────┬──────────┬────────┬───────┤
│ │ Fever: │ │ │Hooping│
│ │ Typhus, │Small-pox.│Measles.│Cough. │
│ │Scarlatina.│ │ │ │
├───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────┼───────┤
│ ENGLAND. │ │ │ │ │
│Bedford │ 155│ 75│ 40│ 66│
│Berks │ 204│ 288│ 21│ 86│
│Bucks │ 256│ 85│ 61│ 27│
│Cambridge │ 231│ 136│ 57│ 90│
│Chester │ 592│ 279│ 178│ 87│
│Cornwall │ 443│ 135│ 168│ 491│
│Cumberland │ 165│ 188│ 11│ 83│
│Derby │ 394│ 77│ 79│ 71│
│Devon │ 615│ 460│ 287│ 312│
│Dorset │ 137│ 255│ 80│ 58│
│Durham │ 347│ 316│ 139│ 304│
│Essex │ 417│ 460│ 83│ 163│
│Gloucester │ 352│ 457│ 440│ 244│
│Hereford │ 84│ 83│ 17│ 36│
│Hertford │ 160│ 116│ 45│ 48│
│Huntingdon │ 61│ 18│ 1│ 17│
│Kent │ 955│ 510│ 169│ 214│
│Lancaster │ 2866│ 1628│ 898│ 910│
│Leicester │ 273│ 98│ 17│ 70│
│Lincoln │ 370│ 138│ 29│ 88│
│Middlesex │ 4422│ 3359│ 487│ 1749│
│Monmouth │ 328│ 321│ 49│ 91│
│Norfolk │ 515│ 126│ 63│ 109│
│Northampt^n│ 348│ 148│ 36│ 36│
│Northumb^d │ 366│ 149│ 46│ 113│
│Nottingham │ 222│ 73│ 18│ 80│
│Oxford │ 222│ 81│ 51│ 59│
│Rutland │ 11│ 2│ │ 13│
│Salop │ 213│ 154│ 112│ 138│
│Somerset │ 560│ 710│ 401│ 46│
│Southampt^n│ 454│ 164│ 78│ 148│
│Stafford │ 610│ 249│ 182│ 268│
│Suffolk │ 480│ 325│ 53│ 158│
│Surrey │ 1348│ 814│ 177│ 565│
│Sussex │ 391│ 80│ 159│ 88│
│Warwick │ 454│ 415│ 153│ 164│
│Westmorel^d│ 41│ 40│ 6│ 41│
│Wilts │ 246│ 259│ 263│ 140│
│Worcester │ 381│ 305│ 122│ 258│
│York, E. R.│ 194│ 92│ 167│ 149│
│York, N. R.│ 123│ 28│ 69│ 114│
│York, W. R.│ 1298│ 993│ 799│ 507│
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ WALES. │ │ │ │ │
│North. │ 660│ 575│ 4│ 210│
│South. │ 1613│ 1004│ 199│ 398│
├───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────┼───────┤
│Total, 1838│ 24,577│ 16,268│ 6514│ 9107│
╞═══════════╪═══════════╪══════════╪════════╪═══════╡
│Total, 1839│ 25,991│ 9131│ 10,937│ 8165│
└───────────┴───────────┴──────────┴────────┴───────┘
┌───────────┬────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ COUNTIES. │Number of Deaths during the Year│
│ │ ended 31st December, 1838 from │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ ├────────────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ 2 │
│ │ Diseases of Respiratory Organs │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ ├────────────┬──────────┬────────┤
│ │ │ │ All │
│ │Consumption.│Pneumonia.│ other │
│ │ │ │Classes.│
├───────────┼────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ ENGLAND. │ │ │ │
│Bedford │ 457│ 97│ 57│
│Berks │ 739│ 231│ 162│
│Bucks │ 575│ 131│ 61│
│Cambridge │ 686│ 156│ 70│
│Chester │ 1742│ 366│ 345│
│Cornwall │ 1270│ 342│ 124│
│Cumberland │ 562│ 75│ 142│
│Derby │ 905│ 200│ 205│
│Devon │ 1649│ 564│ 298│
│Dorset │ 571│ 146│ 106│
│Durham │ 1007│ 362│ 207│
│Essex │ 1250│ 276│ 234│
│Gloucester │ 1395│ 578│ 476│
│Hereford │ 333│ 56│ 57│
│Hertford │ 620│ 107│ 90│
│Huntingdon │ 216│ 45│ 42│
│Kent │ 1701│ 564│ 526│
│Lancaster │ 8124│ 2660│ 1916│
│Leicester │ 941│ 243│ 154│
│Lincoln │ 874│ 248│ 242│
│Middlesex │ 6220│ 3097│ 2334│
│Monmouth │ 481│ 183│ 78│
│Norfolk │ 1388│ 325│ 281│
│Northampt^n│ 762│ 192│ 124│
│Northumb^d │ 715│ 287│ 240│
│Nottingham │ 911│ 225│ 201│
│Oxford │ 655│ 108│ 152│
│Rutland │ 64│ 14│ 8│
│Salop │ 995│ 242│ 168│
│Somerset │ 1446│ 426│ 373│
│Southampt^n│ 1222│ 338│ 331│
│Stafford │ 1809│ 539│ 419│
│Suffolk │ 1306│ 315│ 184│
│Surrey │ 2196│ 978│ 700│
│Sussex │ 1047│ 222│ 181│
│Warwick │ 1495│ 678│ 361│
│Westmorel^d│ 248│ 33│ 44│
│Wilts │ 869│ 268│ 212│
│Worcester │ 990│ 353│ 235│
│York, E. R.│ 725│ 194│ 176│
│York, N. R.│ 550│ 102│ 135│
│York, W. R.│ 4253│ 1202│ 848│
│ │ │ │ │
│ WALES. │ │ │ │
│North. │ 1227│ 102│ 223│
│South. │ 1834│ 129│ 277│
├───────────┼────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│Total, 1838│ 59,025│ 17,999│ 13,799│
╞═══════════╪════════════╪══════════╪════════╡
│Total, 1839│ 59,559│ 18,151│ 12,855│
└───────────┴────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
┌───────────┬───────────────────────────────┬───────────┬───────────┐
│ │ │Proportion │Proportion │
│ │ │ of Deaths │ of Deaths │
│ │ │ from the │ from all │
│ │ │ preceding │ Causes of │
│ COUNTIES. │ Number of Deaths during the │ Causes in │ Mortality │
│ │Year ended 31st December, 1838 │every 1000 │ in every │
│ │ from │ of the │1000 of the│
│ │ │Population,│Population,│
│ │ │ 1841. │ 1841. │
│ ├─────────┬─────────┬───────────┤ │ │
│ │ 3 │ │ │ │ │
│ │Diseases │ 4 │ Total │ │ │
│ │of Brain │Diseases │Deaths from│ │ │
│ │ Nerves │ of │ the four │ │ │
│ │ and │Digestive│ preceding │ │ │
│ │ Senses. │ Organs │Classes of │ │ │
│ │ │ │ Diseases. │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├───────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┤
│ ENGLAND. │ │ │ │ │ │
│Bedford │ 304│ 131│ 1382│ 13│ 22│
│Berks │ 467│ 201│ 2399│ 15│ 25│
│Bucks │ 348│ 152│ 1696│ 11│ 19│
│Cambridge │ 318│ 189│ 1933│ 12│ 21│
│Chester │ 1442│ 421│ 5452│ 14│ 21│
│Cornwall │ 631│ 228│ 3832│ 11│ 18│
│Cumberland │ 278│ 169│ 1673│ 9│ 21│
│Derby │ 777│ 268│ 2976│ 11│ 18│
│Devon │ 1237│ 471│ 5893│ 11│ 18│
│Dorset │ 380│ 159│ 1892│ 11│ 19│
│Durham │ 1138│ 274│ 4094│ 13│ 21│
│Essex │ 782│ 268│ 3933│ 11│ 19│
│Gloucester │ 1142│ 510│ 5594│ 13│ 20│
│Hereford │ 238│ 62│ 966│ 8│ 18│
│Hertford │ 453│ 155│ 1794│ 11│ 20│
│Huntingdon │ 140│ 72│ 612│ 10│ 18│
│Kent │ 1650│ 651│ 6940│ 13│ 21│
│Lancaster │ 7457│ 3231│ 29690│ 18│ 25│
│Leicester │ 668│ 314│ 2778│ 13│ 21│
│Lincoln │ 1090│ 358│ 3437│ 9│ 17│
│Middlesex │ 6643│ 2492│ 30803│ 20│ 27│
│Monmouth │ 550│ 100│ 2181│ 16│ 24│
│Norfolk │ 793│ 395│ 3995│ 10│ 19│
│Northampt^n│ 503│ 212│ 2361│ 12│ 21│
│Northumb^d │ 709│ 388│ 3013│ 12│ 21│
│Nottingham │ 901│ 287│ 2918│ 12│ 20│
│Oxford │ 389│ 180│ 1897│ 12│ 21│
│Rutland │ 56│ 28│ 196│ 9│ 17│
│Salop │ 550│ 284│ 2856│ 12│ 21│
│Somerset │ 982│ 473│ 5417│ 12│ 21│
│Southampt^n│ 881│ 372│ 3988│ 17│ 19│
│Stafford │ 1251│ 597│ 5924│ 12│ 18│
│Suffolk │ 538│ 275│ 3634│ 12│ 20│
│Surrey │ 2325│ 763│ 9866│ 11│ 25│
│Sussex │ 863│ 295│ 3326│ 11│ 18│
│Warwick │ 978│ 638│ 5336│ 13│ 20│
│Westmorel^d│ 154│ 46│ 653│ 12│ 21│
│Wilts │ 606│ 241│ 3104│ 12│ 20│
│Worcester │ 645│ 446│ 3735│ 16│ 29│
│York, E. R.│ 1009│ 251│ 2957│ 13│ 21│
│York, N. R.│ 553│ 1861│ │ 9│ 17│
│York, W. R.│ 4374│ 1494│ 15768│ 14│ 21│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ WALES. │ │ │ │ │ │
│North. │ 1311│ 198│ 4510│ 13│ 18│
│South. │ 1200│ 380│ 7034│ 14│ 21│
├───────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┤
│Total, 1838│ 49,704│ 19,306│ 216,299│ 14│ 22│
╞═══════════╪═════════╪═════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╪═══════════╡
│Total, 1839│ 49,215│ 20,767│ 214,771│ 14│ 21│
└───────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┘
Extent of evils which are the subject of inquiry
The registration of the causes of death for the year 1838 is selected,
as that was the year when the report was made on the sanitary condition
of the labouring population in the metropolis, which has served as the
foundation of the extended inquiry.
There are no returns, and no adequate data for returns, to show the
proportion in which deaths from the several causes above specified occur
amongst the population of Scotland, but there is evidence to which
reference will subsequently be made tending to prove that the mortality
from fever is greater in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee than in the most
crowded towns in England.
The registered mortality from all specified diseases in England and
Wales was, during the year 1838, 282,940, or 18 per thousand of the
population. These deaths are exclusive of the deaths from old age, which
amounted to 35,564, and the deaths from violence, which amounted to
12,055. The deaths from causes not specified were 11,970. The total
amount of deaths was 342,529 for that year. In the year following the
total deaths were 338,979, of which the registered deaths from old age
were 35,063, and the deaths from violence 11,980. The proportion of
deaths for the whole population was 21 per thousand.
It appears that fever, after its ravages amongst the infant population,
falls with the greatest intensity on the adult population in the vigour
of life. The periods at which the ravages of the other diseases,
consumption, small-pox, and measles take place, are sufficiently well
known. The proportions in which the diseases have prevailed in the
several counties will be found deserving of peculiar attention.
A conception may be formed of the aggregate effects of the several
causes of mortality from the fact, that of the deaths caused during one
year in England and Wales by epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases,
including fever, typhus, and scarlatina, amounting to 56,461, the great
proportion of which are proved to be preventible, it may be said that
the effect is as if the whole county of Westmoreland, now containing
56,469 souls, or the whole county of Huntingdonshire, or any other
equivalent district, were entirely depopulated annually, and were only
occupied again by the growth of a new and feeble population living under
the fears of a similar visitation. The annual slaughter in England and
Wales from preventible causes of typhus which attacks persons in the
vigour of life, appears to be double the amount of what was suffered by
the Allied Armies in the battle of Waterloo. It will be shown that
diseases such as those which now prevail on land, did within the
experience of persons still living, formerly prevail to a greater extent
at sea, and have since been prevented by sanitary regulations; and that
when they did so prevail in ships of war, the deaths from them were more
than double in amount of the deaths in battle. But the number of persons
who die is to be taken also as the indication of the much greater number
of persons who fall sick, and who, although they escape, are subjected
to the suffering and loss occasioned by attacks of disease. Thus it was
found on the original inquiry in the metropolis, that the deaths from
fever amounted to 1 in 10 of the number attacked. If this proportion
held equally throughout the country, then a quarter of a million of
persons will have been subjected to loss and suffering from an attack of
fever during the year; and in so far as the proportions of attacks to
deaths is diminished, so it appears from the reports is the intensity
and suffering from the disease generally increased. It appears that the
extremes of mortality at the Small-pox Hospital, in London, amongst
those attacked, have been 15 per cent. and 42 per cent. But if,
according to other statements, the average mortality be taken at 1 in 5,
or 20 per cent., the number of persons attacked in England and Wales
during the year of the return, must amount to upwards of 16,000 persons
killed, and more than 80,000 persons subjected to the sufferings of
disease, including, in the case of the labouring classes, the loss of
labour and long-continued debility; and in respect to all classes, often
permanent disfigurement, and occasionally the loss of sight.
In a subsequent part of this report, evidence will be adduced to show in
what proportion these causes of death fall upon the poorer classes as
compared with the other classes of society inhabiting the same towns or
districts, and in what proportions the deaths fall amongst persons of
the same class inhabiting districts differently situated.
The first extracts present the subjects of the inquiry in their general
condition under the operation of several causes, yet almost all will be
found to point to one particular, namely, atmospheric impurity,
occasioned by means within the control of legislation, as the main cause
of the ravages of epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases among the
community, and as aggravating most other diseases. The subsequent
extracts from the sanitary reports from different places will show that
the impurity and its evil consequences are greater or less in different
places, according as there is more or less sufficient drainage of
houses, streets, roads, and land, combined with more or less sufficient
means of cleansing and removing solid refuse and impurities, by
available supplies of water for the purpose. Then will follow the
description of the effects of overcrowding the places of work and
dwellings, including the effects of the defective ventilation of
dwelling-houses, and of places of work where there are fumes or dust
produced. To these will be added the information collected as to the
good or evil moral habits promoted by the nature of the residence. These
will form so many successive sections of the report, and will be
followed by information in respect to the means available for the
prevention of the evils described, and an exposition of the present
state of the law for the protection of the public health, and of
modifications apparently requisite to secure the desired results.
I.—GENERAL CONDITION OF THE RESIDENCES OF THE LABOURING CLASSES WHERE
DISEASE IS FOUND TO BE THE MOST PREVALENT.
The following extracts will serve to show, in the language chiefly of
eye-witnesses, the varied forms in which disease attendant on removable
circumstances appears from one end of the island to the other amidst the
population of rural villages, and of the smaller towns, as well as
amidst the population of the commercial cities and the most thronged of
the manufacturing districts—in which last pestilence is frequently
supposed to have its chief and almost exclusive residence.
Commencing with the reports on the sanitary condition of the population
in Cornwall and Devon, _Mr. Gilbert_, when acting as Assistant
Commissioner for those counties, reports, that he found the open drains
and sewers the most prominent cause of malaria. He gives the following
as an instance of the common condition of the dwellings of the labouring
classes in Devon, where it will be observed that the registered deaths
from the four classes of disease amounted in one year to 5893 cases.
“In Tiverton there is a large district, from which I find numerous
applications were made for relief to the Board of Guardians, in
consequence of illness from fever. The expense in procuring the
necessary attention and care, and the diet and comforts recommended by
the medical officer, were in each case very high, and particularly
attracted my attention.
“I requested the medical officer to accompany me through the district,
and with him, and afterwards by myself, I visited the district, and
examined the cottages and families living there. The land is nearly on
a level with the water, the ground is marshy, and the sewers all open.
Before reaching the district, I was assailed by a most disagreeable
smell; and it was clear to the sense that the air was full of most
injurious malaria. The inhabitants, easily distinguishable from the
inhabitants of the other parts of the town, had all a sickly,
miserable appearance. The open drains in some cases ran immediately
before the doors of the houses, and some of the houses were surrounded
by wide open drains, full of all the animal and vegetable refuse not
only of the houses in that part, but of those in other parts of
Tiverton. In many of the houses, persons were confined with fever and
different diseases, and all I talked to either were ill or had been
so: and the whole community presented a melancholy spectacle of
disease and misery.
“Attempts have been made on various occasions by the local authorities
to correct this state of things by compelling the occupants of the
houses to remove nuisances, and to have the drains covered; but they
find that in the present state of the law their powers are not
sufficient, and the evil continues and is likely so to do, unless the
legislature affords some redress in the nature of sanitary powers.
Independently of this nuisance, Tiverton would be considered a fine
healthy town, situate as it is on the slope of a hill, with a swift
river running at its foot.
“It is not these unfortunate creatures only who choose this centre of
disease for their living-place who are affected; but the whole town is
more or less deteriorated by its vicinity to this pestilential mass,
where the generation of those elements of disease and death is
constantly going on.
“Another cause of disease is to be found in the state of the cottages.
Many are built on the ground without flooring, or against a damp hill.
Some have neither windows nor doors sufficient to keep out the
weather, or to let in the rays of the sun, or supply the means of
ventilation; and in others the roof is so constructed or so worn as
not to be weather tight. The thatch roof frequently is saturated with
wet, rotten, and in a state of decay, giving out malaria, as other
decaying vegetable matter.”
The report of _Dr. Barham_, on the sanitary condition of the town of
Truro, gives instances of the condition of the town population in that
part of the country. He states—
“The perfect immunity from deaths by _febrile_ and _acute_ diseases,
enjoyed by Lemon-street during the long period of three years and a
half, is a strong testimony to the value of the breadth of its
roadway, the openness of its site, and the judicious construction of
the houses; for it has to contend with a great deficiency of sewerage.
Fairmantle and Daniell-streets are modern, and are occupied by small
traders, and by decent artisans and labourers; the _former_ lies
rather low, the _latter_ is on a considerable elevation; both are
fairly drained, and are healthy. Charles, Calenick, and Kenwyn-streets
present some of the worst specimens of defective arrangement, rendered
worse still by the recklessness of the very poor, which can be met
with in Truro. The amount of _pauper sickness_ is considerable, the
deaths not few. The two latter streets are, in the greater part of
their length, but little raised above high-water mark. Passing into
_St. Mary’s_ parish, the proportion of sickness and even of deaths in
Castle-street and Castle-hill is, to their extent and population, as
great, perhaps, as that of any part of Truro; yet their situation is
elevated and favourable. There is, however, no mystery in the
causation. Ill-constructed houses, many of them old, with decomposing
refuse close upon their doors and windows, open drains bringing the
oozings of pigsties and other filth to stagnate at the foot of a wall,
between which and the entrances to a row of small dwellings there is
only a very narrow passage; such are a few of the sources of disease
which the breeze of the hill cannot always dissipate. Similar causes
have produced like effects in the courts adjacent to Pyder-street, to
the High Cross, and to St. Clement’s-streets, and in Bodmin-street and
Good-wives’-lane, the situations being all more or less confined. The
benefits, on the other hand, derived from open rows, and cottages of a
better construction are evidenced in Boscawen and Paul’s-row, and St.
Clements’-terrace, which are well ventilated, and consequently suffer
less from the scanty provision of drains and other conveniences.
“A detailed account of the public sewers is given in the Appendix, and
is believed to be nearly, if not quite, complete. Many of these are of
recent date, and owe their existence to the alarm excited when the
cholera was near at hand. Some of them are made to discharge
themselves into the rivers; and such of these as are swept by a stream
of water are unobjectionable in themselves. Several others stop short
of this desirable termination, and, after collecting filth from
various localities, deposit a portion in catch-pits here and there,
and finally open on the surface, frequently in some street or lane,
where a neglected deposit of a mixed animal and vegetable nature is
allowed to become a probable source of annoyance or mischief. Much of
this incompleteness may be removed (as regards the main lines of
sewerage) at no great expense; and it is said to be the intention of
the commissioners of improvement to remedy the deficiency, when they
are free from the debt with which they are now encumbered. Many of the
smaller sewers are, however, much too narrow to be effective, and some
of them are no better than covered drains. But the greatest evils in
this department are unquestionably those which spring from the
ignorance, cupidity, or negligence of landlords. It is useless to have
a good sewer carried through the centre of a street, if the houses at
the sides, and still more those situated in courts and lanes
adjoining, have no communicating drains; and it is worse than useless
to furnish these backlets with the mere semblance of drains—gutters
forming pits here and there—then as they approach the street, perhaps
slightly covered so as to produce obstruction more frequently than
protection, a concentrated solution of all sorts of decomposing refuse
being allowed to soak through and thoroughly impregnate the walls and
ground adjoining. One or more of these mischievous conditions is to be
found in connexion with a large proportion of the older houses in
Truro, excepting the better class; and in many of the courts and
backlets all these evils are in full operation. I have repeatedly
noticed in the country that the occurrence of fever has been connected
with _near proximity to even a small amount of decomposing organic
matter_; and it is certain that all measures for effecting improvement
in the sewerage of streets, the supply of water, and ventilation, may
be rendered nearly inoperative for the obviating of the causes of
disease, if a little nidus of morbific effluvia be permitted to remain
in almost every corner of the confined court; where the poor man opens
his narrow habitation in the hope of refreshing it with the breeze of
summer, but gets instead a mixture of gases from reeking dunghills,
or, what is worse, because more insidious, from a soil which has
become impregnated with organic matters imbibed long before; and now,
though, perhaps, to all appearance dry and clean, emitting the
poisonous vapour in its most pernicious state. Nothing short of the
placing in proper hands a peremptory authority for the removal of what
is hurtful, and the supply of what is defective, making the exercise
of that authority a duty, can remedy the existing evils.
“The houses occupied by the lower orders do not often exceed two
stories in height, and it is rare to find families occupying less than
two rooms. The more recent additions to the town—I speak of residences
of the humbler class—have mainly consisted of rows of moderate
cottages, having, the majority of them, gardens in front, and usually
containing four rooms, commonly occupied by a single family. Some
instances have, however, occurred of the building of a very inferior
class of dwellings, which will be hereafter pointed out.
“No interments now take place in the town, the present burying-ground
being at the distance of a third of a mile to the north of the church.
The slaughter-houses are all, or nearly all, situated in populous
parts, and occasionally constitute a decided nuisance. No
manufactories exist which can be looked upon as prejudicial from any
effluvia to which they give rise. The gas-works and smelting-houses
are so placed that no mischievous effects can fairly be attributed to
them.”
The state of the dwellings of many of the agricultural labourers in
Dorset, where the deaths from the four classes of disease bear a similar
proportion to those in Devon, is described in the return of _Mr. John
Fox_, the medical officer of the Cerne union, who, remarking upon some
cases of disease among the poor whom he had attended, says,—
“These cases (of diarrhœa and common fever) occurred in a house
(formerly a poor house) occupied by nearly 50 persons on the
ground-floor; the rooms are neither boarded nor paved, and generally
damp; some of them are occupied by two families. The up-stairs rooms
are small and low, and separated from each other by boards only.
Eleven persons slept in one room. The house stands in a valley between
two hills, very little above the level of the river, which
occasionally overflows its banks, and within a few yards of it. There
is generally an accumulation of filth of every description in a gutter
running about two feet from its front, and a large cesspool within a
few feet behind. The winter stock of potatoes was kept in some of the
day-rooms, and generally put away in a wet state. The premises had not
been white-limed during three years; in addition to this state of
things, the poor were badly fed, badly clothed, and many of them
habitually dirty, and consequently typhus, synochus, or diarrhœa,
constantly prevailed. No house-rent was paid by the occupants. Many,
under more favourable circumstances were clean and tidy, and if their
wages were sufficient to enable them to rent a decent cottage, I have
no doubt they would soon regain their lost spirit of cleanliness. In
this same parish I have often seen the springs bursting through the
_mud_ floor of some of the cottages, and little channels cut from the
centre under the doorways to carry off the water, whilst the door has
been removed from its hinges for the children to put their feet on
whilst employed in making buttons. Is it surprising that fever and
scrofula in all its forms prevail under such circumstances?
“It is somewhat singular that seven cases of typhus occurred in one
village heretofore famed for the health and general cleanliness of its
inhabitants and cottages. The first five cases occurred in one family,
in a detached house on high and dry ground, and free from
accumulations of vegetable or animal matter. The cottage was
originally built for a school-room, and consists of one room only,
about 18 feet by 10, and 9 high. About one-third part was partitioned
off by boards reaching to within three feet of the roof, and in this
small space were three beds, in which six persons slept; had there
been two bed-rooms attached to this one day-room, these cases of
typhus would not have occurred. The fatal case of typhus occurred in a
very small village, containing about sixty inhabitants, and from its
locality it appears favourable to the production of typhus, synochus,
and acute rheumatism. It stands between two hills, with a river
running through it, and is occasionally flooded. It has extensive
water meadows both above and below, and a farm-yard in the centre,
where there is always a large quantity of vegetable matter undergoing
decomposition. Most of the cases of synochus occurred under
circumstances favourable to its production. Most of the cottages being
of the worst description, some mere mud hovels, and situated in low
and damp places with cesspools or accumulations of filth close to the
doors. The _mud floors_ of many are much below the level of the road,
and in wet seasons are little better than so much clay. The following
shocking case occurred in my practice. In a family consisting of six
persons, two had fever; the mud floor of their cottage was at least
one foot below the lane; it consisted of _one_ small room only, in the
centre of which stood a foot-ladder reaching to the edge of a platform
which extended over nearly one-half of the room, and upon which were
placed two beds, with space between them for one person only to stand,
whilst the outside of each touched the thatch. The head of one of
these beds stood within six inches of the edge of the platform, and in
this bed one of my unfortunate patients, a boy about 11 years old, was
sleeping with his mother, and in a fit of delirium jumped over the
head of his bed and fell to the ground below, a height of about seven
feet. The injury to the head and spine was so serious that he lived a
few hours only after the accident. In a cottage fit for the residence
of a human being this could not have occurred. In many of the
cottages, also, where synochus prevailed, the beds stood on the
ground-floor, which was damp three parts of the year; scarcely one had
a fire-place in the bed-room, and one had a single small pane of glass
stuck in the mud wall as its only window, with a large heap of wet and
dirty potatoes in one corner. Persons living in such cottages are
generally very poor, very dirty, and usually in rags, living almost
wholly on bread and potatoes, scarcely ever tasting animal food, and
consequently highly susceptible of disease and very unable to contend
with it. I am quite sure if such persons were placed in good,
comfortable, clean cottages, the improvement in themselves and
children would soon be visible, and the exceptions would only be found
in a few of the poorest and most wretched, who perhaps had been born
in a mud hovel, and had lived in one the first 30 years of their
lives.
“In my district I do not think there is _one_ cottage to be found
consisting of a day-room, three bed-rooms, scullery, pantry, and
convenient receptacles for refuse and for fuel in the occupation of a
labourer, but there are many consisting of a day-room and two
bed-rooms, constructed with a due regard to ventilation and warmth,
pantry, and fuel house, with a small garden and pigsty adjoining, and
the labourers occupying such cottages, generally speaking, are far
superior to others less advantageously situated. Their persons and
cottages are always neater and cleaner, they are less disposed to
frequent the beer-houses or to engage in poaching, whilst their
children are generally sent daily to some school, in many instances
chiefly supported by the clergyman of the parish. As a corroboration
of my opinion, I need only state that I am frequently employed by the
labourers in the good cottages to attend their wives during their
confinement, and generally receive my guinea before I leave the house,
whilst the labourer less favourably situated invariably applies to his
parish for medical relief under such circumstances. I think there
cannot be a doubt if the whole of the wretched hovels were converted
into good cottages, with a strict attention to warmth, ventilation,
and drainage, and a receptacle for filth of every kind placed at a
proper distance, it would not only improve the health of the poor by
removing a most prolific source of disease, and thereby most sensibly
diminish the rates, but I am convinced it would also tend most
materially to raise the moral character of the poor man, and render
him less susceptible to the allurements of the idle and wicked.”
The tenor of much information respecting the condition of many of the
labouring classes in Somerset, where the deaths from the four classes of
disease were still higher than in the two other counties, and amounted
during the one year to 5417, is exhibited in the sanitary report of _Mr.
James Gane_, the medical officer of the Axbridge union, who states
that,—
“The situation of this district where the diseases herein mentioned
prevail, is a perfect flat called the South Marsh, in the main road
between Bristol and Bridgewater. There are numerous dykes or ditches
for the purpose of drainage. The cottages of the poor are mostly of a
bad description, frequently mud wall, and often situated close to the
dykes, where the water for the most part is in a state of stagnation.
Oftentimes not more than one room for the whole family; sometimes two;
one above the other; with the really poor, the latter is seldom to be
met with, (unless it should happen now and then in a parish where a
poor-house was built a short time before the formation of the Union).
A pigsty where the inmates are capable of keeping a pig is frequently
attached to the dwelling, and in the heat of summer produces a stench
quite intolerable; the want of space however prevents it being
otherwise. The regular poor-house (those mentioned above being
detached cottages) in most of the parishes in this district are of a
much worse description, several large families existing under the same
roof, occupying only one room each family, and having but one entrance
door to the dwelling; here filth and poverty go hand-in-hand without
any restriction and under no control. The accumulation of filth being
attributable to the want of proper receptacles for refuse, and the
indolent and filthy disposition of the inhabitants, in no instance
_have_ such places been provided. The floors are seldom or never
scrubbed; and the parish authorities pay so little attention to these
houses, that the walls never get white-limed from one end of the year
to the other. The windows are kept air-tight by the stuffing of some
old garments, and every article for use is kept in the same room. The
necessary is close to the building, where all have access, and
producing a most intolerable nuisance. In a locality naturally
engendering malaria, the diseases with which the poor are for the most
part afflicted are, fevers such as are stated in this report and which
sometimes run into a low typhoid state. The neighbourhood in general
is considered in as good a state of drainage as it will admit of. The
occurrence of disease among the poor population is for the most part
at spring and autumn, at those times agues and fevers prevail.
Small-pox and scarlet fever are met with at all seasons of the year,
but prevail as epidemics, the former in spring and summer, and the
latter about autumn or the beginning of winter. I attribute the
prevalence of diseases of an epidemic character, which exists so much
more among the poor than among the rich, to be, from the want of
better accommodation as residence, (their dwelling instead of being
built of solid materials are complete shells of mud on a spot of waste
land the most swampy in the parish, this is to be met with almost
everywhere in rural districts,) to the want of better clothing, being
better fed, more attention paid to the cleanliness of their dwellings,
and less congregated together. The health of persons even where a
large family is, and where superior cottage accommodation is afforded
to them, is much better generally than others less advantageously
situated. The influence over their habits will also be very
beneficial, they will be less likely to run to a beer-house with their
last penny, the comforts of a home after the toils of the day keeps
them by their own fireside; they become better contented, less liable
to disease, make better husbands, better fathers, better neighbours,
and with each other better friends. There is a subject which I wish
particularly to press on the attention of the Commissioners; the
presence throughout the country, and to be found in every parish, of
low lodging-houses, where persons of the lowest grade of society,
beggars, thieves, and such like, take up a temporary abode in passing
from one part of the kingdom to another, bringing with them the seeds
of infectious diseases and oftentimes the actual disease itself into a
neighbourhood previously in a comparative state of health. I have
observed, where persons are living in a locality habitually affected
with malaria, that when becoming convalescent from any other disease,
are often attacked with ague, more particularly among the poorer
classes.
“There is a class of persons called the ‘second poor,’ who for the
most part are constantly employed throughout the year as farmers’
labourers, and who are in much better circumstances than those to whom
I have above alluded; they have much better cottage accommodation,
their houses being provided with one, sometimes two day-rooms, two
bed-rooms, a pantry, and other conveniences for fuel and for refuse,
and whose general health and condition is much better than those less
advantageously situated. Therefore detached cottages for the poor,
with a moderate sized day-room, two or three bed-rooms, a pantry,
receptacles for refuse and for fuel, with casement windows or some
such contrivance for ventilation, will be a blessing to them, and very
available sanitary regulations. I know of no better method than is to
be seen in all cottages for the economical management of fuel, both in
cooking and maintaining a proper temperature of the rooms.”
The following extract from the report of _Mr. Aaron Little_, the medical
officer of the Chippenham union, affords a specimen of the frequent
condition of rural villages which have apparently the most advantageous
sites:—
“The parish of Colerne, which, upon a cursory view, any person
(unacquainted with its peculiarities) would pronounce to be the most
healthy village in England, is in fact the most unhealthy. From its
commanding position (being situated upon a high hill) it has an
appearance of health and cheerfulness which delight the eye of the
traveller, who commands a view of it from the Great Western road, but
this impression is immediately removed on entering at any point of the
town. The filth, the dilapidated buildings, the squalid appearance of
the majority of the lower orders, have a sickening effect upon the
stranger who first visits this place. During three years’ attendance
on the poor of this district, I have never known the small-pox,
scarlatina, or the typhus fever to be absent. The situation is damp,
and the buildings unhealthy, and the inhabitants themselves inclined
to be of dirty habits. There is also a great want of drainage.”
_Mr. William Blower_, the surgeon of the Bedford union, to whose
evidence on the influence of moral causes on the health of the
population, we shall again have occasion to refer, states:—
“Throughout the whole of this district, there is a great want of
‘superior cottage accommodation.’ Most of the residences of the
labourers are thickly inhabited, and many of them are damp, low, cold,
smoky, and comfortless. These circumstances occasion the inmates to be
sickly in the winter season, but I have not observed them to generate
typhus, the prevailing form of disease being principally catarrhal;
such as colds, coughs, inflammations of the eyes, dysentery,
rheumatism, &c. However, when any contagious or epidemic malaria
occurs, the cases are generally more numerous.”
_Mr. Weale_ reports instances of the condition of large proportions of
the agricultural population in the counties of Bedford, Northampton, and
Warwick. The medical officer of the Woburn union states, in respect to
Toddington, that—
“In this town fever prevailed during the last year, and, from the
state of the dwellings of the persons I called on, this could not be
wondered at. Very few of the cottages were furnished with privies that
could be used, and contiguous to almost every door a dung heap was
raised on which every species of filth was accumulated, either for the
purpose of being used in the garden allotments of the cottagers, or to
be disposed of for manure. Scarcely any cottage was provided with a
pantry, and I found the provisions generally kept in the bed-rooms. In
several instances I found whole families, comprising adult and infant
children with their parents, sleeping in one room.”
The medical officer of the Ampthill union states:—
“Typhus fever has existed for the last three or four months in the
parish of Flitwick, and although the number of deaths has not been
considerable as compared with the progress of the disease, new cases
have occurred as those under treatment became convalescent, and
several are still suffering under this malady. The cottages in which
it first appeared (and to which it has been almost exclusively
confined), are of the most wretched description: a stagnant pond is in
the immediate vicinity, and none of the tenements have drains; rubbish
is thrown within a few yards of the dwellings, and there is no doubt
but in damp foggy weather, and also during the heat of summer, the
exhalations arising from those heaps of filth must generate disease,
and the obnoxious effluvia tends to spread contagion where it already
exists. It appears that most of the cottages alluded to were erected
for election purposes, and have since been allowed to decay; the roofs
are repaired with turf dug in the neighbourhood, and the walls
repaired with prepared clay, without the addition of lime-washing.
Contagious disease has not been remarkable within the Union in any
other spot than the one alluded to.”
_Messrs. Smith_ and _Moore_, the medical officers of the Bishop
Stortford union, state,—
“We have always found the smallest and most slightly-built houses the
seats of the lowest forms of disease; and although, during the last
year, no epidemic or infectious disease here prevailed, it is but just
to state that, generally speaking, the cottages of labourers in this
district are small, badly protected from both extremes of weather,
badly drained, and low in the ground.”
_Mr. J. S. Nott_, the medical officer of the Witham union, states,—
“As medical officer of my district, I am glad to have an opportunity
of recording my opinion of many of the causes of fever that uniformly
prevails in the autumn and spring in this neighbourhood. I must first
state that the situation of the town is exceedingly low, with two
small rivers passing through it, and numerous open sewers intersecting
the town and its environs, the effluvia of which is frequently
exceedingly offensive, and at all times prejudicial to the general
health, and calculated to create, by its malaria, the various kinds of
fevers, (typhus and remittent). Part of the town is subject to floods;
added to which, the cottages are small and crowded together. A great
number of the inhabitants accumulate filth and manure for the purpose
of sale. There are also many open slaughter-houses, where the refuse
and filth is allowed to accumulate for weeks together without removal;
and innumerable pigs are kept and fattened on the back of the premises
of a great number of the inhabitants; and altogether it would be
difficult to find any town of its size where so little regard is paid
to cleanliness and ventilation; but where we do find the exception,
roomy and well-ventilated cottages, (and they are but few,) the cases
of fever are more manageable, and recover sooner.”
The state of Windsor affords an example that the highest neighbourhoods
in power and wealth do not at present possess securities for the
prevention of nuisances dangerous to the public health. _Mr. Parker_, in
his report on the condition of his district, states—
“With regard to the drainage of the towns in the counties of
Buckingham, Oxford, and Berks, it may be observed that there is no
town in which great improvements might not be effected. In Reading
there are commissioners appointed under a local Act to make provision
for cleansing the town and removing nuisances; but their duties do not
appear to be performed with due regard to the importance of the trust,
for the Board of Guardians of the Reading union, by resolutions
entered in their minutes, frequently point out nuisances, and remind
the commissioners of the filthy condition of many of the courts and
back streets. But extensive as the improvements in the state of the
drainage of almost every town in these counties might be, there is no
town amongst them in which there is so wide a field for improvement as
Windsor, which, from the contiguity of the palace, the wealth of the
inhabitants, and the situation, might have been expected to be
superior in this respect to any other provincial town. Such, however,
is not the case; for of all the towns visited by me, Windsor is the
worst beyond all comparison. From the gas-works at the end of
George-street a double line of open, deep, black, and stagnant ditches
extends to Clewer-lane. From these ditches an intolerable stench is
perpetually rising, and produces fever of a severe character. I
visited a cottage in Clewer-lane in which typhus fever had existed for
some time, and learnt from a woman who had recently lost a child the
complaint was attributable to the state of these ditches. Mr. Bailey,
the relieving officer, informs me that cases of typhus fever are
frequent in the neighbourhood; and observes that there are now seven
or eight persons attacked by typhus in Charles-street and South-place.
He considers the neighbourhood of Garden-court in almost the same
condition. ‘There is a drain,’ he says, ‘running from the barracks
into the Thames across the Long Walk. That drain is almost as
offensive as the black ditches extending to Clewer-lane. The openings
to the sewers in Windsor are exceedingly offensive in hot weather. The
town is not well supplied with water, and the drainage is very
defective.’ The ditches of which I have spoken are sometimes emptied
by carts; and on the last occasion their contents were purchased for
the sum of 15_l._. by the occupier of land in the parish of Clewer,
whose meadows suffered from the extraordinary strength of the manure,
which was used without previous preparation.”
_Mr. Harding_, medical officer of the Epping union, states,—
“The state of some of the dwellings of the poor is most deplorable as
it regards their health, and also in a moral point of view. As it
relates to the former, many of their cottages are neither wind nor
water tight. It has often fallen to my lot to be called on to attend a
labour where the wet has been running down the walls, and light to be
distinguished through the roof, and this in the winter season, with no
fire-place in the room. As it relates to the latter, in my opinion a
great want of accommodation for bed-rooms often occurs, so that you
may frequently find the father, mother, and children all sleeping in
the same apartment, and in some instances the children having attained
the age of 16 or 17 years, and of both sexes; and if a death occurs in
the house, let the person die of the most contagious disease, they
must either sleep in the same room, or take their repose in the room
they live in, which most frequently is a stone or brick floor, which
must be detrimental to health.”
_Mr. J. D. Browne_, medical officer of the West Ham union states that,—
“The cases of typhus (21 cases in the parish of Walthamstow) have
occurred periodically in certain localities, arising partly from want
of personal cleanliness, and also from being situated near ditches
into which putrefactive matter was deposited, such as the privies and
pigsties emptying themselves. The medical officer called the attention
of the Board of Guardians, vicar, and parochial officers to the
subject; and though it was unanimously admitted that the evil was
great, and an anxious desire was expressed in vestry to remove the
existing evil, yet the case fell to the ground, there being no funds
to meet the exigency. The medical officer feels persuaded that a power
should be invested in the Board of Guardians or parochial officers to
meet such cases.”
_Mr. Thomas H. Smith_, the medical officer of the Bromley union,
states,—
“My attention was first directed to the sources of malaria in this
district and neighbourhood when cholera became epidemic. I then
partially inspected the dwellings of the poor, and have recently
completed the survey. It is almost incredible that so many sources of
malaria should exist in a rural district. A total absence of all
provision for effectual drainage around cottages is the most prominent
source of malaria; throughout the whole district there is scarcely an
attempt at it. The refuse, vegetable and animal matters, are also
thrown by the cottagers in heaps near their dwellings to decompose;
are sometimes not removed, except at very long intervals; and are
always permitted to remain sufficiently long to accumulate in some
quantity. Pigsties are generally near the dwellings, and are always
surrounded by decomposing matters. These constitute some of the many
sources of malaria, and peculiarly deserve attention as being easily
remedied, and yet, as it were, cherished. The effects of malaria are
strikingly exemplified in parts of this district. There are localities
from which fever is seldom long absent; and I find spots where the
spasmodic cholera located itself are also the chosen resorts of
continued fever.”
Passing the metropolis and the adjacent districts, I proceed to the
evidence as to the condition of the dwellings of the poorest classes in
the midland counties.
The report from Mr. Hodgson and the physicians of the town of Birmingham
will be considered a valuable public document, as exhibiting the effect
of drainage produced by a peculiarly fortunate situation. The houses, of
which I requested drawings, are on the whole built upon an improved
plan. This town, it will be seen, is distinguished apparently by an
immunity from fever, and the general health of the population is high,
although the occupations are such as are elsewhere deemed prejudicial to
health.
The following extract from _Mr. Hodgkins_, the medical officer of
Bilston, in the Wolverhampton Union, describes the condition of the
population of a colliery district:—
“Bilston, like Wolverhampton, has not been visited by fever to any
extent since the cholera in 1832. The awful destruction which then
occurred swept off many of those subjects who might afterwards have
been victims of fever; in fact Bilston was, after the cessation of
cholera, nearly free from disease of any kind for several months.
Influenza has occasionally visited us and swept off a few. Small-pox a
few years ago was prevalent, but not very fatal, although many
children from negligence on the part of the parents are not
vaccinated. Scarlet fever has appeared sometimes, but only in
straggling cases. The occupations of the poorer classes are chiefly
colliers, labourers, &c., great members of the latter being Irish. The
houses of those applying for parochial medical relief which I have
visited have been dirty and crowded, the habits of the working classes
here being generally improvident and dirty, many parties forming heaps
of filth close to their doors; and here, as in Wolverhampton, I am
afraid it would require the interference of the law to effect any
permanent good. Some years ago a large culvert was carried down the
principal street which has made a great improvement in that part, but
much yet remains undrained. I would mention a place in High-street
especially, near to a court, crowded with Irish, there is a pool of
green stagnant water or mud continually; another place called the
Berry, behind the King’s Arms Inn, and a third in a court in
Temple-street, where there appears to be a drain which has been choked
up, the stench from which is intolerable.”
_Dr. Edward Knight_ gives the following description of the sanitary
condition of the town of Stafford:—
“During the year ending September 29th, 1839, there have been in the
fever-wards connected with the Stafford County General Infirmary 76
cases of fever, of which number 10 have died, and the remaining 66
were discharged cured. The far greater part of these cases commenced
in the town of Stafford, some being brought to the infirmary in a
dying state, which gives a greater rate of mortality. Although the
fever-wards are well arranged, and every comfort and attention
provided for the patients, there is a general dislike on the part of
the poor to be removed to them from their own houses, except in cases
of actual necessity.
“Owing to this, and the filthy state of those parts of the town
occupied exclusively by the lower classes, as the ‘Broad-eye,’
‘Back-walls,’ &c., we have generally more or less of infectious
diseases during the autumn and winter months in each year, and
although such diseases do not extend their ravages to the more
respectable inhabitants, the above form but a very small portion of
the cases which occur.
“These parts of the town are without drainage, the houses, which are
private property, are built without any regard to situation or
ventilation, and constructed in a manner to ensure the greatest return
at the least possible outlay. The accommodation in them does not
extend beyond two rooms; these are small, and, for the most part, the
families work in the day-time in the same room in which they sleep, to
save fuel.
“There is not any provision made for refuse dirt, which, as the least
trouble, is thrown down in front of the houses, and there left to
putrefy. The back entrances to the houses in the principal streets are
generally into these, the stabling and cow-houses, &c., belonging to
them, forming one side of the street, and the manure, refuse vegetable
matter, &c., carried into the street, and placed opposite to the
poorer houses; so that they are continually subjected to the malaria
arising from that, in addition to their own dirt.
“The sedentary occupation of the working classes (shoemaking being the
staple trade of the town), their own want of cleanliness and general
intemperance, form, also, a fruitful source of disease. One-half of
the week is usually spent in the public-houses, and the other half
they work night and day to procure the necessary subsistence for their
families. There is a great want of improvement in the moral character
of the poor; they can obtain sufficient wages to support their
families respectably, but they are improvident and never make any
provision against illness. A local Act for the improvement of the town
empowers the commissioners to remove nuisances; but no notice is ever
taken. The situation of Stafford also offers every facility for an
efficient drainage; it is nearly surrounded by a large ditch, in which
there might be a running stream of water, well calculated to remove
all impurities; but it is always choked up, and in a stagnant state.
The river ‘Sow’ is also close to the town. There are not any sewers
even in the principal streets, the water being carried off by open
channels. In the Lunatic Asylum, which closely adjoins the town, and
averages 250 patients, great attention is paid to cleanliness, and we
never have any infectious diseases.”
In the month of December, 1839, an application was made to the Board for
advice and aid to meet the emergencies created by an epidemic which had
broken out in the parish of Breadsall in the Shardlow union
(Derbyshire). Mr. Senior, the Assistant Commissioner for the district,
accompanied Dr. Kennedy to the spot where the fever was prevalent, and
that report[2] may be submitted to attention, as containing a picture of
the habits of a large proportion of the population of that part of the
country, and an exemplification in a group of individual cases of the
common causes and effects of such calamities on the labouring
population.
The report from Dr. Baker, of Derby, and Mr. Senior’s report, comprising
the returns from the medical officers of Nottingham, Lincoln, and other
rural and town unions within his district, pourtray the sanitary
condition of a large proportion of the population included in them.
Proceeding northward, a report from _Mr. Bland_, the medical officer of
the Macclesfield union, gives the following description of the state of
the residences occupied by many of the labourers of that town:—
“In a part of the town called the Orchard, Watercoates, there are 34
houses without back doors, or other complete means of ventilation; the
houses are chiefly small, damp, and dark; they are rendered worse with
respect to dampness perhaps than they would be from the habit of the
people closing their windows to keep them warm. To these houses are
three privies uncovered; here little pools of water, with all kinds of
offal, dead animal and vegetable matter are heaped together, a most
foul and putrid mass, disgusting to the sight, and offensive to the
smell; the fumes of contagion spreads periodically itself in the
neighbourhood, and produces different types of fever and disorder of
the stomach and bowels. The people inhabiting these abodes are pale
and unhealthy, and in one house in particular are pale, bloated, and
rickety.”
_Mr. William Rayner_, the medical officer of the Heaton Norris district
of the Stockport union describes the condition of a part of the
population of that place:—
“The localities in which fever mostly prevails in my district, are
Shepherd’s Buildings and Back Water Street, both in the township of
Heaton Norris. Shepherd’s Buildings consist of two rows of houses with
a street seven yards wide between them; each row consists of what are
styled back and front houses—that is two houses placed back to back.
There are no yards or out-conveniences; the privies are in the centre
of each row, about a yard wide; over them there is part of a
sleeping-room; there is no ventilation in the bed-rooms; each house
contains two rooms, viz., a house place and sleeping room above; each
room is about three yards wide and four long. In one of these houses
there are nine persons belonging to one family, and the mother on the
eve of her confinement. There are 44 houses in the two rows, and 22
cellars, all of the same size. The cellars are let off as separate
dwellings; these are dark, damp, and very low, not more than six feet
between the ceiling and floor. The street between the two rows is
seven yards wide, in the centre of which is the common gutter, or more
properly sink, into which all sorts of refuse is thrown; it is a foot
in depth. Thus there is always a quantity of putrefying matter
contaminating the air. At the end of the rows is a pool of water very
shallow and stagnant, and a few yards further, a part of the town’s
gas works. In many of these dwellings there are four persons in one
bed.
“Backwater-street, the other locality of fever, is proverbially the
most filthy street in the town, contains a number of lodging-houses
and Irish, who mostly live in dark damp cellars, in which the light
can scarcely penetrate.
“It is not to be wondered at that such places should be the constant
foci of fevers; there is scarcely a house in Shepherd’s-buildings that
has not been affected with fever, and in some instances repeatedly:
new residents are most liable to be affected, the force of habit, or
some other protecting influence seems to render those who have lived
there some time less liable to be attacked. The same circumstance has
been noticed by others, and M. Louis, who is known throughout Europe,
having made this subject one of particular observation, states that it
is generally within the first year that new comers take fever, whilst
the old inhabitants who are equally exposed to the same exciting
causes escape.”
The report of Dr. Baron Howard, on the condition of the population of
Manchester, and that of Dr. Duncan, on the condition of the population
of Liverpool, will make up a progressive view of the condition of the
labouring population in those parts of the country. The Report of one of
the medical officers of the West Derby union, with relation to the
condition of the labouring population connected with Liverpool, will
serve to show that the evils in question are not confined to the
labouring population of the town properly so called.
“The locality of the residences of the labouring classes are in
respect to the surrounding atmosphere favourably situated, but their
internal structure and economy the very reverse of favourable. The
cottages are in general built more with a view to the per centage of
the landlord than to the accommodation of the poor. The joiner’s work
is ill performed; admitting by the doors, windows, and even floors,
air in abundance, which, however, in many cases, is not
disadvantageous to the inmates. The houses generally consist of three
apartments, viz., the day-room, into which the street-door opens, and
two bed-rooms, one above the other. There is likewise beneath the
day-room a cellar, let off either by the landlord or tenant of the
house, to a more improvident class of labourers; which cellar, in
almost all cases, is small and damp, and often crowded with
inhabitants to excess. These cellars are, in my opinion, the source of
many diseases, particularly catarrh, rheumatic affections, and tedious
cases of typhus mitior, which, owing to the overcrowded state of the
apartment, occasionally pass into typhus gravior. I need scarcely add
that the furniture and bedding are in keeping with the miserable
inmates. The rooms above the day-room are often let separately by the
tenant to lodgers, varying in number from one or two, to six or eight
individuals in each, their slovenly habits, indolence, and consequent
accumulation of filth go far to promote the prevalence of contagious
and infectious diseases.
“The houses already alluded to front the street, but there are houses
in back courts still more unfavourably placed, which also have their
cellars, and their tenants of a description worse, if possible. There
is commonly only one receptacle for refuse in a court of eight, ten,
or twelve densely crowded houses. In the year 1836–7, I attended a
family of 13, twelve of whom had typhus fever, without a bed in the
_cellar_, without straw or timber shavings—frequent substitutes. They
lay on the floor, and so crowded, that I could scarcely pass between
them. In another house I attended 14 patients; there were only two
beds in the house. All the patients, as lodgers, lay on the boards,
and during their illness, never had their clothes off. I met with many
cases in similar conditions, yet amidst the greatest destitution and
want of domestic comfort, I have never heard during the course of
twelve years’ practice, a complaint of inconvenient accommodation.”
The following extract from the report of _Mr. Pearson_, medical officer
of the Wigan union, is descriptive of the condition of large classes of
tenements in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire:—
“From the few observations which I have been enabled to make
respecting the causes of fever during the two months which I have held
the situation of house surgeon to the Dispensary, I am inclined to
consider the filthy condition of the town as being the most prominent
source. Many of the streets are unpaved and almost covered with
stagnant water, which lodges in numerous large holes which exist upon
their surface, and into which the inhabitants throw all kinds of
rejected animal and vegetable matters, which then undergo decay and
emit the most poisonous exhalations. These matters are often allowed,
from the filthy habits of the inhabitants of these districts, many of
whom, especially the poor Irish, are utterly regardless both of
personal and domestic cleanliness, to accumulate to an immense extent,
and thus become prolific sources of malaria, rendering the atmosphere
an active poison. The streets which particularly exhibit this
condition are Ashton-street, Hanover-street, Stuart-street,
John-street, Lord-street, Duke-street, Princess-street, and the short
streets leading from Queen-street, into Faggy-lane and
Princess-street. It may be also mentioned, that in many of these
streets there are no privies, or, if there are, they are in so filthy
a condition as to be absolutely useless; the absence of these must,
necessarily, increase the quantity of filth, and thus materially add
to the extent of the nuisance.
“In addition to the streets above mentioned, there are, besides, two
other localities, which must be considered as peculiarly fitted for
the generation of malaria—I mean the waste land in front of Bradshaw
Gate, and also that situated between Greenough’s-row and
Kerfoot’s-row; the latter is one complete pool of stagnant water,
mixed with various descriptions of putrifying animal and vegetable
matters. Many of the yards and courts in various parts of the town are
so built up as to prevent the movements of the atmosphere, and are in
a horribly filthy state, in consequence of dunghills which are
situated therein being allowed to grow to an immense size, and the
water which drains therefrom being permitted to flow over the
surface.”
Proceeding northwards, little difference is observable in the condition
of the working classes in the ancient towns, where the habitations were
crowded for the sake of fortification, and in the manufacturing towns,
where the habitations are crowded for the sake of vicinity to the places
of work, or from ignorance and inattention, or from the high price of
land. We cite the following instances of the condition of the
habitations and population in Durham, Barnard Castle, and Carlisle:—
_Mr. Nicholas Oliver_, Durham, states that—
“The city of Durham, like all ancient cities and towns, is built very
irregularly, and surrounded on all sides by the river Wear, which is
frequently overflown, and much wooded. These in summer and autumn, by
the combined influences of heat, moisture, and decaying vegetable
substances, become abundant sources of malaria. The streets are very
narrow, and the houses are built so much behind each other that the
entrance to a great many of the dwellings is by a passage, lane, or
alley, either a steep ascent or descent, where, from a proper want of
receptacles and sewers, filth is allowed to accumulate, and there
necessarily is a constant emanation of fœtid effluvia. The majority of
the houses are very old and in a dilapidated state, several not being
weather proof. The great bulk of the working classes inhabit these
tenements, and they seldom occupy more than two rooms, many only one,
where all that is requisite in conducing to cleanliness and comfort
has to be performed.
“The spirit of improvement, which is making such rapid strides in
other parts of the country, is here quite dormant. Nothing calls
louder for the attention of the constituted authorities than the
improvements which might be effected in the habitations of the
industrious classes, thereby increasing their health, comfort, and
happiness.”
_Mr. George Brown_, of Barnard Castle, in the Teesdale union, states
that—
“The residences of the labouring population within the Teesdale Union,
especially in Barnard Castle and the more populous villages, is mostly
in large houses let into tenements. At least four-fifths of the
weavers in Barnard Castle live in such residences, and about one half
of all the other labouring poor in the Union. The tenements which form
the residences of the weavers and other labourers in Barnard Castle
are principally situate in Thorngage, Bridgegate, and the lower parts
of the town, and in confined yards and alleys. The houses are many of
them very large. I am told somewhere there are as many as 50 or more
individuals under one roof. There is generally, perhaps, one privy to
a whole yard (or onset as they term it), embracing five or six houses.
From the crowded state of these dwelling-houses, and the filthiness of
many of their inmates, disease would undoubtedly arise more commonly
than it actually does, but the river Tees flows at the foot of each
yard, running alongside of all the houses in Bridgegate. The
impurities are thus speedily carried away, and the evils which might
otherwise be expected from the effluvia of vegetable and other bodies
in a state of decomposition are prevented; besides which, the houses
in general being large and the poorer class in the upper stories, they
are more protected against cold and damp.”
_Mr. Brown_, in regard to Barnard Castle, further states, that—
“A surgeon here of great intelligence and practice states that in the
town of Barnard Castle he has always found the most obstinate cases of
typhus and other epidemics, and also rheumatism, to prevail amongst
the houses on the west side of the principal street. These houses
slope towards the moat of the old castle, which is not sufficiently
drained; and the thick and high walls of the ruins of the castle
retain the damp, and prevent the accession of the western winds to the
moat and many of the houses. In the interior of the castle, now used
as a garden, there is a stagnant pond which ought to be drained off:
this pond is nearly opposite the yards, which are full of the
residences of the poorer classes, and called the Swamp. Disease is
often found to exist in these yards, and the surgeon I have referred
to attributes to it the dampness of the moat (upon or on the margin of
which the houses are built) and to the pond before mentioned. All the
houses on the west side of the street have one step, and some more,
down from the street. I am also told by the same surgeon that very
many of the cases of fever and rheumatism which he attends may be
fairly traced to the dampness of houses or want of sufficient drainage
of the ground previously to building, and their being built below the
level of the adjoining ground, by which the moisture is thrown into
them.”
_Mr. Rowland_, of Carlisle, states—
“Though Carlisle abounds with beautiful walks, it generally has them
accompanied with filthy putrid gutters, and there seems no mode of
compelling any one to clean them out. The city is surrounded with such
nuisances; on the south side at the foot of Botchergate, there is a
gutter, perhaps a mile long, which conducts the filth of that quarter
through the fields into the river Petteril. The stench in summer is
very great. The filth seems to accumulate from want of descent, and
probably the whole descent is in the first field next Botchergate. If
this gutter was paved and the descent made regular, I have no doubt it
would keep itself clean.”
The following is a brief notice of the condition of the residences of
the population amidst which the cholera first made its appearance in
this country.
_Mr. Robert Atkinson_, Gateshead, states, that—
“It is impossible to give a proper representation of the wretched
state of many of the inhabitants of the indigent class, situated in
the confined streets called Pipewellgate and Killgate, which are kept
in a most filthy state, and to a stranger would appear inimical to the
existence of human beings, where each small, ill ventilated apartment
of the house contained a family with lodgers in number from seven to
nine, and seldom more than two beds for the whole. The want of
convenient offices in the neighbourhood is attended with many very
unpleasant circumstances, as it induces the lazy inmates to make use
of chamber utensils, which are suffered to remain in the most
offensive state for several days, and are then emptied out of the
windows. The writer had occasion a short time ago to visit a person
ill of the cholera; his lodgings were in a room of a miserable house
situated in the very filthiest part of Pipewellgate, divided into six
apartments, and occupied by different families to the number of 26
persons in all. The room contained three wretched beds with two
persons sleeping in each: it measured about 12 feet in length and 7 in
breadth, and its greatest height would not admit of a person’s
standing erect; it received light from a small window, the sash of
which was fixed. Two of the number lay ill of the cholera, and the
rest appeared afraid of the admission of pure air, having carefully
closed up the broken panes with plugs of old linen.”
The _Rev. Dr. Gilly_, the vicar of Norham and canon of Durham, in an
appeal in behalf of the border peasantry, describes their dwellings as
“built of rubble or unhewn stone, loosely cemented; and from age, or
from badness of the materials, the walls look as if they would scarcely
hold together.” The chinks gape in so many places as admit blasts of
wind:—
“The chimneys have lost half their original height, and lean on the
roof with fearful gravitation. The rafters are evidently rotten and
displaced; and the thatch, yawning to admit the wind and wet in some
parts, and in all parts utterly unfit for its original purpose of
giving protection from the weather, looks more like the top of a
dunghill than of a cottage.
“Such is the exterior; and when the hind comes to take possession, he
finds it no better than a shed. The wet, if it happens to rain, is
making a puddle on the earth floor. (This earth floor, by the bye, is
one of the causes to which Erasmus ascribed the frequent recurrence of
epidemic sickness among the cotters of England more than 300 years
ago. It is not only cold and wet, but contains the aggregate filth of
years, from the time of its first being used. The refuse and dropping
of meals, decayed animal and vegetable matter of all kinds, which has
been cast upon it from the mouth and stomach, these all mix together
and exude from it.) Window-frame there is none. There is neither oven,
nor copper, nor grate, nor shelf, nor fixture of any kind; all these
things he has to bring with him, besides his ordinary articles of
furniture. Imagine the trouble, the inconvenience, and the expense
which the poor fellow and his wife have to encounter before they can
put this shell of a hut into anything like a habitable form. This year
I saw a family of eight—husband, wife, two sons, and four
daughters—who were in utter discomfort, and in despair of putting
themselves in a decent condition, three or four weeks after they had
come into one of these hovels. In vain did they try to stop up the
crannies, and to fill up the holes in the floor, and to arrange their
furniture in tolerably decent order, and to keep out the weather.
Alas! what will they not suffer in the winter! There will be no
fireside enjoyment for them. They may huddle together for warmth, and
heap coals on the fire; but they will have chilly beds and a damp
hearth-stone; and the cold wind will sweep through the roof, and
window, and crazy door-place, in spite of all their endeavours to
exclude it.
“The general character of the best of the old-fashioned hind’s
cottages in this neighbourhood is bad at the best. They have to bring
everything with them—partitions, window-frames, fixtures of all kinds,
grates, and a substitute for ceiling; for they are, as I have already
called them, mere sheds. They have no byre for their cows nor sties
for their pigs, no pumps or wells, nothing to promote cleanliness or
comfort. The average size of these sheds is about 24 by 16. They are
dark and unwholesome. The windows do not open; and many of them are
not larger than 20 inches by 16; and into this place are crowded 8,
10, or even 12 persons.”
In a selection of plans and drawings of labourers’ dwellings will be
found a sketch of a group of hinds’ cottages, such as those described by
Dr. Gilly.
The progress of the inquiry into Scotland shows the external and
internal condition of the poorer classes of the population to be still
more deplorable. The condition of a large portion of the labouring
population of the smaller towns, and of the rural districts, is
displayed in the Report of Dr. Scott Alison, on the sanitary condition
and general economy of the population of Tranent; in the Report of Mr.
Stevenson, on the condition of the town of Musselburgh; that of Dr. Sym,
on the town of Ayr, to which further reference will subsequently be
made.
The description given of the houses of labourers of Lochmaben, by _Mr.
Wilson_, surgeon, is one which characterizes a large class of houses
throughout Scotland:—
“In Lochmaben, they are surrounded by low meadow lands subject to
frequent inundations, marshes and lakes, with dunghills and pools of
dirty water, in which vegetable substances are soaked for the purpose
of making manure on all sides of the dwellings. These houses, similar
to the dwellings of the generality of the labouring classes, consist
of a building 30 feet in length by 16 feet in breadth within the
walls; the floor is formed of clay; ceiling, if any, generally formed
by spars of wood laid close together, and covered with dry turf; one
front door and two front windows. This building is usually occupied by
two families, entering by the same door; the partitions are formed by
the back of the beds, which will be best understood by describing them
as wooden boxes open on one side; the windows rarely are made to open,
so that they are ventilated by the door; but having little fuel, the
door must be kept shut to maintain warmth, and the chimneys being
badly constructed, the dwelling is often full of smoke. Potatoes are
often kept under the beds. There are no proper receptacles for filth
attached to the houses.”
The most wretched of the stationary population of which I have been able
to obtain any account, or that I have ever seen, was that which I saw in
company with _Dr. Arnott_, and others, in the wynds of Edinburgh and
Glasgow.
I prefer citing his description of the residences we visited:—
“In the survey which I had the opportunity of making in September,
1840, of the state of Edinburgh and Glasgow, all appeared confirmatory
of the view of the subject of fevers submitted to the Poor Law
Commissioners by those who prepared the Report in London.
“In Glasgow, which I first visited, it was found that the great mass
of the fever cases occurred in the low wynds and dirty narrow streets
and courts, in which, because lodging was there cheapest, the poorest
and most destitute naturally had their abodes. From one such locality,
between Argyll-street and the river, 754 of about 5000 cases of fever
which occurred in the previous year were carried to the hospitals. In
a perambulation on the morning of September 24th, with Mr. Chadwick,
Dr. Alison, Dr. Cowan (since deceased, who had laboured so
meritoriously to alleviate the misery of the poor in Glasgow), the
police magistrate, and others, we examined these wynds, and, to give
an idea of the whole vicinity, I may state as follows:—
“We entered a dirty low passage like a house door, which led from the
street through the first house to a square court immediately behind,
which court, with the exception of a narrow path around it leading to
another long passage through a second house, was occupied entirely as
a dung receptacle of the most disgusting kind. Beyond this court the
second passage led to a second square court, occupied in the same way
by its dunghill; and from this court there was yet a third passage
leading to a third court, and third dungheap. There were no privies or
drains there, and the dungheaps received all filth which the swarm of
wretched inhabitants could give; and we learned that a considerable
part of the rent of the houses was paid by the produce of the
dungheaps. Thus, worse off than wild animals, many of which withdraw
to a distance and conceal their ordure, the dwellers in these courts
had converted their shame into a kind of money by which their lodging
was to be paid. The interiors of these houses and their inmates
corresponded with the exteriors. We saw half-dressed wretches crowding
together to be warm; and in one bed, although in the middle of the
day, several women were imprisoned under a blanket, because as many
others who had on their backs all the articles of dress that belonged
to the party were then out of doors in the streets. This picture is so
shocking that, without ocular proof, one would be disposed to doubt
the possibility of the facts; and yet there is perhaps no old town in
Europe that does not furnish parallel examples. London, before the
great fire of 1666, had few drains and had many such scenes, and the
consequence was, a pestilence occurring at intervals of about 12
years, each destroying at an average about a fourth of the
inhabitants.
“Who can wonder that pestilential disease should originate and spread
in such situations? And, as a contrast, it may be observed here, that
when the kelp manufacture lately ceased on the western shores of
Scotland, a vast population of the lowest class of people who had been
supported chiefly by the wages of kelp-labour remained in extreme
want, with cold, hunger, and almost despair pressing them down—yet, as
their habitations were scattered and in pure air, cases of fever did
not arise among them.
“Edinburgh stands on a site beautifully varied by hill and hollow, and
owing to this, unusual facilities are afforded for perfect drainage;
but the old part of the town was built long before the importance of
drainage was understood in Britain, and in the unchanged parts there
is none but by the open channels in the streets, wynds, and closes or
courts. To remedy the want of covered drains, there is in many
neighbourhoods a very active service of scavengers to remove
everything which open drains cannot be allowed to carry; but this does
not prevent the air from being much more contaminated by the frequent
stirring and sweeping of impurities than if the transport were
effected under ground; and there are here and there enclosed spaces
between houses too small to be used for any good purpose but not
neglected for bad, and to which the scavengers have not access.
“Another defect in some parts of Edinburgh is the great size and
height of the houses (some of them exceeding ten stories), with common
stairs, sometimes as filthy as the streets or wynds to which they
open. By this construction the chance of cleanliness is lessened, the
labour of carrying up necessaries, and particularly water for the
purposes of purifying is increased; and if any malaria or contagion
exist in the house, the probability of its passing from dwelling to
dwelling on the same stair is much greater than if there were no
communication but through the open air. Illustrating how malaria may
be produced, I may state that in making a round of observation with
Mr. Chadwick, attended by the Police Superintendent, and others, we
visited a house at the back of the Canongate, which in former days had
been the chief inn of the city, but now, with its internal court-yard
of steep ascent, is occupied by families of the labouring classes. In
the court-yard a widow of respectable appearance, who answered some of
our questions, occupied a room which appeared on the ground-floor, as
seen from the court, but was above a stable, now used as a pigsty,
opening to the lower level of the external street. A little while
before, on the occasion of the dungheap being removed from the pigsty,
two children who lived with her, a daughter and a niece, were made ill
by the effluvia from below, and both died within a few days.
“The facts here referred to go far to explain why fatal fever has been
more common in Edinburgh than from other circumstances would have been
anticipated.”
It might admit of dispute, but, on the whole, it appeared to us that
both the structural arrangements and the condition of the population in
Glasgow was the worst of any we had seen in any part of Great Britain.
II.—PUBLIC ARRANGEMENTS EXTERNAL TO THE RESIDENCES BY WHICH THE SANITARY
CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POPULATION IS AFFECTED.
I now propose to bring under consideration those parts of the various
local reports and communications which most prominently set forth
special defects that apparently admit of specific remedies.
The defects which are the most important, and which come most
immediately within practical legislative and administrative control, are
those chiefly _external_ to the dwellings of the population, and
principally arise from the neglect of drainage. The remedies include the
means for drainage simply, _i. e._, the means for the removal of an
excess of moisture; and
The means for the removal of the noxious refuse of houses, streets, and
roads, by sewerage, by supplies of water, and by the service of
scavengers and sweepers.
_Town Drainage of Streets and Houses._
The sanitary effects obtainable by an efficient town drainage,
independently of all other measures, is exhibited in various parts of
the country by such particular instances as the following:—
_Dr. Baker_, in his report on the sanitary condition of Derby states:—
“At the back of the whole row (on the north side of the street) there
runs a series of little gardens, each house possessing one, in width
equal to the frontage of the house it belongs to, and in length 56
feet. To every five houses there is a pump; and at the bottom of each
garden a double privy, answering for two houses, the cesspool shallow,
and open to the air; and to this nuisance many have added a pigsty,
and dung or rubbish heap. The inhabitants of this street are poor
people, chiefly silk-weavers, and what are here called
frame-work-knitters or stockingers.
“There are on this (the north) side of the street 54 houses, and
between October, 1837, and the latter part of March, 1838, the
families inhabiting six adjoining houses in the middle of the row were
grievously afflicted with typhus fever, whilst those who dwelt in the
remaining 48 houses were comparatively healthy.
“The following list will give at one view the details of this
visitation.
“The houses are numbered from the bottom of the hill towards the top.
┌──────┬───────────┬───────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Number│Name of the│Number │ REMARKS. │
│of the│ Family. │ of │ │
│House.│ │Persons│ │
│ │ │ ill │ │
│ │ │ with │ │
│ │ │Fever. │ │
├──────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│No. 25│Langton. │ 3 │Children, all of whom recovered. │
│No. 26│Dearu. │ 4 │Man and wife, the former died. │
│No. 27│Bailey. │ 1 │Man, who recovered. │
│No. 28│Nettleship.│ 4 │Three children, and subsequently their │
│ │ │ │ mother. The children, after many weeks, │
│ │ │ │ recovered, but the poor mother (who was │
│ │ │ │ pregnant), being much weakened by the │
│ │ │ │ fever, and long attendance upon her │
│ │ │ │ children, died soon afterwards in │
│ │ │ │ child-bed. │
│No. 29│Curzon. │ 5 │First a lodger, named Elizabeth Sherwin, │
│ │ │ │ (recently confined) and her infant, both│
│ │ │ │ died. Then three of Curzon’s children, │
│ │ │ │ who recovered. │
│No. 30│Hatfield. │ 1 │A girl, who recovered. │
└──────┴───────────┴───────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘
“In all 16 persons attacked with typhus fever, of whom five died.
“Here then we have a very interesting subject for investigation;
namely, how was it that in a row of 54 houses, uniform in situation,
size, and construction, tenanted by the same description of persons,
the inhabitants of the six centre houses should have been attacked by
a malignant fever, from which those who lived in the 24 houses above
and 24 below them altogether escaped?
“By a careful inspection of the whole row I obtained the following
information and facts:—That before this street was built, the natural
moisture of the land, and any sudden rush of water caused by rain, was
carried away by a ditch running down the whole length of the hill,
where the present gardens terminate. Also, that in the gardens of the
upper 21 or 22 houses this ditch had been filled up; and sinks and
drains, communicating with the main sewer, that passes down the middle
of the street, had been placed between each garden and the
dwelling-house. At this point too there is a brick wall, carried down
to the bottom of the garden, and dividing this property from the
adjoining, and it is very probable that this wall assisted in checking
the spread of the fever from the six infected houses, at which part of
the row we have now arrived.
“The state of the premises belonging to these ill-fated houses was as
follows:—The ditch already alluded to as passing at the bottom of the
gardens was here not filled up; there were not any sinks and drains,
and the cesspools were overflowing into the ditch, which, here and
there obstructed, formed a succession of foul and stinking pools, from
four to six feet wide; whilst the earth of the gardens was perpetually
saturated with the offensive moisture exuding from them.
“The want of drains, or their faulty construction, may render any
situation unhealthy; nor must it be supposed that because high lands
in the open country seldom require draining, that it is therefore
little needed in elevated portions of a town, for in the latter there
are always dirt and slops that require carrying away from the houses
that produce them. And inasmuch as drains in high situations never get
such a thorough washing out by rain and natural moisture as those do
which, from being in lower grounds, receive a swollen and accumulated
stream, the former require the greater attention to keep them from
becoming foul and obstructed: and it is not a little remarkable that
three elevated parts of the town of Derby are hardly ever exempt from
fever. They are the Burton-road (district No. 2 in the table),
Litchurch-street (district No. 3), and Parker’s Flats (district No.
12).
“In the latter end of the year 1837 and beginning of 1838,
Litchurch-street afforded a striking instance of a situation which
promised exemption from malaria and disease, being heavily visited by
typhus fever, caused, as I shall show, by the most wilful inattention
to drainage.
“Litchurch-street is situated in the southern suburb of Derby, from
which indeed, although forming a part of the Derby union, it is
separated by intervening fields and nursery-grounds belonging to the
General Infirmary. Its course is nearly east and west, running down
the side of a gentle declivity. The houses in Litchurch-street have
not been built many years; are rather small, but are double houses,
having a front and back room on the ground floor, and over these a
front and back bed-room.
“Descending the hill to the remaining 24 houses (below those
infected), and which, from their standing upon lower ground, might
reasonably be expected to have fared worse, I soon discovered from
whence their protection came. The land adjoining the Litchurch-street
gardens belongs, as I have already stated, to the General Infirmary,
and the governors of that institution had eight years before built a
wall in the former course of the ditch, before spoken of, which wall
extended from the foot of the hill as far up as the house No. 24; at
the same time they had filled up the ditch, carrying its contents by a
drain away from the gardens below and into the nearest public sewer:
now reference to the list detailing the amount and progress of the
fever on this occasion will show that No. 25 was the first house
affected. The connexion therefore between the facts here furnished and
the tragedy of the six houses is too obvious to require further
comment.
“I shall conclude this part of my subject by adding, that from motives
of both humanity and economy, the Board of Guardians and the governors
of the infirmary jointly exerted themselves to get rid of so serious a
nuisance, that the latter, at an expense of more than 50_l._, extended
the wall of separation between Litchurch-street and their own lands,
but that, in all other respects, the evil remains now (two years
since) as it was then; nor was there found any law that would compel
its removal, the place complained of being private property.
“My friend Mr. Harwood, surgeon of the Derby union, informs me that in
Canal-street (district 5 of table 1) five sisters in one family were
successively attacked with typhus fever, caused by the escape of foul
air from a drain.
“It appears that a drain, coming from some neighbouring privies, had
been carried so near to the house in which they resided as to form
part of the boundary wall of the cellar, which had for some time
previous become too offensive to be used.
“Four months elapsed before this family became free from disease; no
return of which, however, has taken place since the removal of the
drain, which now passes at a greater distance.
“Taken altogether, I think that in large towns (and villages also)
there is hardly any source of disease more powerful as to its
pernicious influence, or more general as to extent, than defective
drainage.”
_Mr. John Rayner_, the medical officer of the Stockport union, states in
his report on the condition of that town:—
“There is a street of about 200 yards in length, the houses of which
are of excellent construction, with very few exceptions, and without
those unhealthy places, viz., cellar dwellings. The upper third of it
is unpaved and without sewerage. It is 10 yards wide, and the
inhabitants are generally very clean, as respects both their persons
and dwellings; and notwithstanding they are, without exception, well
fed and clad, fever has gradually prevailed, _but only on the north
side_ of the street. The situation is not a confined one, neither do
the houses differ either as to convenience or cleanliness on this side
of it.
“In the 10 houses at the upper end of this street (three of which are
untenanted) there has been 21 cases of continued fever. Every house,
with three exceptions, has had several cases, in some of them as many
as four in number. In one, five cases have occurred.
“Seeing this fact, I examined the adjoining yard and gardens, and
found a stagnant pool of water and an open ditch about two feet wide,
into which the refuse water from the houses, and from two pigsties,
was allowed to accumulate. It is about 15 or 20 yards in length.
Adjoining the gable end of one of the untenanted houses were found
heaps of ordure and other refuse matters undergoing the process of
decay.
“The west end of this street opens into some gardens, where free
ventilation may easily take place, and, I have no doubt, has prevented
the spread of infection to the south side of it.”
The following is the comparison of the different mortality in a drained
and an undrained district, made by _Mr. Crowfoot_, surgeon, of Beccles,
one of the most eminent of the medical practitioners in Suffolk. In a
letter to Mr. Twisleton, the Assistant Commissioner, he states—
“You are aware that these two towns of nearly equal population are
nearly alike as to natural advantages of situation, &c., except that
Bungay, having a larger proportion of rural population inhabiting the
district called Bungay Uplands, ought to be more healthy than Beccles,
which has nearly its whole population confined to the town. About 30
years since, Beccles began a system of drainage, which it has
continued to improve, till at the present time every part of the town
is well drained, and I am not aware of a single open drain in the
place. Bungay, on the contrary, with equally convenient opportunities
for drainage, has neglected its advantages in that respect, has one or
two large reservoirs for filth in the town itself, and some of its
principal drains are open ones. The result you will see is, that
Bungay, with a smaller proportion of town inhabitants, has become of
late years less healthy than Beccles. I have carefully taken the
number of burials from the parish registers of each town for the last
30 years, and dividing them into decennial periods, I have calculated
the proportion which the deaths bore to the mean population, between
one census and the other, during each 10 years; the only possible
source of fallacy is the want of the census for 1841; but in its
absence I have supposed the same rate of increase as took place
between that of 1821 and that of 1831 for each place. Sinking
fractions, the following has been the proportion of deaths to the
population in the two towns:—
Beccles. Bungay.
Between the years 1811 and 1821 1 in 67 1 in 69
Between the years 1821 and 1831 1 in 72 1 in 67
Between the years 1831 and 1841 1 in 71 1 in 59
You will therefore see that the rate of mortality has gradually
diminished in Beccles since it has been drained, whilst in Bungay,
notwithstanding its larger proportion of rural population, it has
considerably increased.
“The Ditchingham Factory may have given a greater increase of
population to Bungay than I have allowed for, but, on the other hand,
the Roman Catholics and the Independents bury many of their dead in
their own ground, which I have not calculated upon. Since writing the
above, I have been over to Bungay, to examine more particularly the
state of its drainage, which is much worse than I had any idea of. If
their population should much increase, their mortality will increase
much faster.”
A frightful picture of a considerable proportion of the labouring
population of Leeds in respect to sewerage and drainage is afforded by
the report of _Mr. Baker_, who gives the following instance of
amendment:—
“In one of the streets of Leeds where stagnant water used frequently
to accumulate after rain, and where there was perpetually occurring
cases of fever of a malignant character, a deputation of females
waited upon me in my capacity of town counsellor to ask if any remedy
could be applied to this nuisance, which they declared was not only
offensive but deadly. I directed them to communicate with the owner of
the property, and to say that if the grievance was not remedied I
should take further steps to enforce it. Never hearing again from the
deputation, I presumed that the remedy had been applied, and had
forgotten the circumstance until the house surgeon of the fever
hospital in 1840, in noticing the localities from whence fever cases
were most frequently brought to the institution, remarked that
‘formerly many cases of malignant fever were brought in from ——
street, but for two or three years there had been none or not more
than one or two.’”
_Mr. John Wright_, the relieving officer of the Tamworth union, states,
that the following extracts exhibit the condition in which large masses
of the population are kept by the neglect of the proper means of town
drainage, and of the house cleansing, practicable by means of drains:—
“Some of the houses in the back streets and courts of Tamworth,
particularly those comprised in Class No. 1, are in a wretched state
with respect to the common conveniences of life, being adjacent to
stagnant ditches and pools of water, and having only one privy, common
to many houses, and hemmed in with piggeries, &c., most of these
houses having no back doors, the consequence of which is, that fevers
and other disorders, generated by filth and malaria, are very
prevalent, particularly in humid weather.”
_Mr. Elias Barlow_, the relieving officer of the Wolstanton and Burslem
union, states that—
“The townships of Knutton and Chesterton have been visited with fever
for several months; and it still continues its raging influence,
particularly in Knutton, the reason of which appears to me to be want
of drainage, owing to the houses having been built upon low marshy
ground; and also want of ventilation, owing to the houses being too
small and having no back doors; it first made its appearance in the
lowest class of houses, but has since extended to others.”
The condition of the labouring population of Liverpool, in respect to
drainage, is thus described in the report of _Dr. Duncan_:—
“The sewerage of Liverpool was so very imperfect, that about 10 years
ago a local Act was procured, appointing commissioners with power to
levy a rate on the parish for the construction of sewers. Under this
Act, which expires next year, about 100,000_l._. have been expended in
the formation of sewers along the main streets, but many of these are
still unsewered; and with regard to the streets inhabited by the
working classes, I believe that the great majority are without sewers,
and that where they do exist they are of a very imperfect kind unless
where the ground has a natural inclination, therefore the surface
water and fluid refuse of every kind stagnate in the street, and add,
especially in hot weather, their pestilential influence to that of the
more solid filth already mentioned. With regard to the courts, I doubt
whether there is a single court in Liverpool which communicates with
the street by an underground drain, the only means afforded for
carrying off the fluid dirt being a narrow, open, shallow gutter,
which sometimes exists, but even this is very generally choked up with
stagnant filth.
“There can be no doubt that the emanations from this pestilential
surface, in connexion with other causes, are a frequent source of
fever among the inhabitants of these undrained localities. I may
mention two instances in corroboration of this assertion:—In
consequence of finding that not less than 63 cases of fever had
occurred in one year in Union-court Banastre-street, (containing 12
houses,) I visited the court in order to ascertain, if possible, their
origin, and I found the whole court inundated with fluid filth which
had oozed through the walls from two adjoining ash-pits or cesspools,
and which had no means of escape in consequence of the court being
below the level of the street, and having no drain. The court was
owned by two different landlords, one of whom had offered to construct
a drain provided the other would join him in the expense; but this
offer having been refused, the court had remained for two or three
years in the state in which I saw it; and I was informed by one of the
inhabitants that the fever was constantly occurring there. The house
nearest the ash-pit had been untenanted for nearly three years in
consequence of the filthy matter oozing up through the floor, and the
occupiers of the adjoining houses were unable to take their meals
without previously closing the doors and windows. Another court in
North-street, consisting of only four small houses I found in a
somewhat similar condition, the air being contaminated by the
emanations from two filthy ruinous privies, a large open ash-pit and a
stratum of semi-fluid abomination covering the whole surface of the
court.
“From the absence of drains and sewers, there are of course few
cellars entirely free from damp; many of those in low situations are
literally inundated after a fall of rain. To remedy the evil, the
inhabitants frequently make little holes or wells at the foot of the
cellar steps or in the floor itself; and notwithstanding these
contrivances, it has been necessary in some cases to take the door off
its hinges and lay it on the floor supported by bricks, in order to
protect the inhabitants from the wet. Nor is this the full extent of
the evil; the fluid matter of the court privies sometimes oozes
through into the adjoining cellars, rendering them uninhabitable by
any one whose olfactories retain the slightest sensibility. In one
cellar in Lace-street I was told that the filthy water thus collected
measured not less than two feet in depth; and in another cellar, a
well, four feet deep, into which this stinking fluid was allowed to
drain, was discovered below the bed where the family slept!”
He also states,—
“There are upwards of 8,000 inhabited cellars in Liverpool, and I
estimate their occupants at from 35,000 to 40,000.”
He adds that—
“In a Report lately made by the Surveyors, appointed by the Town
Council to examine the condition of the court and cellar residences
within the borough, it is stated that of 2,398 _courts_ examined,
1,705 were closed at one end, so as to prevent thorough ventilation.
Of 6,571 _cellars_, whose condition is reported on, 2,988 are stated
to be either wet or damp, and nearly one-third of the whole number are
from 5 to 6 feet below the level of the street.”
_Dr. Jenks_, in his report on the condition of the town of Brighton,
states,—
“Owing to the imperfect and insufficient drainage of the town, the
inhabitants are compelled to have recourse to numerous cesspools as
receptacles for superabundant water, and refuse of all kinds; and to
save the inconvenience of frequently emptying them, they dig below the
hard coombe rock till they come to the shingles, where all the liquid
filth drains away. The consequence is inevitable; the springs in the
lower part of the town must be contaminated.”
But even in Birmingham, which, as will be seen, enjoys almost an
immunity from fever in consequence of the fortunate position of the town
conferring advantages in respect to drainage, and the good construction
of the houses, it appears from the report made by the physicians and
surgeons, that the drainage is in many places extremely defective.
“The great sewers of the town open into the Rea, or into the rivulets
which discharge their contents into that stream. In some places these
rivulets are now covered over and constitute sewers. The present
sewers, which are numerous and large, appear to be sufficient to carry
off any storms or floods to which the town is liable, and no part of
the town is subject to inundations. The principal streets are well
drained, but this is far from the case with respect to many of the
inferior streets, and to many, or rather most, of the courts, which,
especially in the old parts of the town, are dirty and neglected, with
water stagnating in them. These require immediate attention, and care
ought to be taken that the depth of the main drains is sufficient to
drain the cellars of the adjoining premises, which is not the case in
some parts of the town. It is also important that a system of proper
drainage should be enforced at the commencement of the building of any
new streets or houses. The want of some regulations in this respect
often causes the accumulation of putrid water in ditches and pools in
the immediate vicinity of newly-erected buildings. In some parts of
the borough, as at Edgbaston, there are but few public underground
sewers, and the water from the houses is discharged into the ditches
or gutters by the sides of the roads, where it stagnates. In the
courts the drains are often above ground, and not covered in, and
discharge their contents into the gutters or kennels in the streets.
We do not think that much advantage is derived from having small
underground drains in the courts if the gutters are laid upon a proper
slope and are kept in proper repair, for the weirs or grates of small
underground drains are very apt to be out of order, or to become
choked, in which case accumulations of filthy fluids take place above
them.”
The inquiry into the sanitary condition of the towns in Scotland shows
that similar defects stand equally in need of remedy in that part of the
empire. _Mr. Burton_, in his report on the provisions of the Police Act
for the city of Edinburgh, observes:—
“Until very lately the Cowgate, a long street running along the lowest
level of a narrow valley, had only surface drains. The various alleys
from the High-street and other elevated ground open into this street.
In rainy weather they carried with them each its respective stream of
filth, and thus the Cowgate bore the aspect of a gigantic sewer
receiving its tributary drains. A committee of private gentlemen had
the merit of making a spacious sewer 830 yards long in this street at
a cost of 2000_l._ collected by subscription. The utmost extent to
which they received assistance from the police, consisted in being
vested with the authority of the Act as a protection from the
interruption of private parties. During the operation they were
nevertheless harassed by claims of damage for obstructing the
causeway, and their minutes, with a perusal of which I have been
favoured, show that they experienced a series of interruptions from
the neighbouring occupants, likely to discourage others from following
their example.”
In a communication from _Mr. William Chambers_, he observes—
“Within these few years, the practice of introducing water-closets
into houses has become pretty general, wherever it is practicable; but
in the greater part of the old town nothing of the kind can be
accomplished from the want of drains. There are drains in the leading
thoroughfares, but few closes possess these conveniences, and water is
also sparingly introduced into these confined situations. You will
therefore understand that a want of tributary drains and water is a
fundamental cause of the uncleanly condition of the town. Of water of
the finest kind there is indeed a plenteous supply, but unfortunately
this is a monopoly in the hands of a joint-stock company, and
excepting at two or three wells, all the water introduced into the
town has to be specially paid for, in the form of a tax upon the
rental, by those who use it.”
As in England, the ignorance or neglect upon this matter is not confined
to the labouring population of the capital. _Dr. Scott Alison_, in his
report on the condition of Tranent and the adjacent districts, observes
that—
“There is nothing like an efficient system of drainage in Tranent and
the other villages in the district. There is a piece of drain here and
there, but it is very inefficient. There is not even a sufficient
water-course in the main streets of Tranent; and it frequently
happens, during and after a heavy fall of rain, that the carriage-road
is covered with water, and that some of the lower class of houses are
inundated. In a few parts of the town the water-course is covered with
stones or flags. These occasionally fall in, and openings are made.
These openings are generally left unrepaired, and are not filled up.
People frequently get hurt by stepping into them when it is dark. I
have myself met with an accident; and serious mischief would very
frequently occur did people not pay particular attention to avoid
them.”
_Dr. Sym_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the town of Ayr,
states that—
“A good covered sewer traverses the principal streets of the new part
of Ayr; but the old part of the burgh, and both Newton and Wallacetown
have merely shallow open gutters along the sides of the causeway.
These gutters receive all the liquid refuse from the closes and alleys
which communicate with the street, and which are generally causewayed
in such a way that one side is considerably higher than the other, so
as to permit water to find its way to the opposite edge. This sort of
drainage might suffice for all useful purposes in our dry sandy soil
if we had an adequate establishment of scavengers; but the gutters in
many of the streets, and in all the closes inhabited by the poor are
so much neglected, that they are never free from the stinking residuum
of foul water. In Newton and Wallacetown, the drainage is exceedingly
imperfect; indeed, in most streets of the latter it may be said
scarcely to exist, and as the surface is very flat, almost the whole
of the liquid putrescence and filth which are thrown out from the
houses is allowed to filter through the sand, or evaporate in the sun,
leaving a most offensive paste at the sides of the streets, and in the
passages through the houses. This is the more to be regretted, that
the beautiful state of cleanliness of the new part of Ayr, shows with
how little labour it might be obviated with the aid of our absorbent
soil and free atmosphere. There are some streets, the main street of
Newton in particular, which have such inequalities in the causewayed
footpaths, and such want of escape by the gutters, that it is
impossible to find one’s way through them in a dark night, without
many a plunge into the filth. There is everywhere sufficient slope
toward the river to render drainage perfectly effectual, if properly
executed.”
_Mr. Forrest_, the surgeon, in his account of Stirling, states that—
“The drains or sewers, called in Stirling ‘_sivers_,’ are all open and
sloping. On the public streets they are, in general, well constructed,
but in the closes their construction is so very bad that scarcely any
of them run well. The only supply of water, so far as I know, which
they receive, is from the heavens. The inhabitants of Stirling, during
many months of the year, do not obtain water sufficient for their
domestic wants, and they cannot, therefore, have any to spare for
their sewers. There is a regularly appointed service of scavengers,
but it is inefficient. A few old men sweep the public streets from
time to time, and the sweepings thus collected are removed in a cart,
without any apparent attention to time or order. Sometimes the
sweepings remain on the streets for many days. To show how matters of
medical police are neglected, I shall state a few facts which are
known to every person in Stirling. 1st. The filth of the gaol,
containing on an average 65 prisoners, is floated down the public
streets every second or third day, and emits, during the whole of its
progress down Broad-street, Bow, Baker-street, and King-street, the
principal streets in the town, the most offensive and disgusting
odour. 2nd. The slaughter-house is situated near the top of the town,
and the blood from it is allowed to flow down the public streets. 3rd.
The lower part of a dwelling-house, not more than three or four yards
from the town-house and gaol, is used as a ‘midding,’ and pigsty, the
filth being thrown into it by the window and door. 4th. There are no
public necessaries; and the common stairs and closes, and even the
public streets, are used habitually as such, by certain classes of the
community. 5th. Two drains from the castle, convey the whole filth of
it into an open field, where it spreads itself over the surface, and
pollutes the atmosphere to a very great extent. 6th. A dwelling-house
in the Castle-hill, the greater part of which is inhabited, is used by
a butcher as a slaughter-house; and some of the butchers kill sheep
and lambs in their back shops, situated under dwelling-houses. 7th.
The closes where the poor dwell, and where accumulations of filth most
abound, are, I may safely say, utterly neglected by the scavengers. In
some situations, the ventilation around the residences is good, but in
many others, and especially in the closes, it is very bad, and in my
opinion, quite irremediable.”
Before quitting this class of instances, it may here be necessary to
guard against the conclusion that neglect of drainage is confined to
towns, or to numerous and crowded habitations. Similar instances may be
presented, even of single and isolated houses, and of small groups of
rural cottages, in almost every district. Of this last class of cases I
give only one instance, supplied by the evidence of _Mr. J. Thomson_, of
Clitheroe:—
“Have you not had amongst your own people an instance of pestilence
occasioned by the neglect of removable causes of disease?—In the
summer of 1839 some remarkable cases of fever occurred in my immediate
neighbourhood amongst the inhabitants in my employment, of a small
cluster of houses called Littlemoor. The situation of this little spot
has always been considered, and justly, as remarkably healthy and
agreeable, the soil around it being dry, and not marshy, as the name
would seem to imply. It is situated on gently sloping ground, about a
mile from the town of Clitheroe, and freely exposed on all sides to
the wind. It contained six houses and 21 inhabitants at the time of
the fever. The houses are built in three distinct groups, round an
irregular area of from 50 to 60 feet square. A single, inadequate, and
half-choked-up drain, originally constructed more than 40 years ago,
for the only cottager, then existing on the spot, was the only
underground outlet for the filth, and sink, and surplus water of these
habitations; the rest was carried off by a deep and open ditch filled
with grass and weeds; this ditch spread out, about 100 yards to the
north, into a shallow stagnant pool, in summer green and fœtid; from
which was conveyed all the water that could flow during that season
past and amongst the cottages at Littlemoor. Into the centre of the
open area or yard was poured all the filth of the houses in open
channels, and thence, by the above-mentioned underground drain,
conveyed away. This state of things was bad enough, but was rendered
still worse by the erection recently of a pigsty, the litter and filth
of which not only obstructed the drain, but occasioned a pool of
abomination of the most perilous and disgusting nature. At the time I
saw it—the commencement of the fever—it was overflowing into the
foundation of the principal habitation, and had infected the whole
house with its stench, and was making its way by innumerable black and
fœtid streams through a small shrubbery, the area of which it wholly
covered, into the deep and open ditch. Believing this to be the source
of the pestilence, I had the sty instantly pulled down, the filth
removed, and a large drain brought up to the centre of the yard,
terminating in small covered troughs to each habitation. This was in
the middle of August, and from the hour of the removal of the filth no
fresh case of fever occurred. The first case was on the 12th of May,
and was followed by another in the same house on the 27th. In June
there were three cases; and in July six; in August four; in all, 15;
of which nine were the resident inhabitants, in a population of 21;
and the remaining six, nurses and attendants on the sick, obtained
from the immediate neighbourhood. No fever prevailed at the time in
Clitheroe. One case was fatal, and the health of a most valuable
member of that small community was so seriously affected by the fever
as to cause his death in a short time. A visitor and attendant on the
funeral of the person deceased at Littlemoor, and who took the fever,
died also. This spot has remained, and I doubt not will continue,
healthy ever since.
“The medical gentleman, Mr. Garstang, of Clitheroe, who attended the
preceding case, has communicated to me the equally striking and
instructive statement I subjoin:—At Chatburn, a village to the north
of Clitheroe, he was called to attend a patient in fever, in the month
of May of the same year 1839. The first object that struck his eye on
approaching the house was a long pole, with a bunch at the end, black
and filthy from its recent use in forcing a choked-up and inaccessible
drain, which passed between and under the gable-ends of two closely
contiguous houses, only a few inches apart, one of which contained his
patient. From this single case and house Mr. G. ascertained that 11
cases arose, by which means the fever was spread through the country,
where it prevailed with great severity, and terminated, in many
instances, fatally. There was no fever but what could be traced to
this, and no other discoverable source.”
_Street and Road Cleansing: Road Pavements._
The local arrangements for the cleansing and drainage of towns, &c.,
generally present only instances of varieties of grievous defects from
incompleteness and from the want of science or combination of means for
the attainment of the requisite ends. Thus the local reports abound with
instances of expensive main-drains, which from ignorant construction as
to the levels, do not perform their office, and do accumulate
pestilential refuse; others, which have proper levels, but from the want
of proper supplies of water do not act; others, which act only partially
or by surface drainage, in consequence of the neglect of communication
from the houses to the drains; others, where there are drains
communicating from the houses, but where the house-drains do not act, or
only act in spreading the surface of the matter from cesspools, and
increasing the fœtid exhalations from it in consequence of the want of
supplies of water; others again, as in some of the best quarters of the
metropolis, where the supplies of water are adequate, and where the
drains act in the removal of refuse from the house, but where from want
of moderate scientific knowledge or care in their construction, each
drain acts like the neck of a large retort, and serves to introduce into
the house the subtle gas which spreads disease from the accumulations in
the sewers.[3] Other districts there are where their structural
arrangements may be completed, and water supplied, and the under
drainage in action, and yet pestilential accumulations be found spread
before the doors of the population in consequence of the defective
construction, and the neglect of the surface-cleansing of the streets
and roads. Recently a remonstrance was made to an able and active member
of a Commission of Sewers, for taking no steps to extend the drainage in
a wretched district of the metropolis. The reply was, a statement, that
a drain had been cut through a portion of it, but that it had done no
good; and the remonstrant was invited to inspect the district himself,
and judge whether, with streets that were unpaved and uncleansed, wet
and miry, with deep holes full of refuse, it were possible by any under
drainage to remove the evil complained of. Other districts there are in
which the Road Commissioners or the Paving Board appears to have done
their duty; but the benefit is prevented, and the road is kept
continually out of repair by the neglect of the service of scavengers.
All these local defects again are referred back to the defective
construction of the Acts of Parliament,—which generally either presume
that no science, no skill is requisite for the attainment of the
objects, or presume both to be universal,—which in some instances
actually prohibit the only effectual mode of drainage, namely, that from
the houses into the main-drains; and in others, prescribe cleansing by
house-drains without supplies of water; or prescribe the construction of
roads independently of drains, and direct the execution of only part of
the necessary means, leaving other essential parts to the discretion of
individuals.
Between a town population similarly situated in general condition, one
part inhabiting streets which are unpaved, and another inhabiting
streets that are paved, a general difference of health is observed. The
town of Portsmouth is built upon a low portion of the marshy island of
Portsea. It was formerly subjected to intermittent fever, but since the
town was paved, in 1769, it was noticed by Sir Gilbert Blane, that this
disorder no longer prevailed; whilst Kilsea and the other parts of the
island retained the aguish disposition until 1793, when a drainage was
made which subdued its force.
Such strongly marked effects on the health of the population have
followed in many places the complete cleansing of the streets, as are
stated by _Mr. Bland_, medical officer of the Macclesfield Union:—
“To show the value of police regulations in removing any improper
accumulations of foul, and putrid matter, where a deadly poison is
generated, I have a distinct recollection that, when the cholera
appeared in Macclesfield, not only was that fatal disease arrested
somewhat in its progress by the active vigilance exercised by the
gentlemen in seeing that in their several districts all offending
deposits were removed, and all pest-houses cleansed, that for several
months after the town had undergone this salutary inspection, and the
people made alive to the pernicious effects of the dunghill, fever of
the worst or contagious form scarcely appeared in the usual
localities, although it was at the autumnal season of the year. I
likewise noticed in spring-time following, when the filth had begun to
accumulate on the surface in certain parts of the town, a severe
return of contagious diseases, fever in all its stages, and a very
fatal epidemic small-pox.”
Similar cases were frequently noticed in the reports from Scotland; but
when the alarm passed away, the habitual neglect of this description of
cleanliness returned.
In the consideration of the evidence about to be submitted as to the
condition of the streets on the external condition of the residences of
the labouring classes, it should be borne in mind that the external
condition of the dwelling powerfully and immediately affects its
internal cleanliness and general economy.
The description of a large proportion of the streets inhabited by the
working classes in Manchester by Dr. Baron Howard, and those of Leeds by
Mr. Baker, those of Liverpool by Dr. Duncan, might be extended to
Glasgow and other places. _Dr. Howard_ states:—
“That the filthy and disgraceful state of many of the streets in these
densely populated and neglected parts of the town where the indigent
poor chiefly reside cannot fail to exercise a most baneful influence
over their health is an inference which experience has fully proved to
be well founded; and no fact is better established than that a large
proportion of the causes of fever which occur in Manchester originate
in these situations. Of the 182 patients admitted into the temporary
fever hospital in Balloon-street, 135 at least came from unpaved or
otherwise filthy streets, or from confined and dirty courts and
alleys. Many of the streets in which cases of fever are common are so
deep in mire, or so full of hollows and heaps of refuse that the
vehicle used for conveying the patients to the House of Recovery often
cannot be driven along them, and the patients are obliged to be
carried to it from considerable distances. Whole streets in these
quarters are unpaved and without drains or main-sewers, are worn into
deep ruts and holes, in which water constantly stagnates, and are so
covered with refuse and excrementitious matter as to be almost
impassable from depth of mud, and intolerable from stench. In the
narrow lanes, confined courts and alleys, leading from these, similar
nuisances exist, if possible, to a still greater extent; and as
ventilation is here more obstructed, their effects are still more
pernicious. In many of these places are to be seen privies in the most
disgusting state of filth, open cesspools, obstructed drains, ditches
full of stagnant water, dunghills, pigsties, &c., from which the most
abominable odours are emitted. But dwellings perhaps are still more
insalubrious in those cottages situated at the backs of the houses
fronting the street, the only entrance to which is through some
nameless narrow passage, converted generally, as if by common consent,
into a receptacle for ordure and the most offensive kinds of filth.
The doors of these hovels very commonly open upon the uncovered
cesspool, which receives the contents of the privy belonging to the
front house, and all the refuse cast out from it, as if it had been
designedly contrived to render them as loathsome and unhealthy as
possible. Surrounded on all sides by high walls, no current of air can
gain access to disperse or dilute the noxious effluvia, or disturb the
reeking atmosphere of these areas. Where there happens to be less
crowding, and any ground remains unbuilt upon, it is generally
undrained, contains pools of stagnant water, and is made a depôt for
dunghills and all kinds of filth.”
Of 687 streets, inspected by a voluntary association in that town, 248
were reported as being unpaved, 112 ill ventilated, 352 as containing
stagnant pools, heaps of refuse, ordure, &c.
“The state of some of the streets and courts examined was found by
tile inspectors abominable beyond description, and exhibited a
melancholy picture of the filthy condition and unwholesome atmosphere
in which a large portion of our poor are doomed to live.
“As an example I will extract the description given of Little Ireland
from the proceedings of the Special Board of Health, which I have been
permitted to examine through the kindness of the borough-reeve, John
Brooks, Esq.:—
“‘The undersigned having been deputed by the Special Board of Health
to inquire into the state of Little Ireland, begs to report that, in
some of the streets and courts abutting, the sewers are all in a most
wretched state, and quite inadequate to carry off the surface water,
not to mention the slops thrown down by the inhabitants in about 200
houses. The privies are in a most disgraceful state, inaccessible from
filth, and too few for the accommodation of the number of people, the
average number being two to 250 people. The upper rooms are, with few
exceptions, very dirty, and the cellars much worse, all damp, and some
occasionally overflowed. The cellars consist of two rooms on a floor,
each nine or ten feet square, some inhabited by ten persons, others by
more; in many the people have no beds, and keep each other warm by
close stowage on shavings, straw, &c.; a change of linen or clothes is
an exception to the common practice. Many of the back-rooms, where
they sleep, have no other means of ventilation than from the front
rooms. Some of the cellars on the lower ground were once filled up as
uninhabitable, but one is now occupied by a weaver, and he has stopped
up the drain with clay to prevent the water flowing from it into his
cellar, and mops up the water every morning.’
“The above description represents as faithfully the present state of
this place as it did its condition eight years ago. In addition to the
circumstances here mentioned, the unhealthiness of this spot is
further increased by its low and damp situation, in a deep hollow,
bounded on one side by a filthy and stinking brook, which readily
overflows after rain; on another, by a very steep embankment; and on
another, by a high wall, which separates it from the gas-works, and
surrounded moreover by numerous high factories. * * *
“In the open space in the centre, which was formerly uncovered,
numerous pigsties are now erected, which add, if possible, to its
insalubrity. All the streets on the west side of the square are
blocked up at the end by a high wall, so that each forms a
_cul-de-sac_, a mode of construction which precludes the possibility
of effectual ventilation. Close to this wall, at the upper end of
these streets, are placed filthy and dilapidated privies, with large
open cesspools, which are frequently full to overflowing. The present
condition of those in Bent and James Leigh-streets are disgusting and
offensive beyond description.”
_Mr. Baker_ in his report on the sanitary condition of the residences of
the labouring classes in Leeds, thus describes their external
condition:—
“The river Aire, which courses about a mile and a half through the
town, is liable suddenly to overflow from violent or continued rains,
or from the sudden thawing of heavy falls of snow. The lower parts and
dwellings, both in its vicinity and in that of the becks, are not
unfrequently therefore inundated; and as the depth of the cellars is
below the means of drainage, the water has to be pumped out by
hand-pumps on to the surface of the streets. In those parts of the
town, and particularly where the humbler classes reside, during these
inundations, and where there are small sewers, the water rises through
them into the cellars, creating miasmatic exhalations, and leaving
offensive refuse, exceedingly prejudicial to the health as well as to
the comfort of the inhabitants. It was stated, on the authority of one
of the registrars, that during a season remarkable for an
unprecedented continuation of hot weather, that in one of these
localities, the deaths were as three to two, while in other parts of
the town, at the same period, they were as two to three. The condition
of the Timble Bridge beck is doubtless much worse for drainage
purposes than formerly, for the bottom has been raised by continual
deposits, until the oldest water-wheel upon it has had to be removed
as useless and inoperative; and stepping-stones, once the means of
passage over it, are at this moment said to be buried under the
accumulation of years, as much as one or two feet in depth. It is
quite clear, therefore, that that which was once the main receptacle
for the drainage of an entire district is, in its present state, no
longer capable of fulfilling that purpose; and that though a
considerable amount of drainage might still be effected by it, yet,
unless emptied of its superfluous matter, it cannot now be made
available for the wants of the entire population on its course.
“In an inundation about the period of 1838 or 1839, which happened in
the night, this beck overflowed its boundaries so greatly, and
regurgitated so powerfully into petty drains communicating with houses
100 yards distant from its line, that many of the inhabitants were
floated in their beds, and fever to a large amount occurred from the
damp and exhalations which it occasioned. Of the 586 streets of Leeds,
68 only are paved by the town, _i. e._, by the local authorities; the
remainder are either paved by owners, or are partly paved, or are
totally unpaved, with the surfaces broken in every direction, and
ashes and filth of every description accumulated upon many of them. In
the manufacturing towns of England, most of which have enlarged with
great rapidity, the additions have been made without regard to either
the personal comfort of the inhabitants or the necessities which
congregation requires. To build the largest number of cottages on the
smallest allowable space seems to have been the original view of the
speculators, and the having the houses up and tenanted, the _ne plus
ultra_ of their desires. Thus neighbourhoods have arisen in which
there is neither water nor out-offices, nor any conveniences for the
absolute domestic wants of the occupiers. But more than this, the land
has been disposed of in so many small lots, to petty proprietors, who
have subsequently built at pleasure, both as to outward form and
inward ideas, that the streets present all sorts of incongruities in
the architecture; causeways dangerous on account of steps, cellar
windows without protection, here and there posts and rails, and
everywhere clothes-lines intersecting them, by which repeated
accidents have been occasioned. During the collection of the
statistical information by the Town Council, many cases of broken legs
by these unprotected cellars, and of horsemen dismounted by neglected
clothes-lines hanging across the streets, were recorded.
“It might be imagined that at least the streets over which the town
surveyors have a legal right to exercise control would be sewered. But
this is not the case; of the 68 streets which they superintend, 19 are
not sewered at all, and 10 are only partly so; nay, it is only within
the three or four years past that a sewer has been completed through
the main street for two of the most populous wards of the town,
embracing together a population of 30,540 persons, by which to carry
off the surface and drainage water of an elevation of 150 feet, where,
indeed, there could be no excuse for want of sufficient fall. I have
seen, in the neighbourhood to which I now refer, an attempt made to
drain the cottage houses into a small drain passing under the
causeway, and which afterwards had to be continued through a small
sewer, and through private property, by a circuitous route, in order
to reach its natural outlet, and the water from the surveyors’ drain
regurgitate into the cutting from the dwellings. It only needs to be
pointed out that the sewer which has subsequently been made, and is
most effective, is an evidence of the previous practicability of a
work so essential to the welfare of the people; but, I may add, that
many of the inhabitants of districts a little further distant from the
town, where fever is always rife, are yet obliged to use cesspools
which are constructed under their very doors, for the want of the
continuation of this desirable measure.
“Along the line of these two wards, and down the street which divides
them, and where this sewer has been recently made, numbers of streets
have been formed and houses erected without pavement, and hence
without surface drainage—without sewers—or if under drainage can be
called sewers, then with such as, becoming choked in a few months, are
even worse than if they were altogether without. The surface of these
streets is considerably elevated by accumulated ashes and filth,
untouched by any scavenger; they form nuclei of disease exhaled from a
thousand sources. Here and there stagnant water, and channels so
offensive that they have been declared to be unbearable, lie under the
doorways of the uncomplaining poor; and privies so laden with ashes
and excrementitious matter as to be unuseable prevail, till the
streets themselves become offensive from deposits of this description;
in short, there is generally pervading these localities a want of the
common conveniences of life.
“The courts and _culs-de-sac_ exist everywhere. The building of houses
back to back occasions this in a great measure. It is in fact part of
the economy of buildings that are to pay a good per centage. In one
_cul-de-sac_, in the town of Leeds, there are 34 houses, and in
ordinary times, there dwell in these houses 340 persons, or ten to
every house; but as these houses are many of them receiving houses for
itinerant labourers, during the periods of hay-time and harvest and
the fairs, at least twice that number are then here congregated. The
name of this place is the Boot and Shoe-yard, in Kirkgate, a location
from whence the Commissioners removed, in the days of the cholera, 75
cart-loads of manure, which had been untouched for years, and where
there now exists a surface of human excrement of very considerable
extent, to which these impure and unventilated dwellings are
additionally exposed. This property is said to pay the best annual
interest of any cottage property in the borough.”
_Mr. Shaw_, the medical officer of the Hindley district of the Wigan
union, after giving a similar description of the streets of that town,
adds:—
“The greater number of cases of fever in Tuce is in a great degree to
be accounted for from the extremely filthy state of those places where
it has been worst. Some of the cases were much worse than others,
several being of the malignant kind of typhus. Most of the cases
happened in Broom-street, in Tuce, a very uncleanly place, whole pools
of stagnant water, decayed animal and vegetable matter, and many other
nuisances of alike description lying in heaps from one end of the
street to the other. It is extremely probable a little attention to
these matters would save the inhabitants from many of the diseases
with which they are now continually affected.”
_Dr. Waite_, in his report on the condition of the population at Lynn,
states:—
“I have seen typhus fever rage in families, where the refuse of a
market-gardener was suffered to accumulate in a hole, immediately
before three or four houses, whilst families at fifty yards distant
from it were perfectly free.”
The report by _Mr. Anderson_, solicitor, on the sanitary condition of
Inverness, exhibits the external features of the condition in which
large proportions of the town population in Scotland are still allowed
to remain in respect to all these defects:—
“From the very open or porous character of the subsoil, the grounds in
and around Inverness are seldom retentive of surface-water; and as
there is also a considerable inclination of the plain towards the
river, a good _drainage_ could be easily procured from almost every
part of the town. With the exception, however, of the principal
streets or thoroughfares, in which the best houses and shops are
situated, there are but few covered common sewers; and in the suburbs
generally, and from all the side alleys and closes, rain-water and
other accumulations pass away only by means of surface or open drains.
Hence among the dwellings of the poorer classes _stagnant pools_ very
frequently occur, and the drainage in these places, naturally bad
enough, is often purposely obstructed by the people, for the purpose
of adding to their _dunghill_ heaps or middens, which, as manure for
their potatoe-grounds, form the chief treasures of the poorer
cottagers and labourers. A gas and water company, established some
years ago, has afforded a great increase of comfort and cleanliness to
the buildings along the main thoroughfares; but to the back closes and
suburbs such _luxuries_ have not yet been extended, and hence the want
of order, decency, and comfort are painfully observable among them.
_Water-closets_ and _public privies_ are both rare, the consequences
of which, morally as well as physically, may be easily imagined, and
no doubt much infectious disease, if not occasioned, is harboured and
perpetuated by the want of them. The disgusting state of all the
bye-lanes and roads about Inverness proves what the people must suffer
on this account.
“As already stated, the dwellings of the humbler classes are in
general only _one_ story high, that is, they consist of a ground-floor
divided into two or three small apartments, with two or three
garret-rooms in the roof above, which is covered externally with turf
or straw thatch. Such buildings are often intermixed with houses of a
better description, and from being but seldom painted or whitewashed,
they have not a cheerful nor cleanly aspect. Most of them are provided
with small back courts or gardens, in which a few common vegetables
are grown; but their principal value is as stances for _pig-houses_
and dunghills, which in many instances are improperly allowed to rest
upon or touch the dwelling-houses; while it is not to be disguised
that cases exist where the _pig_, the _horse_, and the _cow_ all live
under the same roof with their owners, and the manure allowed to
accumulate there also. It is very common for a labourer’s _family_ to
have only a single apartment, or a room and a closet, while one room
is the usual accommodation rented by single persons, and that
frequently without a particle of ground attached.
“Amidst such a combination of unwholesome circumstances, it is rather
wonderful that malignant fever does not very greatly prevail in this
town. It is scarcely ever entirely free of it, and occasionally it
breaks out in some of its most contagious and dangerous forms, such as
measles, scarlet and typhus fever, and sometimes even small-pox,
spreading upwards among all classes of the community. The writer is
strongly inclined to believe that the comparative healthiness of
Inverness, notwithstanding its low and undrained position, is owing
chiefly to the salubrity of its climate, as influenced by its
situation, and the natural porousness of the soil.”
_The Provost of Inverness_, at the time the report was made, gives the
following description of the town:—
“Inverness is a nice town, situated in a most beautiful country, and
with every facility for cleanliness and comfort. The people are,
generally speaking, a nice people, but their sufferance of nastiness
is past endurance. Contagious fever is seldom or ever absent; but for
many years it has seldom been rife in its pestiferous influence. The
people owe this more to the kindness of Almighty God than to any means
taken or observed for its prevention. There are very few houses in
town which can boast of either water-closet or privy, and only two or
three public privies in the better part of the place exist for the
great bulk of the inhabitants. Hence there is not a street, lane, or
approach to it that is not disgustingly defiled at all times, so much
so as to render the whole place an absolute nuisance. The _midden_ is
the chief object of the humble, and though enough of water for
purposes of cleanliness may be had by little trouble, still as the
ablutions are seldom, MUCH filth in-doors and out of doors _must_ be
their portion. When cholera prevailed in Inverness, it was more fatal
than in almost any other town of its population in Britain.”
Such is the absence of civic economy in some of our towns that their
condition in respect to cleanliness is almost as bad as that of an
encamped horde, or an undisciplined soldiery. Mr. Baker applies to Leeds
the observations made by Sir John Pringle in his Treatise on the
Diseases of the Army, but they are equally applicable to the districts
occupied by the labouring classes wherever this inquiry has been
carried:—
“‘The chief cause of dysentery appears to be the foul straw and the
privies; for as soon as we had left that ground on which we had been
long encamped the sickness visibly abated.’ And again he says, ‘The
greatest source of dysenteric affections appears to be the privies.’
And again, speaking of bad air as producing epidemics, he systematizes
the mediate agent thus; ‘1st, Marsh effluvia; 2ndly, Encampment near
trees; 3rdly, The privies and foul straw of a camp; and 4thly, A pent,
corrupt, and vitiated atmosphere.’”
The discipline of the army has advanced beyond the civic economy of the
towns. In the standing orders given and enforced by the late General
Crauford there are the following from Article 2, on the interior
regimental arrangements on arriving in camp or quarters:—
“It must be explained to the men, as a standing order, that when no
regular necessaries are made, nor any particular spot pointed out for
easing themselves, they are to go to the rear, at least 200 yards,
beyond the sentries of the rear guard; all men disobeying this order
must be punished.
“The captain of the day and the quarter-master under the commanding
officers, are particularly responsible for the cleanliness of the camp
of each regiment; and the field officer of the inlying piquet, who is
charged with the superintendence of the police, and cleanliness of the
camp or quarters of the brigade, will give such orders upon the
subject as may be necessary to the captain of the day.”
The towns whose population never change their encampment, have no such
care, and whilst the houses, streets, courts, lanes, and streams, are
polluted and rendered pestilential, the civic officers have generally
contented themselves with the most barbarous expedients, or sit still
amidst the pollution, with the resignation of Turkish fatalists, under
the supposed destiny of the prevalent ignorance, sloth, and filth.
Whilst such neglects are visited by the scourge of a regularly recurring
pestilence and ravages of death more severe than a war, it may be
confidently stated that the exercise of attention, care, and industry,
directed by science in their removal, will not only be attended by
exemptions from the pains of the visitation, but with exemptions from
pecuniary burdens, and with promise even of the profits of increased
production to the community.
This will appear from an examination of the present mode of removing the
refuse from towns, and contrasting it with improved methods; and first
with relation to the refuse of the houses:—
It is proved that the present mode of retaining refuse in the house in
cesspools and privies is injurious to the health and often extremely
dangerous. The process of emptying them by hand labour, and removing the
contents by cartage, is very offensive, and often the occasion of
serious accidents. But the expense of this mode operates, as the reports
from the large towns show, as a complete barrier to all cleanliness in
this respect in the dwellings or streets occupied by the labouring
classes. The usual cost of cleansing cesspools of a tenement in London
is about 1_l._ each time. With a population generally in debt at the end
of the week, and whose rents are collected weekly, such an outlay may be
considered as practically impossible, and the inferior landlords delay
incurring the expense until the nuisance becomes unbearable. In London
the expense and annoyance of the cleansing of such places is avoided for
years, until they are in the condition described by _Mr. Howell_, one of
the council of the Society of Civil Engineers, who has acted extensively
as a surveyor in the metropolis:—
“I would,” he states, “instance a recent case in my own parish, where
I was called to survey two houses about to undergo extensive repairs.
It was necessary that my survey should extend from the garrets to the
cellars: upon visiting the latter, I found the whole area of the
cellars of both houses were full of night-soil, to the depth of three
feet, which had been permitted for years to accumulate from the
overflow of the cesspools; upon being moved, the stench was
intolerable, and no doubt the neighbourhood must have been more or
less infected by it. I should mention, that these houses are letting
at from 30_l._ to 40_l._ a-year each, and are situated in a
considerable public thoroughfare.
“I would mention another case, amongst many more in St. Giles’s
parish: I was requested to survey the dilapidations to several houses
in the immediate neighbourhood of High-street, upon passing through
the passage of the first house, I found the yard covered with
night-soil, from the overflowing of the privy, to the depth of nearly
six inches, and bricks were placed to enable the inmates to get across
dry shod; in addition to this, there was an accumulation of filth
piled up against the walls, of the most objectionable nature; the
interior of the house partook something of the same character, and
discovering, upon examination, that the other houses were nearly
similar; I found a detailed survey impracticable, and was obliged to
content myself with making general observations. My duties, as one of
the surveyors to a fire-office, call me to all parts of the town, and
I am constantly shocked almost beyond endurance at the filth and
misery in which a large part of our population are permitted to drag
on a diseased and miserable existence. I consider a large portion, if
not the whole, of this accumulation of dirt and filth is caused by the
bad and inefficient sewerage of the metropolis. I am acquainted with
numberless houses in Westminster where the cellars are constantly
flooded, and having no drainage, the occupiers are obliged to pump out
the water, which, from being stagnant, is foul and offensive. If in
the performance of this necessary duty the matter becomes known, they
are summoned to the public office and fined 5_l._; however much,
therefore, the evil is felt in permitting the continuance of stagnant
water, the alternative of the fine for pumping out is worse; they
submit therefore to the lesser evil, and leave the water in the
cellars. * * *
“I am quite sure, from much observation, that the occupiers of houses
in all neighbourhoods are much influenced in their habits of
cleanliness by the facilities afforded for draining, and by the want
of carriage and foot-paving in the streets; and it is equally certain
that both health and life are frequently sacrificed by the constant
damps and unwholesome smell, occasioned entirely by the absence of all
means to carry off the impurities, which, in densely populated
neighbourhoods, increase with such fearful rapidity.”
It might have been expected, from the value of the refuse as manure (one
of the most powerful known), that the great demand for it would have
afforded a price which might have returned, in some degree, the expense
and charge of cleansing. But this appears not to be the case in the
metropolis. It is stated that at present, with the exception of
coal-ashes, which are indispensable for making bricks, some description
of lees, and a few other inconsiderable exceptions, no refuse in London
pays half the expense of removal by cartage. The cost of removal, or of
the labour and cartage, limits the general use or deposit of the refuse
within a radius which does not exceed three miles beyond the line of the
district-post of the metropolis, that is, about six miles. It is stated
that, partly from the nature of the holdings, and from other
circumstances within this limited district, agricultural improvements
are not so great as might be expected where the facilities are so easy
for obtaining any quantity of manure. Some idea may be formed of the
loss of value of this manure from the metropolis, occasioned by the
expense of its collection and removal, from the evidence of a
considerable contractor for scavengering, &c., who states, with respect
to the most productive manure,—“I have given away thousands of loads of
night-soil: we knew not what to do with it.”[4]
In the parts of some towns adjacent to the rural districts the cesspools
are emptied gratuitously for the sake of the manure; but they only do
this when there is a considerable accumulation, and any accumulation of
any decomposing material which offends the smell is injurious to the
health, especially in a town where all miasma is less diluted with fresh
air, and where the population is less robust. For the saving of cartage,
as well as the convenience of use, accumulations of refuse are
frequently allowed to remain and decompose and dry amidst the
habitations of the poorer classes. _Dr. Laurie_ in his report on the
sanitary condition of Greenock, furnishes an example. He says,—
“The first question I generally put when a new case of fever is
admitted, is as to their locality. I was struck with the number of
admissions from Market-street; most of the cases coming from that
locality became quickly typhoid, and made slow recoveries. This is a
narrow back street; it is almost overhung by a steep hill, rising
immediately behind it; it contains the lowest description of houses,
built closely together, the access to the dwellings being through
filthy closes. The front entrance is generally the only outlet.
Numerous food for the production of miasma lies concealed in this
street. I think I could point out one in each close.
“In one part of the street there is a dunghill,—yet it is too large to
be called a dunghill. I do not misstate its size when I say it
contains a hundred cubic yards of impure filth, collected from all
parts of the town. It is never removed; it is the stock-in-trade of a
person who deals in dung; he retails it by cartfuls. To please his
customers, he always keeps a nucleus, as the older the filth is the
higher is the price. The proprietor has an extensive privy attached to
the concern. This collection is fronting the public street; it is
enclosed in front by a wall; the height of the wall is about 12 feet,
and the dung overtops it; the malarious moisture oozes through the
wall, and runs over the pavement. The effluvia all round about this
place in summer is horrible. There is a land of houses adjoining, four
stories in height, and in the summer each house swarms with myriads of
flies; every article of food and drink must be covered, otherwise, if
left exposed for a minute, the flies immediately attack it, and it is
rendered unfit for use, from the strong taste of the dunghill left by
the flies. But there is a still more extensive dunghill in this
street; at least, if not so high, it covers double the extent of
surface. What the depth is I cannot say. It is attached to the
slaughter-house, and belongs, I believe, to the town authorities. It
is not only the receptacle for the dung and offal from the
slaughter-house, but the sweepings of the streets are also conveyed
and deposited there; it has likewise a public privy attached. In the
slaughter-house itself, which is adjoining the street, the blood and
offal is allowed to lie a long time, and the smell in summer is highly
offensive. In two of the narrow closes opposite the market, there is
in each a small space not built upon, and that space, being the only
spare ground in the close, is occupied by a dunghill; these two closes
are notorious as nurseries for fever. I believe it to be a rare
occurrence when fever is not to be found in them during any time of
the year. Market-street is certainly one of the most filthy and
unhealthy streets in Greenock; it is needless to say that many places
here and there throughout the town are as bad, indeed, I may state
that from the best to the worst locality in the town there is not a
street but requires to be subjected to some rigid system for removing
away regularly the rubbish and impurities which are constantly
exhaling forth so much, and which is indirectly the cause of the
yearly increase of so much destitution.”
_Mr. Baker_, in his report, gives another instance of the ignorance and
carelessness under which the health of the population suffers.
“The contractor for the street sweepings, who is the treator with the
Commissioners of Public Nuisances in Leeds, last year rented a plot of
vacant land in the centre of the North-east ward, the largest ward in
point of population in the township of Leeds, and containing the
greatest number of poor, and this year rents, in the East ward,
another plot of land, as a depôt for the sweepings from the streets
and markets, both vegetable and general, for the purpose of
exsiccating and accumulating till they could be sold as manure and
carried away. So noisome were these exhalations, that the inhabitants
complained of their utter inability to ventilate their sleeping-rooms
during the day time, and of the insufferable stench to which both by
night and day they were thus subjected.”
The comparatively recent mode of cleansing adopted in the wealthy and
newly-built districts by the use of water-closets, and the discharge of
all refuse at once from the house through the drain into the sewers,
saves the delay and the previous accumulation, and it also saves the
expense of the old means of removal. It is most applicable to the poorer
districts, because really the most economical, when they are properly
sewered and supplied with water. The cost of cheap and appropriate
apparatus, and of water for cleansing, it will be proved is a reduction
of the mere cost of cleansing in the old method, independently of the
cost incurred by the decay of woodwork and deterioration of the tenement
which commonly takes place on premises in the condition of those
described by Mr. Howell. The chief objection to the extension of this
system is the pollution of the water of the river into which the sewers
are discharged. Admitting the expediency of avoiding the pollution, it
is nevertheless proved to be an evil of almost inappreciable magnitude
in comparison with the ill health occasioned by the constant retention
of several hundred thousand accumulations of pollution in the most
densely-peopled districts.
There is much evidence, however, to prove that it is possible to remove
the refuse in such a mode as to avoid the pollution of the river, and at
the same time avoid the culpable waste of the most important manure.
A practical example of the money value which lies in the refuse of a
town, when removed in the cheapest manner, and applied in the form best
adapted to production, viz., by a system of cleansing by water, is
afforded in connexion with the city of Edinburgh. In the course of the
sanitary inquiry in that city the particular attention of Dr. Arnott and
myself was directed to the effects of some offensive irrigation of the
land which had taken place in the immediate vicinity of that city. It
appears that the contents of a large proportion of the sinks, drains,
and privies of that city are conveyed in covered sewers to the eastern
suburb of the town, where they are emptied into a stream called the Foul
Burn, which passes ultimately into the sea. The stream is thus made into
a large uncovered sewer or drain. Several years ago some of the
occupiers of the land in the immediate vicinity of this stream diverted
parts of it, and collected the soil which it contained in tanks for use
as manure. After this practice had been adopted for a long period, the
farmers in the vicinity gradually found that the most beneficial mode of
applying the manure was in the liquid form, and they conducted the
stream over their meadows by irrigation. Others, perceiving the
extraordinary fertility thus obtained, followed the example, and by
degrees about 300 acres of meadow, chiefly in the eastern parts of that
city, but all in its immediate vicinity, and the greater part of it in
the neighbourhood of the palace of Holyrood, have been systematically
irrigated with the contents of this common sewer. From some of this land
so irrigated, four or five crops a-year have been obtained; land once
worth from 40_s._ to 50_s._ per acre now lets for very high sums. It is
stated by a writer cited as an authority, on behalf of the parties
interested,—
“That the rent for which some of these meadows are let in small
portions to cow-feeders varies on an average from 20_l._ to 30_l._ per
acre. Some of the richest meadows were let in 1835 at 38_l._ per acre;
and in that season of scarce forage, 1826, 57_l._ per acre were
obtained for the same meadows. * * * The waste land called Figget
Whins, containing 30 acres, and 10 acres of poor sandy soil adjoining
them, were formed into water meadows in 1821, at an expense of
1000_l._ The pasture of the Figget Whins used to be let for 40_l._
a-year, and that of the 10 acres at 60_l._ Now the same ground as
meadows lets for 15_l._ or 20_l._ an acre a-year, and will probably
let for more, as the land becomes more and more enriched.”
This use of irrigation followed so gradually, that the time of its
commencement seems not accurately ascertained, but is known to have been
usual near the beginning of the present century. The tanks are still to
a certain extent used. The irrigation proceeds from the beginning of
April to the middle of September, and, it is supposed that the deposits
in the tanks are in the interval increased by the quantity of soil not
employed in irrigations.
The practice is strongly objected to by the inhabitants as an offensive
and injurious nuisance. To Dr. Arnott, who surveyed the district, the
process appeared to be, like most offensive processes, unfitted for the
vicinity of a town. The miasma from the preparation of the large
accumulations of manure in open receptacles near places of public resort
or crowded habitations would probably affect the public health
injuriously to a greater or less degree. In particular states of the
weather it could scarcely fail to engender disease. In the decomposition
of substances for manure, deleterious gasses will be evolved, which in
particular states of the atmosphere will act with powerful effects on
animal life within their reach. But it is at the same time stated, the
process of applying manure by irrigation, that is, separated and diluted
with water, is considered to be productive of less deleterious gas, of
less injurious effects, than by spreading it over fields in a solid
form, and allowing it to remain until it is decomposed and separated by
the atmosphere and conveyed into the soil by rain. Liebig, the greatest
living authority on agricultural chemistry, states that night-soil loses
in drying half its valuable products, that is, half its “nitrogen,” for
the “ammonia” escapes into the atmosphere. By irrigation, by the
diffusion and conveyance of the manure to the plant in the medium of
water the escape of the valuable substance as a noxious and injurious
gas is diminished.[5] Whatever extent of loss there is from manures by
decomposition when placed on the land in a solid form, and when exposed
to the action of the atmosphere, it is stated that there is
proportionate gain by holding the material in suspension in water. The
simple offensiveness, it may be assumed, is a sufficient ground of
exclusion of any process from amidst the habitations of a town
population. But at a reasonable distance the use of dung or any other
manure would not be forbidden; and the process which is the least
injurious, the irrigative, is entitled therefore to a preference.
Effective drainage must make way for the conveyance of diluted manures,
and consequently for effective irrigation.
The continuance of the practice in Edinburgh of the use of the common
sewer for irrigation is defended by the occupiers and owners, on the
ground that from the time of its commencement, when it was unopposed,
and, as it appears to us, escaped any notice, a legal right has been
acquired by them in the manure of the city contained in the Burn, and
the present claimants of the right contend that they are entitled to
compensation under the Scotch law for any diversion of the stream or of
the manure which it contains. The irrigation which has surrounded the
palace of Holyrood having, as it is considered, rendered it prejudicial
to health, Her Majesty’s government, for the protection of this palace
as a royal residence, have directed legal process for the trial of the
right claimed to the irrigation. The defendants vindicate the measure on
the ground of its utility as an agricultural operation, and treat the
proposal to divert the contents of the sewers as being in fact a
proposal to deprive the city of the milk and butter yielded by more than
3000 milch cows, and the markets of the meat from their carcases; that,
in fact, “the grass, which in virtue of irrigation these meadows
produce, supports in Edinburgh 3300 cows, and in Leith 600 cows, during
the season.”[6] We were informed that the parties interested in the
lands estimate the compensation that would induce them to discontinue
the practice at 150,000_l._; and a pamphlet written at their instance,
in 1840, states this as the sum which the proprietors of the meadows to
the west of the city would be legally entitled to (independently of the
claims of those in the east) were the practice abolished by legislative
authority. The proprietors have had, on several occasions, sufficient
influence to frustrate the efforts of the city authorities, to obtain
legislative sanction for the removal of the nuisance, and for a more
salubrious disposal of it for the advantage of the inhabitants
themselves.
The public refuse of cities by the usual course of legislation in local
Acts, and by custom, and on all principles which govern the application
of the proceeds of such produce belongs to the public, and it may be
submitted that, whatever may be the decision in the case of Edinburgh,
means should be taken to prevent for the future the acquisition of new
rights at the expense of the health and of the conveniences of such
large classes of the population. And it may here be observed that it
will probably be found, under the circumstances of the increasing
population of the towns, and the increasing necessity of keeping open
spaces within and around the towns, and of exercising a general control
for the beneficial arrangement of new buildings for the public health
and convenience, and of securing convenient public walks and places of
temperate and healthful recreation for the population—that it is most
desirable for all these objects that means should be taken to redeem to
the crown the fee, or otherwise obtain as early as practicable, and on
the terms of proper compensation, lands within and in the immediate
vicinity of towns for public use.
If then, in Edinburgh, the contents of the cesspools were carried by
adequate supplies of water in drains from the houses into covered
sewers, and thence in covered instead of open sewers to the lands at
proper distances where it might be distributed as manure by irrigation,
it would be a mode of irrigation considered by Mr. Smith of Deanston,
and other authorities on drainage and irrigation, whom I consulted, the
best that is now apparently practicable, _i. e._, the best means for
removing quickly, and constantly, and the least injuriously, the matters
which can only remain for removal by any other process at the expense of
the public health; they concur in opinion that it would also be the most
productive mode of distributing the manure.
On the scale of the value set upon that portion of the refuse of
Edinburgh that has been appropriated for irrigation by the occupiers of
the land in the vicinity of the city, the value of the whole of the soil
of the city (not one-third of which finds its way into the irrigated
meadows), if it were made completely available by an appropriate system
of town drainage, would be double or treble the amount, producing an
income of 15,000_l._ to 20,000_l._ per annum for public purposes. On the
same scale of value it would appear that, in the metropolis, refuse to
the value of nearly double what is now paid for the water of the
metropolis is thrown away, partly from the districts which are sewered
into the Thames, and partly from the poor districts which are unsewered,
where it accumulates and remains a nuisance until it is removed at a
great expense. It is allowed by Captain Vetch, an experienced engineer,
and by other authorities, to be the most eligible plan in respect to
economy as well as efficiency, wherever the levels were not convenient,
or it were desirable to send the refuse over heights for distribution,
that the contents of the sewers should be lifted by steam power, as
water is lifted in the drainage of the fens, and that it might be sent
for distribution, wherever it is required for use, in iron pipes, in the
same mode as that in which water is conveyed into towns by the water
companies. The estimated expense of this mode of cleansing and removal
is about the same as the conveyance of water into towns, _i. e._, not a
tithe of the expense of cartage, as will subsequently be shown.
The comparative economy of conveyance of fluid in pipes has been but
little observed, and has only recently perhaps been applied for the
purpose of cleansing. The following is an instance of the application of
the principle:—A contract was about to be entered into by the West
Middlesex Water Company for hauling out from their reservoir at
Kensington the deposit of eight or ten years’ silt, which had
accumulated to the depth of three or four feet. The contractor offered
to remove this quantity, which covered nearly an acre of surface, for
the sum of 400_l._, in three or four weeks. The reservoir was emptied in
order to be inspected by the engineer and directors before the contract
was accepted. It occurred to one of the officers that the cleansing
might be accomplished more readily by merely stirring up the silt, to
mix it with the water; and then if a cut or outlet were made in the
main-pipe used for conveying the water to London, that it might be
washed out. He accordingly got thirty or forty men to work in stirring
up the deposit, and accomplished the work at the cost of 40_l._ or
50_l._ and three or four days’ labour, instead of so many weeks; when
the directors went to see the basin, to decide upon the contract, the
reservoir was as free from any deposit as a house-floor. Since the
discovery thus made, the silt has been regularly cleansed out into the
common sewers. It is to be observed, in respect to the relative
cheapness of the two modes, that the contractor would only have removed
the silt to the nearest convenient place of deposit in the immediate
vicinity of the reservoir, whereas, in the fluid state, it might be
carried at the actual cost of conveying water, as far as it is at
present conveyed, and sold with a profit, 12 or 14 miles, and raised to
heights of 150 feet, at 2½_d._ per ton.
By the application of capital and machinery, the cost of conveyance of
substances in suspension in a fluid, even at the water companies’
prices, may be rendered thirty and even more than forty times as cheap
as collection by hand labour and removal by cartage. In the metropolis,
where the persons who water the roads may obtain water gratuitously from
pumps, the water supplied by stand-pipes by some of the water companies
at 1_l._ per 100 tons, is found to be twice as cheap as the mere labour
of pumping the water into the cart. By proper hydraulic arrangements
heavy solid substances may be swept away through the iron pipes.
These means which science gives of cheapening the cost of the conveyance
of refuse from houses, will be available also in extending and
completing the cleansing of the towns, of removing the filth which
oppresses the poorer districts, and rendering the whole of it available,
in the best form, for future use as manure.
The expense of cleansing the streets of the _township_ of Manchester is
5,000_l._ per annum. For this sum the first class of streets, namely,
the most opulent and the large thoroughfares, are cleansed once a-week,
the second class once a-fortnight, and the third class once a-month. But
this provision leaves untouched, or leaves in the condition described in
Dr. Baron Howard’s report, the courts, alleys, and places where the
poorest classes live, and where the cleansing should be daily. There are
abundance of recommendations to the effect, “Let it be ordered that the
streets be properly cleansed;” but in this instance the cost of
cleansing the whole of what is properly the same town, Salford, and the
out-townships, would be 8,000_l._ or 10,000_l._ per annum; and such a
recommendation, under the existing modes of management, is equivalent to
saying, let 20,000_l._ or 30,000_l._ of additional rates be expended,
and 40,000 or 60,000 additional loads of refuse be removed. In other
large towns, the service and the expense is on a similar scale. At the
rate of expense of one large parish, the present cost of cleansing in
the metropolis may be estimated at about 40,000_l._ per annum. This
expense, however, is generally repaid by the sale of the coal-ashes,
which are used in the manufacture of bricks.
Though the refuse of the poorer districts is often taken and sold, the
immediate objection to the extension of the services of the scavenger to
them is the increase of the immediate expense, which it is practically
necessary to consider in detail, although if there were no compensation
by the sale of any coal-ashes or house refuse, and if the occupants were
required to pay for the cleansing at the rate of one of the opulent
parishes in the metropolis, that is at the rate of 4_s._ per house per
annum, which would be less than a penny per tenement for the weekly
street cleansing; or in the poorer districts, where there are mostly two
families to a tenement, a charge of less than one halfpenny per week for
cleansing, would be found to be good economy, as one means of
diminishing the existing heavy charge of sickness, not to speak of the
wear and tear of clothes.
Two-thirds of the usual expense of street cleansing is the expense of
cartage, which, with a proper adaptation of the sewers, is wholly
unnecessary. The exclusive use of hand-labour in street-sweeping is
pronounced by competent judges to be a mere barbarism, and several
machines have been invented which demonstrate that by mechanical power,
moved by horses, the cleansing may be effected in a far shorter time.
Some of these scrape the mud in ridges to the sides, where it remains
until it can be lifted and carted away. But this is objected to as
inconvenient by the shopkeepers, and the scavengers object that it is no
convenience to them, inasmuch as raking it in heaps prevents the
evaporation of the liquid, and increases the cartage; and, moreover,
that the process of sweeping by hand is as quick as the carts can return
for its removal. A machine has been used at Manchester which rapidly and
cleanly sweeps the level surfaces of the streets into a cart; but there
is still the encumberance of the labour, and cost and delay of carting
the refuse to a place of deposit, which may be several miles distant,
and returning to reload. The value of a process of street-cleansing is
proportioned to the rapidity with which it is performed, but at present
it is usually delayed until the sun or the air has done a large portion
of the work by the evaporation of the moisture, commonly however to the
deterioration of the air of the town and the health, and also to the
deterioration of the value of the refuse.
On examining these obstructions to the cleanliness and salubrity of our
towns, it became apparent that the expensive and slow process of the
removal of the surface refuse of the streets by cartage might be
dispensed with, and the whole at once carried away by the mode which is
proved, in the case of the refuse of houses, to be the most rapid,
cheap, and convenient, namely, by sweeping it at once into the sewers,
and discharging it by water.
The sewerage of the metropolis, though it is a frequent subject of boast
to those who have not examined its operations or effects, will be found
to be a vast monument of defective administration, of lavish
expenditure, and extremely defective execution. The general defect of
these works is, that they are so constructed as to accumulate deposits
within them; that the accumulations remain for years, and are at last
only removed at a great expense, and in an offensive manner, by
hand-labour and cartage. The effect is to generate and retain in large
quantities before the houses the gases which it is the object of
cleansing to remove. In the course of the present inquiry instances have
been frequently presented of fevers and deaths occasioned by the escapes
of gas from the sewers into the streets and houses. In the evidence
given before the Committee of the House of Commons, which received
evidence on the subject in 1834, one medical witness stated, that of all
cases of severe typhus that he had seen, eight-tenths were either in
houses of which the drains from the sewers were untrapped, or which,
being trapped, were situated opposite gully-holes; and he mentioned
instances where servants sleeping in the lower rooms of houses were
invariably attacked with fever. It was proposed as a remedy to prevent
the escape of the noxious effluvia by trapping them, but this was
refused on the ground of the danger to the men, who must enter the
sewers to clean them, from the confined gas. In one of the circulars the
reason assigned for allowing the escape of the gas into the streets is
that if it were confined in the sewers it might impede the flow of the
water. It was then proposed to allow the escape of the noxious gases
through chimneys constructed at certain distances. But this was decided
to be an experiment, and the Committee did not feel themselves
authorized to make experiments. Instances were adduced where it had been
found necessary either to trap or to remove gully-holes in the vicinity
of butchers’ shops, to avoid the injurious effects of the effluvium upon
the meat. Similarly mischievous effects of the defective construction
and management of the sewers are commonly displayed in the medical
reports from the provincial towns, and they have been incidentally
noticed in the passages already cited.
It may be mentioned as another instance of the absence of appropriate
knowledge that has governed these structural arrangements, that a large
proportion of the most expensive sewers are constructed with flat
bottoms. In proportion as the water is spread the flow is impeded, and
the deposit of matter it may hold in suspension increased. Mr. Roe, a
civil engineer, who, much to the honour of the Holborn and Finsbury
district of sewers, has been appointed to the care of their sewers, and
is perhaps the only officer having the experience and qualifications of
a civil engineer, states, that as compared with sewers or drains with
bottoms of a semicircular form, those with flat bottoms invariably
occasion a larger amount of deposit; and with the same flow of water,
the difference of construction occasions a difference of more than
one-half in the deposit which is left. By the common and most expensive
form, the drains are apt to be choked up with noxious accumulations; by
being built with flat sides (instead of with curved sides, which give
the strength of an arch) they are apt in clayey and slippery ground to
be forced in. The expense of the improved form is nearly one-fourth less
than those in general use. _Mr. Roe_, whose evidence, which is
corroborated by the evidence of other engineers, is given in the
Appendix, was asked,—
In respect to the levels, how have you found the sewers?—They appear
to have been entirely constructed with reference to the locality, to
drain to the nearest outlet, and not on an extended view for the whole
district, or with any view to sewerage on a large scale. In the
Holborn and Finsbury divisions the Commissioners now adopt a series of
levels suited from the lowest outlets to the surrounding districts.
Have you heard of any alterations made in the surrounding districts on
the same principle?—I have heard of none as adopted generally. The
City have lowered several of their outlets; and the chairman of the
Westminster Commission has had the subject under consideration for
some time.
What are the chief effects of the piecemeal town drainage without
reference to extended levels?—Chiefly that when new lines of houses
are built and require new sewers, either the old sewers must be taken
up and re-constructed at a great expense, to adjust them to a new and
effective sewerage, or the new sewers, if they are adjusted to the old
ones, are deficient in fall, and they have greater deposits.
Does the existing form or system of sewerage answer fully and at the
least expense the chief objects of sewerage in house and street
cleansing, and the removal of noxious substances?—No, it does not,
except where the outlets have been lowered, and the sewers continued
at a proper level; great accumulations of deposit are occasioned in
the sewers, and from their containing the refuse that was at one time
deposited in the cesspools, the deposit is more noxious than formerly;
the gas is more considerable, it escapes more extensively into streets
and into the houses, where the drains are not well trapped. My opinion
is that the general health of the men who work and have been
accustomed to the sewers, has become still worse; they are more pale
and thin, and lower in general health than formerly. The effect of the
noxious gases upon men working in these places is to lower the general
health. Since I have had the superintendence of the sewers, the men
have encountered about half a dozen accidents by explosions of gas.
But is the health of these men who work in the sewers to be taken as a
criterion of the health of persons who are not accustomed to such
places?—I have had no means of forming a comparison, though I am of
opinion that gases which they encounter without any immediate injury
would be very injurious to the health of susceptible persons, or of
any persons not habituated to it.
The first prejudicial effect of the defective system, then, is to
occasion these noxious accumulations; how are they removed?—Formerly,
in the Holborn and Finsbury sewers, and at present, I believe, in all
other sewers, the streets were opened at a great expense and
obstruction (they are so now, I believe, elsewhere); men descend,
scoop up the deposit into pails, which are raised by a windlass to the
surface, and laid there until the carts come; it is laid there until
it is carted away, sometimes for several hours, to the public
annoyance and prejudice. The contract price for removal from the old
sewers without man-holes was 11_s._ per cubic yard of slop removed;
where they have man-holes it was 6_s._ 10_d._ per cubic yard. This
practice also involves injury and expense as respects the pavement; a
street may be well paved when it is broken up for the cleansing of the
sewers, but the portions of pavements so disturbed are never so well
put down again; neither can accidents be effectually guarded against.
By what means may these effects be obviated?—In the Holborn and
Finsbury divisions I suggested a plan of flushing the sewers, and of
carrying off all the refuse by water. This plan has been adopted, and
it is now in operation. The breaking up of the streets is avoided by
the formation of side entrances; cast-iron flushing gates are fixed in
the sewers; the ordinary flow of water in the sewers accumulates at
these gates; the gates are opened, and the force of the water is
sufficient to sweep off the deposit; and the system may be further
extended.
What is the comparative difference in the expense of construction?—The
cost of side entrances and flood-gates, as compared with the cost of
man-holes, is from 6_d._ to 1_s._ less per foot lineal of the length
of new sewers.
What other expense is attendant on this improved practice?—The main
expense is the attendance of a man to shut and open the flood-gates.
The structural expense being lower, is the ultimate expense of
cleansing lower also?—Yes; the expense of cleansing the sewers is
about 50 per cent. less than the prevalent mode. Our expense of
cleansing the sewers was about 1,200_l._ per annum; we save 600_l._ of
that, and expect to save more; but to this must be added the saving to
the public of the cleansing of the private drains, formerly choked by
the accumulations in the sewers. This saving, on a moderate
calculation, is found to be upwards of 300_l._ per annum. There is
also the diminution of the escapes of gas from the old and continued
accumulations.
During what intervals are deposits allowed to remain on the old
mode?—The average is in one set of sewers about five years, and in
another about ten years.
During which time the public are subjected to all the escapes of gas
from the decomposing accumulation?—Exactly so. It could not, however
go on so long but for heavy falls of rain or snow, which occasion
partial clearances.
What is the effect of these accumulations upon the private
drainage?—That the drains to the private houses are stopped: the first
intimation of the foul state of the main sewer arises from complaints
of individuals whose drains are affected; the accumulations in the
private drains also occasions an expense to the individuals and much
annoyance. By flushing the sewers this expense might be, and in
Holborn and Finsbury division it is, avoided.
Are there any other defects you have, as an engineer, noticed in the
prevalent mode of constructing the sewers?—Yes, the prevalent practice
is to join sewers at angles, frequently at right angles; this
occasions eddies and deposits of sediment that would otherwise pass
off with the water; it injures the capacity of the main sewers by
obstructing the current of water along them: I ascertained by
experiment that the time occupied in the passage of an equal quantity
of water, along similar lengths of sewer with equal falls, was—
Seconds.
Along a straight line 90
With a true curve 100
With a turn at right angles 140
The Commissioners of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions agreed to
require that the curves in sewers, passing from one street to another,
shall be formed with a radius of not less than 20 feet; it is also
required that the inclination or fall shall be increased at the
junction, in order to preserve an equal capacity for the passage of
water, and of effect in sweeping away the deposit.
When by heavy falls of snow or otherwise the refuse of the streets is
carried into such sewers, is there any difficulty in sweeping it
away?—None whatsoever.
In what number of years would the saving in cleansing sewers by
flushing repay the expense of applying the apparatus to the existing
sewers in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—In seven years.
Have you any doubt of the practicability of carrying all the surface
cleansing of the streets into the sewers, and removing it by
conveyance in water, instead of by hand labour and cartage?—I
entertain no doubt whatever that it might be done, where there is a
good sewer and proper gully-holes and shoots; with a good supply of
water these would carry away rapidly all the surface refuse; the
experience of the sewerage in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions prove
it.
How does it prove it?—At every opportunity the street-sweepers sweep
all they can into the gully-holes, and it is swept away without
inconvenience.
One practical witness states that the expense of the cartage alone of
the refuse from a Macadamised street of half a mile, in the winter
time in the metropolis, is 5_l._ weekly. What would be the comparative
expense of carrying it away by the sewers?—It would save the whole
expense of the cartage; it would be less than the present expense of
sweeping and filling into the carts, and if there were a sufficient
supply of water on the surface, the work might be conducted with great
rapidity.
You are aware that one inconvenience of the existing mode of street
cleansing, independently of the great expense, is the length of time
during which the wet refuse remains to the public annoyance on the
surface, until removed by the slow process of sweeping and
cartage?—Yes; and the men would appear to delay for the purpose of the
dirt being removed, by being washed by rain into the sewers.
Do you conceive that all the business of street cleansing and house
draining might be consolidated advantageously to the public?—Yes,
clearly so, and with great economy.
In the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an experienced builder in the wealthy
districts of the metropolis, will be found exemplifications of the
mischiefs resulting from the defective modes of opening sub-drains or
communications, even from houses of the first class, into the main
drains.[7] The state of sewerage and drainage in the larger towns, as
described in the medical reports, in its effects of frequent disease and
death,—is much worse in the provincial towns. But every step in
improvement is an advance in reduction of existing burdens; drainage,
_per se_, will be found to be a reduction of an existing charge for the
expenses of sickness and mortality; _science_, applied to the
improvement of drainage, not only gives it efficiency, but reduces
greatly the expense.
The streets in the larger towns commonly display, from the want of
science in their construction, similar waste, and equally admit of an
improved and scientific arrangement, which will conduce to economy and
to improved public health.
The bad condition of the streets in many of the towns is very generally
ascribable to pavement being commonly regarded as requisite solely for
cart or carriage conveyance, and not as a means of cleanliness. The
pavement has therefore been usually confined to the chief streets in
which the carriage traffic is considerable. Some of the principal
streets even in the metropolis almost justify the description of being
“streams of mud and filth in winter,” and “seas of dust” in summer. But
attention has of late been directed to the cleansing of the road as a
means of removing damp and dirt or dust, which are each found to be
injurious. So far as various experiments have yet proceeded in the
metropolis, they are stated to be highly favourable to the use of wood
as a substance for paving the streets, though perhaps in forms different
from those at present in use, with improvements which further experience
will suggest. Wood, when pinned together and laid on a firm substratum,
appears to be less retentive of wet than most forms of stone pavement,
and to possess very considerable advantages over the Macadamised roads
for crowded thoroughfares. If it be brought into general use it will
have an advantage in removing the granite dust, which medical
authorities believe to be much more prejudicial to health, in exciting
or aggravating lung diseases, than the public have been aware of. Where
there is much dust in the working of close quarries, the effects of it
are almost as destructive to the lungs of the operatives as the
knife-grinding to the operatives of Sheffield who do not guard against
the steel-dust. “It is scarcely conceivable,” Dr. Arnott states, “that
the immense quantities of granite-dust pounded by one or two hundred
thousand pairs of wheels working on Macadamised streets, should not
greatly injure the public health. In houses bordering such streets or
roads, it is found that, notwithstanding the practice of watering, the
furniture is often covered with dust even more than once in the day, so
that writing on it with the finger becomes legible, and the lungs and
air-tubes of the inhabitants, with a moist lining to detain the dust,
are constantly pumping the same atmosphere. The passengers by a
stage-coach in dry weather, when the wind is moving with them so as to
keep them enveloped in the cloud of dust raised by the horses’ feet and
the wheels of the coach, have their clothes soon saturated to whiteness
with the dust, and their lungs of course are charged in a corresponding
degree. A gentleman who rode only 20 miles in this way, had afterwards
to cough and expectorate for 10 days to clear his chest again.” The
imperfection of road cleansing in paved streets at the same time
deteriorates the salubrity of the towns, the value of the refuse for
production, and the streets themselves. The farmers find that the refuse
of the streets, of which horse-dung and other excrementitious substances
form so important a part, is valuable in proportion as it is “fresh.” On
a proposition to sweep the streets of a town district oftener, it was
stated by some farmers that they would, in that case, give more for the
refuse. It is with this description of refuse, as stated with respect to
the night-soil, in proportion as it is allowed to remain in the streets
to dry, it loses the gas which gives it value; and the gas which is lost
frequently gives to streets the offensive smell perceptible to strangers
who have not been familiarised to it, and makes a deleterious addition
to the compounds by which the health of the town population is injured.
The complete and rapid cleansing of the roads has also its effects on
the draught. It is proved experimentally that, “calling the draught on a
broken-stone road 5, that on the same road covered with dust is 8, and
that on the same road wet and muddy is 10.”[8] A road should be cleansed
“from time to time, so as never to have half an inch of mud upon it.
This is particularly necessary to be attended to where the materials are
weak, for if the surface is not kept clean, so as to admit of its
becoming dry in the intervals between showers of rain, it will be
rapidly worn away.” With the even surface obtainable from the use of
wood as a pavement, it is stated that the streets which are now kept wet
and dirty whilst the process of cleansing is slowly carried on by the
hand, may be rapidly and cheaply swept by sweeping-machines drawn by
horses. With the advantage of such a system of sewerage as that
described by Mr. Roe, the surface refuse, which continues exposed during
a whole week, may be removed every morning before the hours of traffic
from all the principal thoroughfares. In the main streets of the towns
of considerable traffic, a smooth and firm surface for the carriage-way
would ensure the advantages of a railroad, in addition to those to the
public health from cleanliness. The experience on several portions of
smooth road shows that single horses with lighter and less expensive
vehicles would suffice where two horses are now required on the common
roads; where strong stone pavements are required to resist the shock of
heavy vehicles, and heavy vehicles propelled with double power to resist
the battering of strong pavements, and the grinding and wear and tear of
heavy and dirty roads.
_Captain Vetch_, the engineer, who is extensively acquainted with the
structural economy of towns, observes in a communication on the subject,
that—
“The other mode of avoiding the formation of mud is the substitution
of wooden pavements; of the success of these I have little doubt,
though for the present many failures have occurred, either from the
foundation not having been truly and firmly laid, or from the blocks
of wood not being massive enough. The greatest objection to wood
pavements at present is the slipping of the horses, but this I believe
might be obviated. The question, however, at present is to get rid of
the street dirt, such as it is; and for that purpose I concur in
opinion it would only be necessary in wet weather during rains that
the street-cleaner should sweep the dirt into the kennels, and aid the
water by stirring the mud, to carry off the material in a state of
diffusion; in dry weather, the opening of pipes with hose attached
would serve the same purpose as the rains, and at the same time aid
the sewerage at the time most required. After a short but heavy fall
of rain, the cleansing effect of the water is fully perceived: and if
any means could be devised of saving the rain-water that falls on the
houses and in the streets, so as to apply it in considerable
quantities at intervals, it is probable that the rain-water would be
amply sufficient for all the purposes in question.”
Mr. Roe states, that arrangements were made with the water companies for
supplies of water for the cleansing of the sewers in the Holborn and
Finsbury district, but it was found that the ordinary supplies to the
sewers sufficed, and those from the company were not used.
The cleansing of the streets and the removal of the impurities from the
habitations appears to have been the subject of considerable attention
at Paris of late years. An individual proposed to the administration of
that city a mode of cleansing the streets and pavement, by sweeping all
the refuse into the sewers which are discharged into the Seine, that had
hitherto been daily gathered into heaps and carted away beyond the
precincts. The minister of police thought it advisable to take the
opinion of the Institute on the proposal. The superiority of the
proposed mode of street cleansing was admitted, but the members of the
Institute, to whom the subject was referred, having ascertained the
quantity of rubbish which was daily collected in Paris, and also the
quantity of water which flowed in the Seine during the summer-time, they
found that this volume of water was 9600 times greater than the greatest
quantity of filth and rubbish collected in the same length of time from
the streets of Paris; and they reported as their conclusion, “that the
quantity of dirt which would be thrown into the Seine, compared with the
volume of water in the river, would be found to be so extremely small as
to be absolutely inappreciable; that it was not from the consideration
therefore of insalubrity that the project for cleaning the streets as
proposed should be negatived, but solely because by that means there
would be lost a quantity of most valuable manure, which was quite
indispensable to the agriculture around Paris, and consequently to Paris
itself.”[9]
Mr. Roe has furnished me with a calculation made from the flow of water
in the Thames, at a neap tide: taking the ebb, and comparing it with the
quantity of deposit in the water running from the sewers from the whole
of the metropolis (assuming that the sewerage bears the same proportion
as the Holborn and Finsbury division), that the proportion of impurities
to the volume of water of the Thames is as 1 to 10,100. If the surface
cleansing of the streets were added to the ordinary mass of impurity, he
calculates that the proportion held in suspension would then be about 1
to 5069. To this must be added the impurities from land-floods, and
those from vessels in the river. The amount of impurity discharged from
the sewers was calculated from the amount of deposit known to have been
formed in several of them. The amount of impurity in the Thames would
therefore be, at the least, double the amount of that calculated for the
Seine.[10]
If the evils of the pollution of such a stream were much greater, they
would still be found inconsiderable as compared with the perpetual
pollution of the air by the retention of ordures and refuse amidst large
masses of the population. What has been stated as to the practicability
of extending threefold the cleansing of towns, by dispensing with
cartage, and using the sewers for the removal of the refuse of the
streets, is stated as an advantage, even on the supposition that no use
is made of the refuse, and that it is entirely thrown away. But it were
a reproach to stop at the advance to this far lesser evil, and to add to
the pollution of the streams of the towns, which throughout the country
form the chief common sewers, by throwing into them everything that is
vile in the towns, i. e. everything that is most valuable for increasing
the surrounding fertility.
On a full examination of the evidence adduced and of the evidence
indicated, it will, I trust, be found to be satisfactorily established;
that the houses of towns may be constantly and rapidly cleansed of
noxious refuse by adaptation of drains and public sewers; and that with
such an adaptation, for one street or one district cleansed at the
present expense three may be cleansed by the proposed mode; that the
natural streams flowing near towns may be preserved from the pollution
caused by the influx of the contents of the public sewers, by the
conveyance of all refuse through covered pipes, and that the existing
cost of conveyance, by which its use for production is restricted, may
be reduced to less than one-fortieth or fiftieth of the present expense
of removal by hand labour and cartage;[11] that these bounties on
cleanliness and salubrity on the one hand, and beneficial production on
the other, are dependent on skilful and appropriate administrative
arrangements. But for the attainment of these objects, and the relief of
the worst-conditioned districts, another provision appears to be
requisite, namely, appropriate
_Supplies of Water._
Besides those reports from towns in which a large proportion of their
salubrity is attributed to a natural drainage, from the porosity of the
soil, or from the undulations of the surface being favourable to the
discharge of moisture, as at Birmingham, other reports ascribe a large
proportion of the comparative health of the population to advantageous
circumstances, in respect to the supplies of water. From such
information as that already cited, it will be manifest that for an
efficient system of house cleansing and sewerage, it is indispensable
that proper supplies of pure water should be provided, and be laid on in
the houses in towns of every size, and, it might be added, in all
considerable rural villages. No previous investigations had led me to
conceive the great extent to which the labouring classes are subjected
to privations, not only of water for the purpose of ablution, house
cleansing, and sewerage, but of wholesome water for drinking, and
culinary purposes.
_Mr. John Liddle_, one of the medical officers of the Whitechapel union,
after describing the deplorable condition of the dwellings of the
labouring population in that part of London, states, that—
“In connexion with this state of things is the deficiency of water
which is not laid on in any of their houses.
“How do they get such water as they use?—They get it for the most part
from a plug in the courts. I cannot say whether it is the actual
scarcity of water, or their reluctance to fetch it, but the effect is
a scarcity of water. When I have occasion to visit their rooms, I find
they have only a very scanty supply of water in their tubs. When they
are washing, the smell of the dirt mixed with the soap is the most
offensive of all the smells I have to encounter. They merely pass
dirty linen through very dirty water. The smell of the linen itself,
when so washed, is very offensive, and must have an injurious effect
on the health of the occupants. The filth of their dwellings is
excessive, so is their personal filth. When they attend my surgery, I
am always obliged to have the door open. When I am coming down stairs
from the parlour, I know at the distance of a flight of stairs whether
there are any poor patients in the surgery. Any one who attends on the
relief days of the out-door relief may satisfy himself as to the
personal condition of these parties.
“Are the courts in which the labouring classes reside, in your
district, paved or cleansed?—They are not flagged, they have a sort of
pebbles; they are always wet and dirty. The people, having no
convenience in their houses for getting rid of waste water, throw it
down at the doors. If I cast my eye over the whole district at this
moment, I do not think that one house for the working classes will be
found in which there is such a thing as a sink for getting rid of the
water.
“Then there is not such a thing as a house with the water laid on?—Not
one in the poorer places. There is also the want of cesspools; there
is only one or two places for a whole court, and soil lies about the
places which are in a most offensive condition.
“What is the number of cases which you visit for the administration of
medical relief during the year?—During the last year the number of
cases was 1560, all of them out-patients.
“Has not a large sewer been recently formed through your
district?—Yes, through Rosemary-lane.
“What has been its effect?—Very little as respects the inhabitants of
the courts; the landlords are not compelled, and do not go to the
expense of making any communication from the courts to the sewer; the
courts are in as wet and dirty and in as bad a condition as ever.
“What are the rents paid for these descriptions of tenements?—I am
informed, very high rents. I am informed that this description of
property pays a better per centage than any other description of
property.—My impression is that it pays as much as 20 per cent. in
many instances.”
This evidence exhibits the common condition of large masses of
habitations, even in the metropolis, where there are so many competing
companies.
_Mr. Mott_ states that, in Manchester,—
“There are numerous pumps and a plentiful supply of water within a few
feet of the surface, to say nothing of the various tanks and cisterns
in factories and private dwellings, which in this proverbially rainy
district are always abundantly supplied; but, from the nature of the
atmosphere, the rain-water is frequently like ink. The Irwell and
Medlock rivers run through the town of Manchester; but being
receptacles for all kinds of filth and refuse, the water is too impure
for general use. In the suburbs of Manchester the water is generally
procured through the medium of rain-water cisterns, or from very
shallow wells by pumps. In the better class of houses it is generally
filtered, but the poorer classes use it without any preparation. The
custom is for owners of small cottage property to erect a pump for the
use of a given number of houses; this pump is frequently rented by one
of the tenants, who keeps it locked, and each of the other tenants are
taxed a certain sum per month for the use of it. One poor woman told
me she paid 1_s._ per month. The water company give a plentiful supply
to small houses at 6_s._ per year, or about half what this woman paid
for a precarious supply from the subscription pump. The Stockport
Local Act empowers the commissioners of that town to _compel_ the
cottage owners to provide a good supply of water to their tenants.”
_Mr. John Moyle_, medical officer of the Truro union, states—
“But few houses are properly supplied with water. In very dry seasons,
they have to fetch water from a distance varying from a quarter to 1½
mile.”
This is at present the condition of a large proportion of the houses in
Hampstead, Highgate, and Hendon, where water is purchased by the
pailful.
_Mr. Daniel Antrobus_, medical officer of the Audley district, Newcastle
union, Staffordshire, says—
“They have seldom a good supply of water, are without _pumps_, and the
occupants are obliged to obtain it from stagnant reservoirs or impure
springs, situate often at a considerable distance.”
_Mr. Henry Cribb_, the medical officer of the Dunmow union reports, as a
circumstance which is highly injurious to the health,—
“The want of good and wholesome spring-water: there being scarcely any
pumps for the use of the poor, they are compelled to use water
collected from ditches; and I have known it frequently to be not only
very impure, but almost in a putrid state.”
The medical officer of the Bishop’s Stortford union, states—
“I am of opinion that, in this and most of the rural parishes,
complaints often arise from the want of good and wholesome
spring-water, there being very few pumps, or even wells, and the poor
being compelled to use water collected from ditches and other impure
sources; this circumstance, connected with the very imperfect
drainage, I think requires strict investigation.”
_Mr. Whilpels_, the medical officer of the Lexden and Winstree union,
states—
“There is a point I deem most worthy of notice, I allude to the
deficiency of spring-water. The inhabitants of Salcot Virley and Great
Wigborough are compelled to drink pond-water, which is impure,
brackish, and most injurious to the constitution. The few who have the
means, send for water a distance of four miles; to obviate this evil
would be a blessing conferred upon the great mass of the population
residing in these parishes.”
_Mr. William Blower_, surgeon of Bedford, states,—
“At Wootton (near Bedford) the labourers are very numerous, and before
the passing the Poor Law Amendment Act the greater part of them were
dependent for support upon the poor-rates. The land was enclosed and
undrained, employment was scanty, and wages were very low; the water
was very bad, the inhabitants being principally supplied from pits dug
near their houses, and filled by rain in the winter, which in the
summer, and particularly in dry seasons, were almost emptied by use
and evaporation, leaving only a muddy fluid covered with a green scum,
and loaded with aquatic animals and plants. Sporadic typhus prevailed
extensively in the summer and autumn, and ague in the winter and
spring.
“Since the introduction of the New Poor Law and the enclosure of the
land, considerable draining has been effected, employment has been
more plentiful, and the wages higher, and many of the labourers have
allotments of ground. Typhus has been rapidly diminishing, and this
year (1839) there was no case until November, and then only two. This
must principally be attributed to the improved state of the parish,
and partly, perhaps, this year, to the wetness of the season, by which
the water-pits have been kept nearly full, so that the conditions
favourable to the generation of malaria have not existed.
“A few wells have been dug lately, and good water has been obtained,
and there is every probability if the water-pits were filled up, and
more wells dug, and the draining completed, that sporadic typhus and
ague, which have so long infested this village, and occasioned so much
distress and expense, might be entirely eradicated. A respectable
farmer informed me that, in the neighbouring parish of Houghton, a few
years ago, his was the only family that used well-water, and almost
the only one that escaped ague.”
The state of the supplies of water to the labouring classes in Scotland
appears to be similar to that prevalent in the towns and the rural
districts of England.
_Mr. William Tait_, surgeon, of Edinburgh, states, in regard to the
houses in the High-street, Cowgate, and Canongate:—
“The dwellings of the poor are remarkable for their generally
uncomfortable appearance, and I attribute this in most instances to a
deficient supply of water, necessaries, and such like conveniences.
There are no receptacles for filth of any description, and it is
either accumulated in the stairs or dwellings themselves, and the
stairs are scarcely ever washed. And how can it be otherwise, seeing
that the poor have to travel for a considerable distance for water,
and afterwards carry it up five, six, or seven stories?”
The Return from Glasgow states that the—
“Sewers or drains are left uncovered, and with no diluting water
except the refuse of families and rain-water.”
That—
“There is no scarcity of water if carried into the poorer houses.”
_Dr. Alexander Cuddie_, of Aberdeen, states that the—
“Water is plentiful; but it would be proper to bring it into the
houses of the poor as well as the rich.”
_Mr. Forrest_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the population
of Stirling, states that in that town—
“The supply of water is often very deficient. There is no
water-company, and the water is not conveyed into the houses even of
the wealthy inhabitants. In times of scarcity it is no uncommon
occurrence to see from 80 to 100 persons waiting at each public well
for water; and the scarcity of it is often made an excuse by servants
for the neglect of domestic duties. I may therefore with propriety
say, that the poor of Stirling are often not properly supplied with
water for the purposes stated in the query.”
The _Rev. George Lewis_, the minister of St. David’s parish, Dundee, in
speaking of drainage, says that—
“Everything in this way is done very imperfectly; drains and sewers
are insufficient, and run into the mill-pond.”
That there is—
“No water, except what is purchased or taken out of the filthy
mill-pond.”
Another informant states—
“The west and south-west suburbs are destitute of water, and have no
sewers; the north and east suburbs are also badly supplied with water,
and have no drains. Indeed there are only two drains in the town that
I know of, and I should think them rather hurtful than otherwise, as
there is not water enough to scour them out.”
In answer to the question, whether the residences of the population
amidst which contagious febrile diseases arise are properly supplied
with water for the purposes of cleanliness of the houses, person, and
clothing? _Dr. John Macintyre_, of Greenock, states that—
“Their proprietors or landlords, with a few exceptions, have not
properly supplied them with water, although an ample supply of that
necessary aid to cleanliness can be cheaply obtained by means of pipes
from the Shaws’ Water Company.”
_Dr. James Sym_ states that—
“There are few wells of good water in Ayr. The water in general is
strongly impregnated with lime, and the supply is defective. Strangers
find it unpleasant, and I believe horses which have not been used with
it are apt to suffer when it is given them to drink.”
_Mr. A. Cochrane_ and _Mr. W. J. Thomson_, surgeons, of Arbroath, state—
“That the town is well supplied with _hard_ water, but that an
abundant supply of soft water might be brought into the town with very
little expense from a spring in the neighbourhood.”
The Return from Renfrew states that—
“A plentiful supply of water may be had from the street wells, and
also from a burn which runs close to the town.”
_Dr. Henry Douglas_, of Dunfermline, says—
“They are _very inadequately_ supplied with water for these purposes.”
The return from Kirkwall, states—
“That water is supplied at public wells: there is no scarcity of
water, but it is somewhat hard.”
_Dr. W. B. Ross_, of Tain, in reply to the question whether the town is
properly supplied with water? says—
“By no means; the water is very hard, and unfit for most domestic
purposes.”
_Dr. S. Scott Alison_, in his Report on the sanatory condition of the
town of Tranent, furnishes an exemplification of the condition of many
of the smaller towns:—
“I do not believe there is a house in Tranent into which water is
conducted by pipes. There existed great difficulty on many occasions
in getting water at all. During the seven years I lived there, the
village was, on the whole, extremely ill supplied with water: it was
usual for it to be occasionally absent from Tranent altogether. Last
summer the supply of water was stopped for several months. The
inhabitants suffered the greatest inconvenience from this cause; they
could not get sufficient water to maintain cleanliness of person and
clothes; it was even difficult for labouring people to get enough to
cook their victuals; and I know that many of the poor were, in
consequence, reduced to the practice of using impure and unwholesome
water. On these occasions water was carried from a considerable
distance from the village. Some went the distance of a mile; some used
barrels drawn on carriages; some employed children to bring it in
small vessels; and, I doubt not, many went without it, when it was
highly necessary, from inability or infirmity to go themselves, and
from want of funds to employ another for the purpose. Since the above
was written I have learned from a lady, previously resident in
Tranent, that, when cholera prevailed in that district, some of the
patients suffered very much indeed from want of water, and that so
great was the privation, that on that calamitous occasion people went
into the ploughed fields and gathered the rain water which collected
in depressions in the ground, and actually in the prints made by
horses’ feet. Tranent was formerly well supplied with water of
excellent quality by a spring above the village, which flows through a
sand-bed. The water flows into Tranent at its head, or highest
quarter, and is received into about 10 wells, distributed throughout
the village. The people supply themselves at these wells when they
contain water. When the supply is small, the water pours in a very
small stream only; and it happens, in consequence, that on these
occasions of scarcity great crowds of women and children assemble at
these places, waiting their ‘turn,’ as it is termed. I have seen women
fighting for water. The wells are sometimes frequented throughout the
whole night. It was generally believed by the population that this
stoppage of the water was owing to its stream being diverted into a
coal-pit which was sunk in the sand-bed above Tranent. That pit has
been lined with sheets of iron, and the water has lately returned to
Tranent in great abundance.”
The observations made by _Mr. Burton_, in his Report, appear to be
deserving of attentive consideration. He states—
“I have reason to believe that in many parts of Scotland the want of a
good supply of water is one of the most material impediments to the
furtherance of cleanly habits among the working people. Besides the
immediate evils of a narrow supply, much time is wasted, and many bad
habits are acquired by those who have to wait their turn at the wells
in a time of drought. Dundee, Stirling, Dunfermline, Lanark, and
Arbroath, are all, I believe, imperfectly supplied. The community of
Dundee have spent about 30,000_l._ in a contest between the supporters
of two contending water-bills; and I understand that an Act which was
passed about three years ago has been found incapable of being put in
operation. The evil is rendered more serious by the demand for cooling
water for the numerous steam-engines, and the article is so precious
that it is for these purposes repeatedly re-cooled by exposure and
evaporation after it has been heated. I believe that in many of the
colliery and manufacturing districts there is inconvenience, amounting
to suffering, from want of water. Where there is a positive deficiency
of the element on the spot, the means of procuring a supply from
another place are so various and so dependent on local circumstances,
that nothing but some arbitrary authority, possessed of sufficient
funds, could ensure its being obtained in every instance.”
On these and various reports from the medical officers and others in
England, as well as from Scotland, in which it is stated in terms
similar to the return from Renfrew, “that a plentiful supply of water
_may_ be had from the street wells, and also from a burn which runs
close to the town,” it is to be observed, that the economy of a town, or
of any considerable collection of habitations, appears to be essentially
defective, insofar as it leaves a large proportion of the inhabitants
dependent on such a mode of supply.
Supplies of water obtained from wells by the labour of fetching and
carrying it in buckets or vessels do not answer the purpose of regular
supplies of water brought into the house without such labour, and kept
ready in cisterns for the various purposes of cleanliness. The
interposition of the labour of going out and bringing home water from a
distance acts as an obstacle to the formation of better habits; and I
deem it an important principle to be borne in mind, that in the actual
condition of the lower classes, conveniences of this description must
precede and form the habits. It is in vain to expect of the great
majority of them that the disposition, still less the habits, will
precede or anticipate and create the conveniences. Even with persons of
a higher condition, the habits are greatly dependent on the
conveniences, and it is observed, that when the supplies of water into
the houses of persons of the middle class are cut off by the pipes being
frozen, and when it is necessary to send for water to a distance, the
house-cleansings and washings are diminished by the inconvenience; and
every presumption is afforded that if it were at all times requisite for
them to send to a distance for water, and in all weathers, their habits
of household cleanliness would be deteriorated. In Paris and other towns
where the middle classes have not the advantage of supplies of water
brought into the houses, the general habits of household and personal
cleanliness are inferior to those of the inhabitants of towns who do
enjoy the advantage. The whole family of the labouring man in the
manufacturing towns rise early, before daylight in winter time, to go to
their work; they toil hard, and they return to their homes late at
night. It is a serious inconvenience, as well as discomfort to them to
have to fetch water at a distance out of doors from the pump or the
river on every occasion that it may be wanted, whether it may be in
cold, in rain, or in snow. The minor comforts of cleanliness are of
course forgone, to avoid the immediate and greater discomforts of having
to fetch the water. In general it has appeared in the course of the
present inquiry that the state of the conveniences gives, at the same
time, a very fair indication of the state of the habits of the
population, in respect to household, and even personal cleanliness. The
_Rev. Whitwell Elwin_, the chaplain of the Bath union, gives the
following illustration of the habits of many of the working population
even in that city, which is well supplied with water:—
“A man had to fetch water from one of the public pumps in Bath, the
distance from his house being about a quarter of a mile,—‘It is as
valuable,’ he said, ‘as strong beer. We can’t use it for cooking, or
anything of that sort, but only for drinking and tea.’ ‘Then where do
you get water for cooking and washing?’—‘Why, from the river. But it
is muddy, and often stinks bad, because all the filth is carried
there.’ ‘Do you then prefer to cook your victuals in water which is
muddy and stinks to walking a quarter of a mile to fetch it from the
pump?’—‘We can’t help ourselves, you know. We could not go all that
way for it.’ There are many gentlemen’s houses in the same district in
which the water is not fit for cooking; and I know that much privation
and inconvenience is undergone to avoid the expense of water-carriage.
I have often wondered to see the shifts which have been endured rather
than be at the cost of an extra pail of water, of which the price was
three halfpence. With the poor, far less obstacles are an absolute
barrier, because no privation is felt by them so little as that of
cleanliness. The propensity to dirt is so strong, the steps so few and
easy, that nothing but the utmost facilities for water can act as a
counterpoise; and such is the love of uncleanliness, when once
contracted, that no habit, not even drunkenness, is so difficult to
eradicate.”
In most towns, and certainly in the larger manufacturing towns, those
members of a family who are of strength to fetch water are usually of
strength to be employed in profitable industry, and the mere value of
their time expended in the labour of fetching water, is almost always
much higher than the cost of regular supplies of water even at the
charge made by the water companies. In Glasgow the charge for supplying
a labourer’s tenement is 5_s._ per annum; in Manchester 6s. In London
the usual charge is 10_s._ for a tenement containing two families, for
which sum two tons and a half of water per week may be obtained if
needed. For 5_s._ per annum, then, as a water-rate (on which from 10 to
20 per cent. is paid to the owner for collection), each labourer’s
family may be supplied in the metropolis with one ton and a quarter of
water weekly, if they find it necessary to use so much. The ton is 216
gallons, equal to 108 pails full, at two gallons the pail. Thus for less
than one penny farthing, 135 pails full of water are taken into the
house without the labour of fetching, without spilling or disturbance,
and placed in constant readiness for use. Under any circumstances, if
the labourer or his wife or child would otherwise be employed, even in
the lowest-paid labour or in knitting stockings, the cost of fetching
water by hand is extravagantly high as compared with the highest cost of
water lifted by steam and conducted through iron pipes at a large
expenditure of capital (the lowest in London is about 200,000_l._) and
by an expensive management. In illustration of the difference in economy
of the two modes of conveyance, I may mention that the usual cost of
filtered water carried into the houses at Paris by the water-carriers,
is two sous the pailful, being at the rate of 9_s._ per ton; whilst the
highest charge of any of the companies in London for sending the same
quantity of water to any place within the range of their pipes, and
delivering it at an average level of 100 feet, at the highest charge, is
6_d._ per ton.
At the highest of the water companies’ charges it would be good economy
for the health of the labourer’s family to pay for water being laid on
in the house, to reduce the expense of medicines and loss of work in the
family, as indicated by any of the tables of sickness. The cost of
laying on the water in a labourer’s tenement, and providing a butt or
receptacle to hold it, may be stated to be on an average 40_s._, which
will last twenty years.
The experience of the water companies tends to show that the
distribution of water directly into the houses where it is wanted, would
be good economy of the water. When the supply of water into the houses
is stopped by frost, and cocks are, on that occasion, opened in the
streets, the supply of water required is one-third greater than usual;
as great, indeed, as it is in the heat of summer, when there is a large
additional consumption for watering gardens and roads. I would here
suggest that it is essential that the water should be charged on the
owners of all the smaller weekly tenements, because, where the owner
finds it necessary to collect the rent weekly, the smaller collection of
rates for longer periods would often be impracticable, and the expense
of the collection alone of such small rates weekly (1¼_d._ per week)
would be more than the amount collected.
The mode of supplying water by private companies for the sake of a
profit is not however available for the supply of a population, where
the numbers are too small to defray the expense of obtaining a private
Act of parliament, or the expense of management by a board of directors,
or to produce profits to shareholders; it is, therefore, a mode not
available to the population of the country who do not reside in the
chief towns. The Poor Law Commissioners have been urgently requested to
allow the expense for procuring supplies for villages to be defrayed out
of the poor’s rates in England, but they could only express their regret
that the law gave them no power to allow such a mode of obtaining the
benefit sought. The mode of supply by private companies is, however, the
subject of complaint in the populous towns, where it is the only mode.
Although there is little probability that regular supplies of water
would ever have been obtained without the inducement of salaries to the
managers and of returns of interest to the capitalists; although the
cost of most of the supplies at the highest is much lower than the
labour of fetching water from a pump close to the house, and no valid
objection appears against compulsory provisions for water being laid on
(_i. e._ for existing charges of labour being reduced) in the tenements
of the labouring classes in towns, at the common charge of the water
companies: still the appearance of a profit and of dividends on the
supply of a natural commodity does, in the new districts at least,
furnish pretexts for the objection of the poorer owners and ignorant
occupiers to the supposed expense of the improvement which consists in
an immediate outlay. Apart from such objections, however, it is a mode
of obtaining supplies attended with great inconveniences, which it is
desirable to have considered with respect to new improvements. The
payment of a dividend for an improved supply of such a commodity will be
found as imperfect a measure, even of its pecuniary value, as it would
be of the pecuniary value of a good and abundant supply of air and of
the light of day. There are numerous indirect effects of the use of such
a commodity, of which a pecuniary estimate cannot conveniently be made,
as against an immediate outlay. For example, there is little ground left
for doubt that the effect of street and house cleansing by means of the
supplies of water needed in the worst districts, would occasion
considerable reductions in the pecuniary charge of sickness on the
poor’s rates, but it would be extremely difficult to obtain these
results in money to make up, with any pretence to accuracy, a profit and
loss account as an undertaking for the outlay. The evidence afforded by
the creation and success of a private company proves only that a certain
class of persons so far appreciate the advantages of the supply as to be
willing to incur such an immediate expense as will cover the cost, and
yield a profit to the undertakers; it proves nothing as to the intrinsic
value of the service or the commodity, which may be immense to the bulk
of the community, and yet not one be found ready to volunteer to defray
a portion of the expense. But the expense of the machinery of water
companies, as already stated, is disproportioned to the means of the
smaller towns and to a large part of the country; and generations may
pass away amidst filth and pestilence before the scientific means and
the economy of prevention can be appreciated by them. And there are
further objections made in towns to the mode of supply itself. One is,
that it creates strong interest against all improvements in the quality
or the supplies of water; for every considerable improvement creates
expense, which is felt, in diminution of the dividends of the private
shareholders; and so long as a majority of the ratepayers are content
with bad water, or deem it hopeless to seek to obtain water of a
superior quality, so long as any public clamour will not endanger the
dividends, it appears that no amendment entailing considerable expense
can be expected. Even where there are convenient unappropriated streams,
and a wide field is afforded for competition by a very populous
district, the competition of different companies does not necessarily
furnish to the individual consumer any choice or amendment of the
supplies.
The competition frequently absorbs the profit on the funds that might be
available to the competing parties (supposing them disposed to carry out
any plans other than those which have for their object the cheapest
supply that can be procured), and does not reduce the charge of the
supply of water to the public. At one time there were three sets of
water-pipes belonging to three different companies passing through the
same streets of a large proportion of the metropolis. This wasteful
competition of three immense capitals sunk in the supply of one
district, for which the expenditure of one capital and one establishment
would have sufficed, ended in an agreement between the competing
companies to confine themselves to particular districts. The dividends
at present obtained by the shareholders of the chief companies in the
metropolis on the capital now employed, appears, however, to be only 4,
5, or 6 per cent., but this is on several expensive establishments and
sets of officers, which appear to admit of consolidation. The committee
of the House of Commons which investigated the subject of the supplies
of water in 1821, concluded by recommending a consolidation of the
several trusts, but excepting that the competition between them has
abated, the expense and waste of separate establishments is still
continued, and beyond this the expense of the fixed capital and
establishment, charged upon perhaps one-third the proper supply of
water.
The private companies are also complained of as being practically
irresponsible and arbitrary, and unaccommodating towards individuals. It
is a further subject of complaint, as respects supplies by such
companies, that they are directed almost exclusively to the supplies of
such private houses as can pay water-rates; that they are not arranged
for the important objects of cleansing of the streets or drains, or of
supplying of water in case of fire. I have not been able to observe the
extent of foundation for these complaints. Whilst no strong motive for
aggressive proceedings by the companies against individuals appears, the
existing force of the following statement made by the Committee referred
to, which sat in 1821, will be admitted:—
“The public is at present without any protection, even against a
further indefinite extension of demand. In cases of dispute, there is
no tribunal but the boards of the companies themselves to which
individuals can appeal; there are no regulations but such as the
companies may have voluntarily imposed upon themselves, and may
therefore revoke at any time, for the continuance of the supply in its
present state, or for defining the cases in which it may be withdrawn
from the householder. All these points, and others of the same nature,
indispensably require legislative regulation, where the subject matter
is an article of the first necessity, and the supply has, from
peculiar circumstances, got into such a course that it is not under
the operation of those principles which govern supply and demand in
other cases.”
Since the period of that report, there has been no legislation on the
subject other than that in new Acts, or on the renewal of old ones,
clauses have been introduced empowering any individual rate-payer to
demand a supply of water.
In some instances legislative permissions have been given to the local
authorities to obtain supplies for the use of towns, but the permissions
have not been accompanied with the requisite powers to make them
available.
Bath, however, is supplied with water under the authority of the local
Act of the 6 Geo. III. (c. 70), for paving, &c. which, after reciting
that there was a scarcity of water within the city and precincts, and
that there were in the neighbourhood of the said city several springs of
water belonging to the corporation, enacts that the corporation shall
have full power to cause water to be conveyed to the said city from such
springs, and gives them authority to enter upon and break up the soil of
any public highway, or common, or waste ground, and the soil of any
private grounds within two miles of the city, and the soil or pavement
of any street within the city, in order to drain and collect the water
of the springs, and to make reservoirs sufficient for keeping such
water, and to erect conduits, water-houses, and engines necessary for
distributing it, and to lay under ground aqueducts and pipes most
convenient for the same purpose. The Act vests the right and property of
all water-courses leading from the said springs to the city, and also of
all reservoirs, conduits, water-houses, and engines, erected or used for
the purpose, in the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Bath. The following
extract from a communication from the _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_, who has
closely investigated the economy of the poorest classes in that city,
thus describes the present state of the supply:—
“Bath is surrounded by hills which pour down a vast quantity of water
into reservoirs. Pipes are laid from these reservoirs to every part of
Bath, and as the springs from which the water originally rises are as
high up on the hills as the roofs of the houses, water can be carried
into the attics without the application of a forcing pump: thus no
machinery is employed. The only water-works are the pipes which convey
the water.
“These reservoirs are the property of different persons, and there are
five distinct parties by which particular districts in Bath are
supplied. They are the Bath Corporation, the Freemen’s Company, the
Circus Company, the Duke of Cleveland, and Captain Gunning. There can
scarcely be said to be any competition, because the possession of a
spring in a particular locality gives a monopoly of the surrounding
neighbourhood. But wherever there is room for selection, the supply of
the corporation is always preferred. It is often resorted to even
where the distance is much greater than to other springs; the supply
being more regular, more abundant, and cheaper than the rest, with the
exception of that of the Duke of Cleveland, who only provides his own
tenants. The corporation supplies more than three parts of the town.
There are at present 2184 persons paying water-rates, but the number
of houses furnished with water is considerably greater, because courts
and rows of cottages have frequently a common cistern. Where this is
the case each cottage making use of the cistern pays a rent of 10_s._
a-year, and where the house has a cistern of its own, 20_s._ a-year.
The charge for the water is in proportion to the rent of the house.
The quantity of water supplied is about a hogshead a-day. In summer,
when the springs are low, the quantity is not so great. The laying
down and repair of the feather, that is the pipe which branches from
the main pipe, is at the cost of the tenant.
“In addition to these private supplies the corporation provides five
public pumps, which are open to all the inhabitants free of expense.
“The greater part of the cottages in the town itself, but not in the
suburbs, make use of the water-works. There is generally a pump in
addition, which yields water too hard and bad for domestic purposes.
“The water rents of the corporation for the last year were 3,233_l._
2_s._, the expenses (including salaries, rent for springs, repairs of
pipes) 449_l._ 3_s._ 3_d._, thus leaving a profit of 2,783_l._ 18_s._
9_d._ This sum is applied to the reduction of the borough rate.
“The advantages of this system over private companies appear to me
great and incontestable. Here are no expenses for solicitors, or
litigation between rival concerns; no collusion between coalescing
companies to raise the charges to the utmost amount that the
inhabitants will bear; no exorbitant salaries to the variety of
officers, which every separate establishment demands. A few watermen,
whose united salaries are only 114_l._ 8_s._ per annum, is the sole
addition to the ordinary corporation machinery. When to this we add
that all the profits are for the benefit of the town and not for
individuals—that the sum paid in water-rate is thus pretty nearly
deducted from the borough rate—we can hardly hesitate to strike the
balance. The corporation management, here at least, gives unlimited
satisfaction. They are under the direct control of the ratepayers,
properly desirous to conciliate their opinion, and are sure to hear of
any incivility, which, as they have no interest in protecting it, they
are always ready to redress.”
In this instance, however, it is to be observed that the real cost of
the water to the corporation is not more than one-seventh their charge
to the consumer; consequently, the charge for a supply out of the house
may be said to be less than 1_s._ 6_d._ per annum; and it will admit of
little doubt that if the water were lifted by steam power and carried
into every tenement, as it might be, the actual expense need not be
doubled; six-sevenths then of the charge, which is about the same as the
ordinary charges of water companies, is to be considered as a borough
rate, levied in the shape of a water rate, applied doubtless to some
other proper public services.
An example is presented in Manchester of the practicability of obtaining
supplies for the common benefit of a town without the agency of private
companies. In that town gas has for some years past been supplied from
works erected and conducted not by the municipality but by a body
appointed under a local Act by an elected committee of the ratepayers.
This mode of supplying the town was, it appears, violently opposed by
private interests; but I am informed that the supplies of gas are of as
good or even of a better quality, and cheaper than those obtained from
private companies in adjacent towns; that improvements in the
manufacture of the gas are more speedily adopted than in private
associations, and the profits are reserved as a public fund for the
improvement of the town. Out of this fund a fine Town Hall has been
erected, whole streets have been widened, and various large improvements
have been made; and the income now available for the further improvement
of the town exceeds 10,000_l._ per annum, after providing for the
expense of management and the interest of the sinking fund on the money
borrowed. There are now in the same districts in the metropolis no less
than three immense capitals sunk in competition,—three sets of gas-pipes
passing through the same streets, three expensive sets of principal and
subordinate officers where one would suffice, comparatively high charges
for gas to the consumers, and low dividends to the shareholders of the
companies in competition. Where a scientific and trustworthy agency can
be obtained for the public, manifest opportunities present themselves
for considerable economy on such modes of obtaining supplies. A proposal
was made in Manchester to obtain supplies of water for the town in the
same manner as the supplies of gas, but the owners of the private pumps,
who, it is stated, have the monopoly of the convenient springs, and
exact double the charge for which even private companies are ready to
convey supplies into the houses, made a compact and effectual opposition
to the proposal, contending that the supplies of rain-water (which are
sometimes absolutely black with the soot held in suspension), together
with that from the springs was sufficient, and the proposal was
defeated. These petty interests could not, however, avail against the
more powerful interest of a joint-stock company, which was established
to procure supplies for the middle and wealthier classes of the town.
There appears to be no reason to doubt that the mode of supplying water
to Bath and gas to the town of Manchester might be generally adopted in
supplying water to the population. Powers would be required to enter
into the lands adjacent to the towns on a reasonable compensation to the
owners to obtain supplies of water; and, as the management of
water-works requires appropriate skill, it would be necessary to appoint
an officer with special qualifications for their superintendence.
Ordinary service may be obtained for the public, if recourse be had to
the ordinary motives by which such service is engaged in private
companies. It is not mentioned invidiously, but as a matter of fact,
that the majority, not to say the whole, of such undertakings by joint
stock companies, are, in the first instance, moved by a solicitor, or
engineer, or other person, for the sake of the office of manager of the
works, and that the directors and shareholders, and the inducement of
profit to them, through the benefit undoubtedly to the public, are only
the machinery to the attainment of the object for which the undertaking
is primarily moved. If competent officers be appointed and adequately
remunerated for the service, there can be little doubt that the public
may, as at Bath and Manchester, be saved the expense of the management
by the occasional attendance of unskilled directors, and that they may
save the expense of dividends, or apply the profits to public
improvements, as at Manchester, and moreover avoid the inconveniences
and obstructions undoubtedly belonging to the supply of a commodity so
essential to the public health, comfort, and economy, by a private
monopoly. Bad supplies of water would, I apprehend, generally be less
tolerated by the influential inhabitants of all parties from a public
municipal agency than from a private company.
Another ground for the recommendation that supplies of water for the
labouring classes should be brought under some public authority, is that
some care may be taken to prevent the use of unwholesome supplies.
The queries transmitted to the medical officers were directed to
ascertain the sufficiency of the supplies for the purpose of cleansing,
but the returns frequently advert to the bad effect of inferior supplies
upon the health of the population; and it is scarcely conceivable to
what filthy water custom reconciles the people. Yet water containing
animal matter, which is the most feared, appears to be less frequently
injurious than that which is the clearest, namely, spring-water, from
the latter being oftener impregnated with mineral substances; but there
are instances of ill health produced by both descriptions of water. The
beneficial effects derived from care as to the qualities of the water is
now proved in the navy, where fatal dysentery formerly prevailed to an
immense extent, in consequence of the impure and putrid state of the
supplies; and care is now generally exercised on the subject by the
medical officers of the army. In the Dublin Hospital Reports, for
example, we have the following statement, which is still more important,
as showing the extent to which the nature of the water influences
health:—
“Dr. M. Barry affirms that the troops were frequently liable to
dysentery, while they occupied the old barracks at Cork; but he has
heard that it has been of rare occurrence in the new barracks. Several
years ago, when the disease raged violently in the old barracks, (now
the depôt for convicts,) the care of the sick was, in the absence of
the regimental surgeon, entrusted to the late Mr. Bell, surgeon, in
Cork. At the period in question the troops were supplied with water
from the river Lee, which, in passing through the city, is rendered
unfit for drinking by the influx of the contents of the sewers from
the houses, and likewise is brackish from the tide, which ascends into
their channels. Mr. Bell, suspecting that the water might have caused
the dysentery, upon assuming the care of the sick, had a number of
water-carts engaged to bring water for the troops from a spring called
the Lady’s Well, at the same time that they were no longer permitted
to drink the water from the river. From this simple, but judicious
arrangement, the dysentery very shortly disappeared among the
troops.”—_Dublin Hospital Reports_, vol. iii. 11. Paper by Dr. Cheyne
“On Dysentery.”
_Parent du Chatelet_, the most industrious and able of modern
investigators into questions of public health, gives the following
instance, which in like manner demonstrates the amount of disease
generated solely by the use of bad water, as well as the difficulty of
detecting the specific effects produced by it:—
“When I visited last year the prisons of Paris with my friend
Villermé, who was interested in prisons generally, I was extremely
surprised at the proportion of sick in the hospital of St. Lazarus,
relatively to the whole population of the prisons. The prison, uniting
all the conditions necessary to health as regards its position,
construction, the dress and food of the prisoners, who were constantly
kept at work, how explain the much greater proportion of sick to what
we remark in other prisons of a bad condition, and in which are found
united all the apparent causes of unhealthiness?—This, I must confess,
has baffled all calculation, and has driven every one to say that
there must be a cause for the peculiarity, but that it could not he
discovered. I do not despair to have hit upon that cause, and I
believe it is to be recognised in the nature of the water drunk by the
prisoners. Having tasted it in the wooden reservoir behind the house,
which was in bad order, and full of plants of the genus confervæ, I
found it had a detestable and truly repulsive taste, a circumstance
which does not appear to have been hitherto remarked. Might not the
cause, then, he detected in the chemical nature of the water of
Belleville and of the neighbourhood of St. Gervais, of which the
prisoners drink exclusively? What proves it is the striking
resemblance which exists in this respect between the water of
Belleville and that in the wells of the entrance-court of the hospital
of the Salpêtriere, which both contain a very great proportion of
sulphate of lime, and other purgative salts. Now the venerable
Professor Pinel and his pupil Schwilgué have remarked for more than 20
years the influence that the water of the wells of which I speak has
upon the portion of the population of the hospital who make use of it,
and they believe that certain affections connected evidently with
locality cannot be attributed to any other cause, and particularly the
disposition to chronic diarrhœa which is so often observed in this
hospital. It turns out upon examination _that the greater part of the
sick who fill the infirmary of the prison of St. Lazarus are brought
there for illnesses of the same identical nature_. In the prison they
are obliged to have recourse to the water of the Seine to cook the
vegetables and other food, an evident proof of the truth, or at least
the probability, of all I have just advanced.”
In the metropolis the public owes the analysis of the supplies of water
and some improvement of supplies not in their nature essentially bad,
chiefly to the stirring of speculators in rival companies. But the
population of the rural districts, and of the smaller towns, afford no
means for the payment of companies, still less any field for pecuniary
competition. As in the cases cited, it is to be feared that the
knowledge gained for the safety of the health of the soldiers and the
prisoners was not proclaimed for the protection of the bulk of the
poorest population, who, under existing arrangements, only receive care
in the shape of alleviations, when the suffering from disease is
attended by the destitution which establishes the claim to relief. The
middle classes are exposed to the like inconveniences, and put up with
very inferior water, whilst supplies of a salubrious quality might be
obtained by extended public arrangements for the common benefit.
It will not be deemed necessary to attempt to develope all the
considerations applicable to the subject; and I confine myself to the
representation of the fact,—That there is wide foundation for the
complaint that proper supplies of water to large portions of the
community are extensively wanting—that those obtained are frequently of
inferior quality—that they are commonly obtained at the greatest expense
when obtained by hand labour—that the supplies by private companies,
though cheaper and better, are defective, and chiefly restricted to the
use of the higher and middle classes, unless in such inconvenient modes
(_i. e._ by cocks in courts), as seriously to impede the growth of
habits of cleanliness amongst the working classes. To which I venture to
add, as the expression of an opinion founded on communications from all
parts of the kingdom, that as a highly important sanitary measure
connected with any general building regulations, whether for villages or
for any class of towns, arrangements should be made for all houses to be
supplied with good water, and should be prescribed as being as essential
to cleanliness and health as the possession of a roof or of due space;
that for this purpose, and in places where the supplies are not at
present satisfactory, power should be vested in the most eligible local
administrative body, which will generally be found to be that having
charge of cleansing and structural arrangements, to procure proper
supplies for the cleansing of the streets, for sewerage, for protection
against fires, as well as for domestic use.
_Sanitary Effect of Land Drainage._
In considering the circumstances external to the residence which affect
the sanitary condition of the population, the importance of a general
land drainage is developed by the inquiries as to the causes of the
prevalent diseases, to be of a magnitude of which no conception had been
formed at the commencement of the investigation: its importance is
manifested by the severe consequences of its neglect in every part of
the country, as well as by its advantages in the increasing salubrity
and productiveness wherever the drainage has been skilful and effectual.
The following instance is presented in a report from _Mr. John Marshall,
Jun._, the clerk to the union in the Isle of Ely:—
“It has been shown that the Isle of Ely was at one period in a
desolate state, being frequently inundated by the upland waters, and
destitute of adequate means of drainage; the lower parts became a
wilderness of stagnant pools, the exhalations from which loaded the
air with pestiferous vapours and fogs; now, by the improvements which
have from time to time been made, and particularly within the last
fifty years, an alteration has taken place which may appear to be the
effect of magic. By the labour, industry, and spirit of the
inhabitants, a forlorn waste has been converted into pleasant and
fertile pastures, and they themselves have been rewarded by bounteous
harvests. Drainage, embankments, engines, and enclosures have given
stability to the soil (which in its nature is as rich as the Delta of
Egypt) as well as salubrity to the air. These very considerable
improvements, though carried on at a great expense, have at last
turned to a double account, both in reclaiming much ground and
improving the rest, and in contributing to the healthiness of the
inhabitants. Works of modern refinement have given a totally different
face and character to this once neglected spot; much has been
performed, much yet remains to be accomplished by the rising
generation. The demand for labour produced by drainage is
incalculable, but when it is stated that where sedge and rushes but a
few years since we now have fields of waving oats and even wheat, it
must be evident that it is very great.
“On reference to a very perfect account of the baptisms, marriages,
and burials, in Wisbech, from 1558 to 1826, I find that in the
decennial periods, of which 1801, 1811, and 1821, were the middle
years, the baptisms and burials were as under:—
Baptisms. Burials. Population in 1801.
1796 to 1805 1,627 1,535 4,710
1806 to 1815 1,654 1,313 5,209
1816 to 1825 2,165 1,390 6,515
“In the first of the three periods the mortality was 1 in 31; in the
second, 1 in 40; in the third, 1 in 47; the latter being less than the
exact mean mortality of the kingdom for the last two years. (_See
Registrar-general’s Second Report, p. 4, folio edition._) These
figures clearly show that the mortality has wonderfully diminished in
the last half century, and who can doubt but that the increased
salubrity of the fens produced by drainage is a chief cause of the
improvement.”
_Mr. R. Turner_, medical officer of the Newhaven union, states,—
“The district which has been under my care comprises five parishes,
three of which, viz., Kingston, Iford, and Rodmell, are (more
especially the two latter) situate in close proximity to marshes,
which were formerly for a considerable portion of the year inundated;
of late very extensive improvements have taken place in the drainage
of these levels, and in consequence of that change, the diseases
constantly engendered by marsh miasmata, viz., typhus and intermittent
fevers, are not more common than in other districts which present to
the eye a fairer prospect of health.”
_Mr. G. R. Rowe_, medical officer of the Ongar union, observes,—
“It is worthy of remark, that in the districts surrounding Chigwell no
malignant, infectious, or contagious disease has appeared during my
experience of thirty years’ occasional residence, and even during the
prevalence of cholera not one case occurred. The land is well drained,
the situation elevated, and the cleanly habits of the poor, with the
benevolence of its residents, have tended much to the prevention of
disease, and its amelioration when occurring.”
_Mr. W. Sanders_, medical officer of the Gravesend and Milton union,
states,—
“I beg leave to suggest how extreme are the beneficial effects of a
proper drainage, which shall prevent stagnant water, and its
deleterious consequences, accumulating in crowded neighbourhoods. This
is exemplified in this town, and also in Tilbury Fort opposite, which
is built on a marsh, and where, during the cholera period, then under
my care, not a single case occurred.”
_Mr. Emerson_, one of the medical officers of the Eastry union, states,—
“There is, I believe, no locality which has been for some years so
exempt from fevers of a malignant and contagious character as the
eastern coast of Kent. Accordingly, idiopathic fever, under the form
of synochus and typhus, very rarely occurs, and when it does appear,
is generally of an isolated kind. Intermittents, also, which fifteen
or twenty years since were so generally prevalent in this district,
have become comparatively of rare occurrence, and indeed have almost
disappeared from the catalogue of our local endemics. This exemption
from ague and other febrile epidemics of an infectious nature may be
justly imputed to the total absence of malaria, and of all those
causes which usually generate an unwholesome and contaminating
atmosphere, viz., from the whole district being secured from
inundations by the most complete and effectual system of drainage and
sewerage. Also, from the exposed state of the country favouring a free
and rapid evaporation from the surface of the soil.”
_Mr. George Elgar_, another of the medical officers of the Eastry union,
observes that,—
“The parishes forming the fifth district of the Eastry union, are,
with one or two exceptions, close to marshes separating the Isle of
Thanet from this portion of East Kent, and consequently, during the
spring and autumn, the inhabitants are exposed to the malaria
therefrom; but for these last few years, owing to the excellent plan
of draining, very few diseases have occurred (in my opinion) that can
be said to be produced by malaria. There is very little ague, scarcely
any continued fevers; and a case of typhus, I believe, has not been
known along the borders of the marshes for these last three or four
years. Some years back, a great portion of the parishes adjoining
these marshes was under water from the end of autumn to the early part
of the following spring; then, agues and fevers of all characters
prevailed to a very great extent. Although the malaria does not
produce diseases of any _decided character_, yet, during a wet spring
or autumn, there are always cases of inflammation of the lungs or
bowels, and rheumatism, both in acute and chronic forms. The houses in
general are good, well drained and well ventilated, having one or two
sitting-rooms, as many bed-rooms, sometimes more, scullery, &c., and
convenient receptacles for refuse and fuel. The cottages generally are
_extremely cleanly_; of course there must be some exceptions, where
the occupiers would not be clean and careful under any circumstances.”
_Mr. Spurgin_, the medical officer of the Dunmow union, states—
“In this district great attention is paid to the cultivation of land,
under drainage being much attended to, on which account partly we are
not exposed to malaria, neither does ague prevail to any extent. A few
cases have occurred, and when they have it has been for the most part
in individuals whose systems have been impaired by irregular habits,
and consequently the more readily affected by external impressions, as
atmospheric vicissitudes.”
_Mr. D. R. M’Nab_, the medical officer of the Epping union, states that—
“The health of the inhabitants of these two parishes is on the whole
highly satisfactory, as will appear by this return, but I would
observe that the sanitary condition of two localities would be greatly
improved by a little attention on the part of the public surveyors and
others to the drains and ditches immediately abutting on the dwellings
of the poor inhabitants. I refer more especially to that part of
Epping which is denominated the Back-street, and the greater part of
which is in the parish of Coopersall. In very wet weather the drains
and ditches are flooded; in very dry, on the contrary, they are by the
evaporation of the fluids rendered very offensive, and thus almost all
our cases of malignant fever are situated amongst those dwellings; if
the neighbourhood had been crowded with inhabitants the mischief would
have been much greater; and even as it now is, it has been the cause
of much fatality among the able-bodied men and women. The same
observations are applicable to Duck-lane in the parish of Weald, and
also at the Gullett, but in the latter case it is principally owing to
the carelessness and filth of one or two families, who have thrown all
sorts of excrementitious substances around their dwellings, and in the
course of putrefaction it has occasionally become pestiferous.
“I may also venture to add the following observation, after twenty-six
years’ practice in this neighbourhood, that I have scarcely ever had a
case of typhus fever in a malignant form without discovering some
stagnant drain or overcharged cesspool, or some other manifest cause
of malaria in the immediate residence of the patient.”
In the reports given from the parish ministers in the statistical
accounts of Scotland, the effects of drainage upon the general health of
the population are strongly marked in almost every county, expressed in
notes made from an examination of the returns. Sutherland—parish of
_Rogart_, “healthy, and a good deal of draining.” _Farr_, “subject to no
particular disease; a deal of draining.” Ross and Cromarty—_Alness_, dry
and healthy, “climate improved by drainage.” It is to be understood that
drainage appears to form the essential part of agricultural improvement,
which is connected with the improvement of health. Thus the notes from
another parish in the same county, _Kilmuir_, _Wester_ and _Suddy_,
states it as “healthy; great improvement; scarcely an acre in its
original state.” _Rosemarkie_, “healthy; agriculture much improved.”
Elgin—_New Spynie_, “healthy, much waste reclaimed, much draining.”
_Alves_, “dry and healthy, well cultivated, wood sometimes used for
drains.” Banff—_Deckford_, “healthy, and people long lived, much
draining.” Kincardine—_Fordoun_, “so much draining that now no swamps:
formerly, agues common, now quite unknown.” Angus—_Carmylie_, “health
improved from draining.” Kinross—_Kinross_, “agues prevalent sixty years
ago in consequence of marshes, now never met with.” _Oswell_, “ague
prevailed formerly, but not since the land was drained.”
Perth—_Methven_, “the north much improved by draining.” _Redgorton_,
“healthy; no prevailing disease; ague was frequent formerly, but not
since the land has been drained and planted.” _Moneydie_, “healthy; an
immense improvement by draining.” _Abernyte_, “since the land was
drained, scrofula rare and ague unknown.” _Monzie_, “healthy; a good
deal of land reclaimed.” _Auchterarder_, “much draining, and waste land
reclaimed—climate good.” _Muckhart_, “great improvement in agriculture;
ague formerly prevalent—not so now.” _Muthill_, “healthy, much draining
and cultivation extended.” And similar statements are made from the
rural districts in all parts of the country.
In the course of inquiries as to what have been the effects of land
drainage upon health, one frequent piece of information received has
been that the rural population had not observed the effects on their own
health, but they had marked the effects of drainage on the health and
improvement of the stock. Thus the less frequent losses of stock from
epidemics are beginning to be perceived as accompanying the benefits of
drainage in addition to those of increased vegetable production.
_Dr. Edward Harrison_, in a paper in which he points out the connexion
between the rot in sheep and other animals, and some important disorders
in the human constitution, observes:—
“The connexion between humidity and the rot is universally admitted by
experienced graziers; and it is a matter of observation, that since
the brooks and rivulets in the county of Lincoln have been better
managed, and the system of laying ground dry, by open ditches and
under-draining, has been more judiciously practised, the rot is become
far less prevalent. Sir John Pringle informs us, that persons have
maintained themselves in good health, during sickly seasons, by
inhabiting the upper stories of their houses; and I have reason to
believe that, merely by confining sheep on high grounds through the
night, they have escaped the rot.”
_Dr. Harrison_ makes some observations on the effects of imperfect
drainage in aggravating the evils intended to be remedied, of which
frequent instances are presented in the course of this inquiry:—
“A grazier of my acquaintance has, for many years, occupied a large
portion of an unenclosed fen, in which was a shallow piece of water
that covered about an acre and a half of land. To recover it for
pasturage, he cut in it several open ditches to let off the water, and
obtained an imperfect drainage. His sheep immediately afterwards
became liable to the rot, and in most years he lost some of them. In
1792 the drains failed so entirely, from the wetness of the season,
that he got another pond of living water, and sustained, in that
season, no loss of his flock. For a few succeeding years, he was
generally visited with the rot; but having satisfied himself by
experience, that whenever the pit was, from the weather, either
completely dry or completely under water, his flock was free from the
disorder, he attempted a more perfect drainage, and succeeded in
making the land dry at all times. Since that period he has lost no
sheep from the rot, though, till within the last two years, he
continued to occupy the fen. * * *
“Mr. Harrison, of Fisherton, near Lincoln, has by judicious management
laid the greatest part of his farm completely dry, and is now little
troubled with the rot, unless when he wishes to give it to some
particular animals. His neighbours, who have been less provident, are
still severe sufferers by it, nor are their misfortunes confined to
sheep alone. Pigs, cows, asses, horses, poultry, hares, and rabbits,
become rotten in this lordship, and have flukes in their
livers. * * * *
“The late Mr. Bakewell was of opinion, that after May-Day, he could
communicate the rot at pleasure, by flooding, and afterwards stocking
his closes, while they were drenched and saturated with moisture. In
summer, rivers and brooks are often suddenly swollen by
thunder-storms, so as to pass over their banks, and cover the adjacent
low lands. In this state, no injury is sustained during the
inundation; but when the water returns to its former channel, copious
exhalations are produced from the swamps and low lands, which are
exceedingly dangerous to the human constitution, and to several other
animals, as well as sheep. * *
“A medical gentleman of great experience at Boston, in Lincolnshire,
and who is considerably advanced in life, has frequently observed to
me, that intermittents are so much diminished in his circuit, that an
ounce of the cinchona goes further at this time in the treatment of
agues than a pound of it did within his own recollection. During his
father’s practice at Boston, they were still more obstinate and
severe. For my own part, I have declared, for several years, in
various companies, that marsh miasmata are the cause of both agues and
the rot. And as miasmata are admitted, by the concurring testimonies
of medical practitioners in every part of the globe, to be produced by
the action of the sun upon low, swampy grounds, I hope this
interesting subject will be fully investigated, and effectual plans
carried into execution, for the preservation of man, and of the
animals which are so useful to him.”
I may here mention a circumstance which occurred at the Poor Law
Commission Office, and which with succeeding information tended to
direct our attention to the subject of sanitary measures of prevention
for the protection of the rates. A medical officer of one of the Unions
who came to town for the transaction of some business before the Board,
begged to be favoured by the immediate despatch of his business,
inasmuch as, from a change of weather which had taken place since his
departure, he was certain that he should have a number of cases waiting
for him. On being asked to explain the circumstances from which he
inferred the occurrence of disease with so much certainty, he stated
that within his district there was a reservoir to feed a canal: that
they had let out the water as they were accustomed to do in spring time
for the purpose of cleansing it; and that whenever such weather occurred
as then prevailed during the process, he was sure to have a great number
of fever cases amongst the labourers in the village which immediately
adjoined the reservoir. It appeared to be, in fact, a case in which the
rot was propagated amongst the labourers in the village under
circumstances similar to those before cited in which it was propagated
amongst the sheep.
The following portions of evidence afford instances of the condition in
which a larger proportion of the country remains, from the neglect of
general land drainage, than would be conceived from any _à priori_
estimate of the amount of prevalent intelligence and enterprize.
_Mr. R. W. Martyr_, one of the medical officers of the Langport union,
thus describes the condition of a large proportion of his district:—
“The parishes of Kingsbury and Long Sutton being the district No. 1 B
of the Langford union, the population of which amounts to above 3,000;
Kingsbury, containing 2,000; and Long Sutton 1,000, or thereabouts.
Both these parishes are partly surrounded by low meadow land, and are
liable to frequent inundations, often covering many thousand acres,
and sometimes to a great depth; the level of much of this land being
below the bed of the main river or drains, makes it very difficult
(when once inundated) in very wet seasons to drain or carry off the
immense body of water they often contain.
“These inundations are caused by the banks of the main rivers not
being sufficiently strong or elevated, and from the bridges not being
capacious enough to carry the immense body of water brought down from
the neighbouring hills and country higher up, which, in heavy rains,
sometimes takes place so rapidly as to completely overflow the banks
in twenty-four hours; but besides the casual or accidental giving way
of the banks of the rivers, it is sometimes done by interested persons
for the purpose of warding off the mischief from themselves by
throwing it on their neighbours.
“When these floods occur in the winter season, and there is but little
herbage, or early in the spring, and are followed by dry weather, the
surface of the ground becomes dry and healthy, and they are then
highly beneficial to the land, and but little prejudicial to the
health of the surrounding inhabitants; but when, as is sometimes the
case, these floods take place late in April, May and June, and cover
hundreds of acres of hay, some cut and some uncut, and which must of
course rot on the ground, the effluvia and stench is then often
unbearable, and highly prejudicial to the health of the neighbouring
villages, and it is sometimes years before the land recovers its
healthy state, producing nothing but rank herbage, and causing agues,
fevers, dysentery, and numerous other diseases. Many of these evils
may, I think, be remedied if the owners of large estates in this
neighbourhood would interest themselves in the matter: I am persuaded
the increased value of their property would amply repay the outlay
necessary for the purpose. When the land is in this unhealthy state,
it appears to be equally prejudicial to the animal as the human
subject, producing numerous diseases among cattle, particularly among
sheep, many farmers losing the whole of their flocks.
“Although much remains to be done to remedy the mischief complained
of, yet a considerable improvement has taken place within the last
twenty years by enclosing many of the large commons, and by that means
partially draining them; and also by enlarging the back drains which
carry the water to a lower level into the main river, by which means
it is carried off much sooner, and less mischief is done, than if it
remained longer on the surface of the land.
“It is stated in a very old history of Somerset, that about 300 years
ago, nearly the whole of the inhabitants of Kingsbury, Muchelney, and
Long Load, were carried off by a pestilence (without doubt meaning a
malignant fever); and that for many years afterwards it was considered
so unhealthy that it was inhabited solely by outlaws, and persons of
the worst character, a clear proof the country is in a much healthier
state now than it was in former times.
“In addition to the more general causes of disease arising from the
flat state of the country, and its liability to inundations, are many
others of a more local character, and much easier of removal, in the
village of Kingsbury; and in many others there are numerous pits or
ponds in the winter season filled with muddy water, and, in summer,
mud alone: these are often situated in the front or at the back of the
cottages, and are receptacles for all manner of filth, and in certain
seasons are productive of very serious diseases, and at all times
highly injurious to health. Besides the mud pits above mentioned,
there is scarcely a cottage that is not surrounded with all manner of
filth, oftentimes close to the doors of the inhabitants, very few of
the cottages being provided with privies, or if there be any, they
only add to the general nuisance from being open and without drains.”
_Mr. Oldham_, the medical officer of the Chesterfield union, gives the
following account of his district:—
“Wessington is situated upon an elevation, but the houses are arranged
around a green or unenclosed common, upon the surface of which are a
great number of small pools, which, for the most part, are stagnant.
In the winter season they overflow, and at this season the
neighbourhood appears less infected with fever. In the summer months,
and greater part of the spring and autumn, they are stagnant, and
undoubtedly a fruitful source of malaria; indeed the neighbourhood of
Wessington is scarcely ever free from fever at these seasons of the
year.
“It perhaps may not be amiss to mention, I have attended a number of
persons in the neighbourhood of this common who have been attacked
with fever, who were at the same time well fed, and lived in
comfortable and tolerably well-ventilated houses.”
He then adduces instances, and proceeds—
“From the facts before mentioned, I am led to conclude that the
decomposition constantly going on in these small pools is the source
of the malaria, and that the malaria so engendered propagates fever.
1st. Because there are cases of fever in this locality nearly all the
year. 2d. Because paupers, and persons who are better fed, and live in
more comfortable and better ventilated houses in the neighbourhood of
this green or common, are attacked with the disease, and, I may say,
almost indiscriminately. 3d. Because during the years I have attended
the paupers of the district, there has scarcely been a case of fever
in the winter season when the pools are overflowed, and the atmosphere
is colder, and consequently unfavourable to fermentation and
decomposition. In my opinion the only method to remedy this evil would
be to drain the common, which is small, and its situation being
elevated, would greatly facilitate its drainage. The condition of a
few of the smaller and more confined of the tenements might be greatly
improved.”
_Mr. L. Reynolds_, one of the medical officers of the Dore union, thus
describes in his report the district where some fever cases occurred:—
“Of those cases the six first have occurred on Colston Common, a small
marshy spot, never drained, and containing several pools extremely
unhealthy, from decaying vegetables that never are removed. This year
the same families have been again attacked, and shall be so every year
till that nuisance be removed. In a medical point of view, such
commons are injurious, and they are extremely expensive to the unions,
for they cause fever, asthma, and rheumatism, from their incipient
moisture, thus injuring the labouring classes, and heavily taxing the
parish.
“The four next have occurred at a place called Toad Ditch: it well
deserves the name; it is a collection of badly-built houses, rendered
unhealthy from the large ditch, into which every kind of refuse is
poured; the removal of that nuisance is imperatively called for. All
these houses have one privy in common, but the ditch is the place
generally used.
“This district would be much served by enclosing and draining Colston
Commons, by keeping the sewers at Kingston clean, and by draining the
ditch at Toad Ditch. These are the only removable nuisances of which I
have any knowledge.”
_Mr. Blick_, medical officer of the Bicester union, describes the
prevalence of typhus:—
“This disease has been very prevalent in this district during the past
year, indeed we are never free from it. I think its origin may be
traced, in most instances, to a constant exposure to an atmosphere
loaded with malaria, and propagated, in the second place, by
contagion, so little attention being paid to prevent its diffusion.
“The malaria alluded to arises from the decomposition of vegetable
matter left upon Otmoor (a marsh of about 4000 acres), by the previous
winter’s flood, and acted upon by the sun, &c., during the summer.”
_Mr. J. Holt_, the medical officer of the Leighton Buzzard union,
reports:—
“I have had only 34 cases of remittent and intermittent fevers during
the last year, which is a small number in comparison to the amount
usually occurring in hot summers. The great prevalence of these fevers
at such times is attributable principally to the number of stagnant
ponds and ditches which are situated in the very midst of many of the
towns and villages of this union, and which, in hot weather, become
quite putrid and offensive from the quantity of decaying animal and
vegetable matter. I have generally observed that the greater number of
these fevers occur in houses situated in the immediate vicinity of
these ponds, and have no doubt is the chief cause of nearly all the
fevers of this description. The villages to which I more particularly
refer are Egginton, Eddlesbon, Cheddington, &c.”
The sanitary effects of road cleansing, to which house drainage and road
drainage is auxiliary, it appears is not confined to the streets in
towns and the roads in villages, but extends over the roads at a
distance from habitations on which there is traffic. Dr. Harrison, whose
testimony has been cited on the subject of the analogy of the diseases
of animals to those which affect the human constitution, in treating of
the prevention of fever or the rot amongst sheep, warns the shepherd
that, if after providing drained pasture and avoiding “rotting-places”
in the fields, all his care may be frustrated if he do not avoid, with
equal care, leading the sheep over wet and miry roads with stagnant
ditches, which are as pernicious as the places in the fields designated
as “rotting-places.” He is solicitous to impress the fact that the rot,
_i. e._ the typhus fever, has been contracted in ten minutes, that sheep
can at “any time be tainted in a quarter of an hour, while the land
retains its moisture and the weather is hot and sultry.” He gives the
following instance, amongst others, of the danger of traversing badly
drained roads. “A gentleman removed 90 sheep from a considerable
distance to his own residence. On coming near to a bridge, which is
thrown over the Barling’s river, one of the drove fell into a ditch and
fractured its leg. The shepherd immediately took it in his arms to a
neighbouring house, and set the limb. During this time, which did not
occupy more than one hour, the remainder were left to graze in the
ditches and lane. The flock were then driven home, and a month
afterwards the other sheep joined its companions. The shepherd soon
discovered that all had contracted the rot, except the lame sheep; and
as they were never separated on any other occasion, it is reasonable to
conclude that the disorder was acquired by feeding in the road and ditch
bottoms.” The precautions applicable to the sheep and cattle will be
deemed equally applicable to the labouring population who traverse such
roads.
Such instances as the following, on the prejudicial effects of undrained
and neglected roads, might be multiplied. _Mr. E. P. Turner_, the
medical officer of Foleshill union, in accounting for some cases of
fever, states:—
“These cases of typhus all occurred in the same neighbourhood, where
the road is bad and a dirty ditch of stagnant water on each side of
it; the road is generally overflowed in the winter. The disease broke
out in the month of October; other cases occurred in the same
neighbourhood at the time.”
The nature of the more common impediments which stand in the way of the
removal of the causes of disease and obstacles to production described
in the preceding, are noticed in the instances following. Others will be
adduced when the subject of the legislative means of prevention are
stated.
_Dr. Traves_, on the sanitary condition of the poor in the Malton union,
states,—
“The whole of the low district above alluded to, and extending into
the Pickering union, (known by the name of the Marishes, or Marshes,)
has at different times within the last few years been the seat of
typhus and other fevers.
“Attempts were made by some of the landed proprietors a few years ago
to effect a system of drainage and embankments likely to prevent the
inundations of these rivers in wet seasons, but the attempt was
abandoned in consequence of the reluctance of certain townships to
bear their portion of the necessary outlay, and any partial system of
embankment is positively injurious, inasmuch as the water that is let
in upon the land at a higher point of the river is prevented returning
into the stream again by an embankment at a lower point, so that this
water, containing vegetable matters in a state of decomposition, must
remain stagnant until evaporated by the sun’s rays, or dissipated by
the wind; cases of fever occurring under these circumstances have
repeatedly come under my observation, as well as that of other medical
men familiar with the district, and this fruitful source of disease
(in seasons like 1839 more especially) will probably now remain in
full force until an Act of the legislature shall effect a change.”
_Mr. Thomas Marjoribanks_, the minister of Lochmaben,—
“No means of any consequence, so far as I am aware, have yet been
tried to remedy the evil, the removal of such substances as generate
malaria. There are no scavengers appointed for the removal of
nuisances. One great mean of preventing the generation of malaria (in
my opinion) would be the lowering of the bed of the river Annan, which
would to a great extent free the surrounding lands of stagnant water,
give greater facilities for draining, improve the system of farming,
lessen the risk of damage, and increase the quantity as well as
improve the quality of the food which the low lands produce, and in
every way conduce to the comfort and cleanliness of the inhabitants.
It is computed that in consequence of the flooding of the Annan,
damage during the last four years has been done to the amount of
6,000_l._, and this along only about three miles of its course. The
property is very much subdivided, and, in consequence, poverty and
want has increased to a great extent among the small proprietors.”
In closing this exposition of the state of the chief external evils that
affect the sanitary condition of the labouring population, it may be
observed that the experience, on which the conclusions rest as to the
principles of prevention is neither recent nor confined to this country.
That which is new, is the advantages we possess beyond other times, and
perhaps beyond all other countries, in capital and practical science for
its application. The experience of the advantage of public sewers to the
health of a town population is nearly as old as Rome itself. I may refer
with M. Du Châtelet to the experience of that city, to illustrate the
consequences of neglects, such as are manifest amidst large masses of
the community throughout the country, and are partially displayed in the
mortuary registers first cited. He gives the details from the treatise
_De Adventitiis Romani Cœli Qualitatibus_, by the celebrated Italian
physician Lancisi, who deeply studied the sanitary condition of Rome,
and wrote several admirable works on the subject, which had the happy
effect of inducing the pope to cleanse and drain the city:—
“The barbarians of every tribe having several times pillaged and
sacked the city of Rome, the aqueducts were destroyed, and the water,
spreading into the surrounding plains, formed marshes, which
contributed greatly to render uninhabitable the surrounding country.
“The aqueducts existing no longer, the sewers and privies were alike
neglected, and produced serious and frequent sicknesses, which were
more effectual in destroying the population than the arms of the
barbarians. All the historians of these remote times, and particularly
St. Gregory, in his Homilies, and the deacon John, in the Life of that
saint, give a frightful picture of the city of Rome. The air became so
vitiated that plagues and fevers of a malignant character continually
carried on their ravages to such a point that Peter Damien, writing in
the eleventh century to Pope Nicholas II., to intreat him to accept
his resignation, alleged as the pretext the danger he ran every
instant of losing his life by remaining in the town.
“It was principally during the abode of the popes at Avignon that all
which regards health was neglected at Rome, and some historians have
not hesitated to attribute to this negligence the depopulation of the
town, which was reduced in a little time to 30,000 inhabitants.
“Things remained in this state to the end of the fourteenth century,
an epoch at which the popes, resuming the ancient labours, restored
things to their proper condition; a new title to glory of Leo X., who
of all the popes was the one who occupied himself with this important
object in the most especial manner.
“It is, in part, to these precautions that we are to attribute the
rapid increase of the population of Rome, which, from 30,000 souls,
reached in a short time to 80,000; and it is a thing worthy of our
attention that after the death of this pontiff the population quickly
fell to the number of 32,000, because, according to the contemporary
authors, everything having been neglected, the first calamities were
renewed.
“Happily for Rome this state of things did not continue long, because
all successive popes, instructed, it appears, by the experience of
ancient times, having carried on immense labours, and constructed
fresh sewers, have given to the air of this city the necessary
purity.”
Italy presents instances, though comparatively modern, of the removal of
disease by land drainage:—
“At Vareggio,” observes M. Villermé, “in the principality of Lucca,
the inhabitants, few in number, barbarous, and miserable, were
annually, from time immemorial, attacked about the same period with
agues; but in 1741 flood-gates were constructed, which permitted the
escape into the sea of the waters from the marshes, preventing at the
same time the ingress of the ocean to these marshes both from tides
and storms. This contrivance, which permanently suppressed the marsh,
also expelled the fevers. In short, the canton of Vareggio is at the
present day one of the healthiest, most industrious, and richest on
the coast of Tuscany; and a part of those families whose boorish
ancestors sunk under the epidemics of the _aria cativa_, without
knowledge to protect themselves, enjoy a health, a vigour, a
longevity, and a moral character unknown to their ancestors.”
The histories of other cities, and particularly of Paris, afford
illustrations of the effects of the neglect of public cleansing, which
begin in the ignorance and carelessness of the superior officers, and
continue in the predominance of ignorance and obscure interests of a
multitude in the present day:—
“For several years the suppression of an enormous cesspool at Paris
near the Barrière des Fourneaux was implored by the inhabitants.
Placed under the predominant winds, it was a permanent cause of
annoyance to the quarters of St. Germain and St. Jacques. But all
petitions were in vain. A singular occurrence brought about the event
for which the people had prayed more than 50 years. In a hunting
party, the Prince of Conde was carried by a fiery horse towards this
same cesspool; finding it impossible to turn the animal, the prince
had the presence of mind to throw himself on the ground, but the horse
darted forward into the cesspool and disappeared. The next day an
order was issued from Versailles, enjoining M. Lenoir, the lieutenant
of police, to fill up the cesspool, which was accordingly done.”
A particular evil had attracted the attention of an able minister, who
had recourse to the expedient which we have seen recently re-discovered
and introduced into practice into one section of the sewerage of
London:—
“The great sewer of Montmartre being uncovered, and the fall
exceedingly small, it was easily choked, and spread infection through
all the neighbourhood. Turgot thought that the best method to obtain a
ready flow for the muddy waters it received was to wash it by frequent
currents. A vast reservoir, capable of containing about 22,000
measures of water, was in consequence established at the opening of
the sewer, opposite the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The waters of
Belleville were conducted there, together with those of two wells dug
in the vicinity. This volume of water was, on certain days, let into
the main sewer by means of flood-gates, which could be opened at
pleasure. The scouring of the sewer by a current of living water
attracted the public attention, and produced the most happy results.
Shortly the people could dwell on the confines of this ancient ditch
without fear of dangerous exhalations. The quarters of the Faubourg
Montmartre, of the Chaussée-d’Antin, of the Ville-l’Evêque, and of the
Faubourg St. Honoré, became populated. At length the land was so
valuable in these different quarters that the possessors of the banks
of the sewer demanded and obtained the permission to cover it over at
their own expense.”
The mode of cleansing had, however, been before proposed by another
minister:—
“In the conferences which were held in 1666 and 1667 at the house of
the Chancellor Seguier respecting the grand police of the kingdom, a
thorough examination was made of the sewers of Paris, which began to
multiply. The minutes of these sittings still exist. We see there the
opinions given on the subject by each of the members of the
commission, and particularly by Colbert, who in the sitting of the
13th of January, proposed, as the best method of cleansing the sewers,
to establish several fountains in the quarters where they were
necessary, and at the side of each of them a reservoir of 15 measures,
which should be let out all at once. Nothing, assuredly, could be
better than this proposition. But one thing was wanting to the
minister—the water could not be procured.”
But the water, though abundant in the vicinity of Paris, is still
wanted, and the cause of the want is thus noticed by M. Du Châtelet:—
“Paris possesses an immense mass of water, which can be distributed
into every quarter and every house. Does the demand multiply with the
pipes? Assuredly not, and one might well be surprised to see the
negligence and apathy of proprietors in this respect. Some persons
adduce the fact to prove that seven litres[12] of water are sufficient
for the inhabitants of Paris, whilst sixty are necessary for London,
and still more for Edinburgh. But if we look closer to the conduct of
the proprietors, we shall find that it proceeds from calculations well
understood. It is the certainty that they will have sooner to empty
the cesspools which scares them. This operation, and the expense it
often brings with it, influences the venal propensities of the
proprietors. Is it likely that they will pay for water of which the
inevitable result will be to multiply the number of operations they
dread the most, and which increase the expense in an enormous
proportion? Thus the actual state of our cesspools, and the mode of
emptying them now in use, are, in our opinion, the principal causes
which prevent individuals from taking the water, and which retard the
period in which the city will receive the interest of the enormous
sums that it has devoted, and still devotes daily, to the supply of
water.”
It is to be hoped, however, that the legislature will give the powers
and direct the means requisite in this country, to furnish to every city
in Europe a practical demonstration that by the art of the engineer, the
obstacle to improvement, formed by the great expense and annoyance of
removing the refuse of houses and streets may be rendered
inconsiderable. In Paris the interests of turbulent bodies of men, the
water-carriers, and another class of men called the chiffonniers, who
live by raking for what they can find amongst the refuse cast into the
streets, are opposed to any change which will reduce the charge of
imperfect cleansing, and the disease promoted by filth. The general
practice in that metropolis is to cast all the rubbish of the house into
the street on the overnight, or before seven o’clock in the morning,
when men attend with carts to sweep it up and remove it. In the
nighttime, however, the chiffonnier comes with a lantern and rakes
amongst the refuse, and picks from it bones, rags, or whatever may have
been thrown away by accident, or the carelessness of the servants. The
offensive filth of their persons and their occupation, makes them
outcasts from other classes of workmen; they sleep amidst their
collections of refuse, and they are idle during the day; they are like
all men who live under such circumstances, prone to indulgence in ardent
spirits; being degraded and savage, they are ready to throw away their
wretched lives on every occasion. There are nearly 2000 of the
chiffonniers alone in Paris, and they and the water-carriers were
conspicuous actors in the revolution of 1830. During the administration
of Casimir Perrier the householders had complained of the inconvenient
mode of cleansing the streets by large heavy carts drawn by three
horses, which, during their slow progress throughout the day, obstruct
the public thoroughfares and occasion great inconveniences, especially
in the narrow streets.
In the beginning of the year 1834, when the cholera broke out, the
attention of the authorities was directed to sanitary measures, and the
municipality decided that the cleansing of the streets should be done by
contract, by a quick relay of carts of a smaller and more convenient
shape, drawn by single horses; and in order to diminish the
inconvenience of the presence of these improved vehicles, the contractor
was allowed to collect one load for each of his carts on the overnight,
which would have led to a practice similar to that of London, where the
dust-carts take the refuse direct from the house without any deposit in
the streets. But in this arrangement an important interest had been
overlooked; the chiffonniers, who were said to have been aided and
directed by the owners and men belonging to the superseded vehicles,
rose in revolt, attacked and drove away the conductors, broke to pieces
the new carts, threw the fragments into the river, or made bonfires with
them. Unfortunately at that time the cholera had broken out at Paris.
The mobs of chiffonniers which collected on the following day were
swollen by other crowds of ignorant, terrified, and savage people, who
were persuaded that the deaths from the strange plague were occasioned
by poison. “My agents,” says the then prefet of police, in an account of
this revolt, “could not be at all points at once, to oppose the fury of
those crowds of men with naked arms and haggard figures, and sinister
looks, who are never seen in ordinary times, and who seemed on this day
to have arisen out of the earth. Wishing to judge myself of the
foundation for the alarming reports that were brought to me, I went out
alone and on foot. I had great difficulty in getting through these dense
masses, scarcely covered with filthy rags; no description could convey
their hideous aspect, or the sensation of terror which the hoarse and
ferocious cries created. Although I am not easily moved, I at one time
feared for the safety of Paris—of honest people and their property.” In
fact the riot was one of the most dangerous that had been witnessed in
that city, and it was not suppressed without great exertions and some
loss of life. The anxieties which it occasioned to the minister, Casimir
Perrier, and his disgust at the political use made of it, were
considered to have contributed to his death. He was himself attacked
with the cholera, and died a few days after. Shortly before his death,
when expressing his disgust, he said to the prefet, “My friend, we are
harnessed to a vile carriage.” “Truly so,” replied the prefet, “and the
ways are dreadfully dirty.” The material ways of the city continued as
they were, the prefet seeing that the introduction of the new carts
became “a motive to discontent and collision,” took upon himself to set
aside the contract with the contractor, who, he states, received no
other compensation for his losses than a permission which he could not
use to collect the refuse during the day, and the chiffonniers continue
to the present time in the exercise of their wretched vocation at the
expense of the public health and cleanliness.
The course of the present inquiry shows how strongly circumstances that
are governable govern the habits of the population, and in some
instances appear almost to breed the species of the population.
Conceiving it probable that the amount of filth left by defective
cleansing had its corresponding description of persons, I made inquiries
of the Commissioners of Metropolitan Police. From returns which they
obtained from their superintendents, it appears that of the class of
bone-pickers, mud-rakers, people living on the produce of dungheaps in
mews, courts, yards, and bye lanes insufficient cleansed, 598 are known
to the police. From an observation of the proportion of filthy children
and adults who appear amidst refuse whenever there are new buildings and
an unusual quantity of rubbish, and from other circumstances, I believe
that, were the refuse of houses daily cast into the streets in London in
the same manner as at Paris, London would soon have as large and as
dangerous a population of the chiffonnier class. I am informed by Sir
Charles Shaw, the chief commissioner of police at Manchester, that there
are 302 of them known within the police jurisdiction of that town also.
He complains that they have heretofore been licensed in their
occupation; that, the children are pilferers, and occupy the attention
of the police, and furnish a large quota to the stock of juvenile
delinquents and the population of the prisons. I am informed that in
Bath there are about 100 of them known; and in other towns and places I
have little doubt that they would be found in like proportions, which
approach the proportions of the stated numbers of chiffonniers to the
population of Paris. These degraded creatures are also found amongst the
inmates of the workhouses, and the close identity of their habits with
those of the chiffonniers of Paris afford a striking proof of the
similarity of the population produced by similarity of circumstances.
They are thus described to me by an eye-witness:—
“The bone-pickers are the dirtiest of all the inmates of our
workhouse; I have seen them take a bone from a dungheap, and gnaw it
while reeking hot with the fermentation of decay. Bones, from which
the meat had been cut raw, and which had still thin strips of flesh
adhering to them, they scraped carefully with their knives, and put
the bits, no matter how befouled with dirt, into a wallet or pocket
appropriated to the purpose. They have told me, that whether in broth
or grilled, they were the most savoury dish that could be imagined. I
have not observed that these creatures were savage, but they were
thoroughly debased. Often hardly human in appearance, they had neither
human tastes nor sympathies, nor even human sensations, for they
revelled in the filth which is grateful to dogs, and other lower
animals, and which to our apprehension is redolent only of nausea and
abomination.”
The following report from one of the superintendents to the
Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police describes the manner in which
they appear to the police, their moral character, and the efficacy of
the means of prevention:—
“With reference to the question of the Commissioners as to the means
of subsistence of that portion of the population which at present
exists by picking bones in the bye-lanes, &c., in the event of those
places being properly cleansed, I am of opinion that they would be
compelled to adopt some more laborious and useful means of obtaining a
livelihood, such as field labour, &c. They are at present an idle,
dissolute class, prowling about the stables, yards, backs of premises,
and lanes, willing to commit petty felony wherever opportunity
presents itself. While it would remove them, on the other hand, the
instant removal of filth from the metropolis must prove beneficial to
the health of the inhabitants.”
It will then be found to be an ultimately beneficial effect of the
removal of the circumstances by the adoption of such modes of cleansing
as diminish the prevalent amount of filth or filthy processes, that it
will force a change to other occupations of a less degrading character,
and diminish the number of persons “brought up” to them. Any provision
of the nature of a poor law may be said to be badly constructed which
does not allow the exercise of a discretionary authority to alleviate
any severe inconveniences to the poorest classes from such changes. For
the sake of preventing the growth of the like misery, it would probably
be found a good civic economy to maintain the whole of the existing
class in idleness, if idleness were not in itself a curse to them. I
mention this, because the parish officers frequently oppose improved
modes of paving and efficient cleansing, (as they generally opposed the
new police on the ground that it diminished the means of subsistence of
decrepit old men as watchmen,) for the avowed reason that it is
expedient to keep the streets in their present state of filth in order
to keep up the means of employing indigent persons as street-sweepers
and sweepers of crossings in removing it.
It is found in the metropolis to be a beneficial result of the increase
of the practice of removing night-soil by the self-acting process of
water-closets communicating with the sewers, that it prevents the
increase of the number of nightmen formerly requisite for the
performance of that offensive and dangerous labour, and is in the
metropolis diminishing the number.
Yet it should be borne in mind, that until more complete measures are
adopted, even the services of such agents are an improvement, and in
crowded cities are only neglected at the expense of the degradation of
the whole mass of the labouring population. An example is to be found in
the state of some districts mentioned by _Dr. Speer_, who in his account
of the diseases of the lower orders in Dublin, given in the Dublin
Hospital Reports, noticed the fact that the fever cases always came from
the filthy districts; and he observes,
“We cannot wonder at the rapidity with which contagion often spreads.
Both in and out of doors, it seems facilitated in every way; within
doors every article of furniture and wearing apparel is disfigured
with filth; every spot seems encrusted with its layers, and the
foulest odours abound everywhere. Out of doors, at least in warm
seasons, our churchyards, slaughter-houses, and the masses of filth
and offal with which our streets and lanes are disgraced, contribute
no less to the propagation of contagion. In the larger and better
streets, the cleansing is very well attended to, but in the narrow and
crowded ones, where the necessity of its removal is infinitely
greater, the heaps of filth are truly disgraceful. In some of my
visits I have been obliged to wade through masses of filth enough to
sicken the stoutest and strongest—masses which have remained
undisturbed for months, perhaps for years, and thus generating the
most putrid effluvia. We know that vegetables are very dear in our
markets. Why? Because our gardens are not sufficiently manured; this
manure lies in our lanes and alleys, and only wants collecting; but
what would this be compared with the benefits from the purification of
our atmosphere which its removal would produce?”
The condition of large rural districts in the immediate vicinity of the
towns, and of the poorest districts of the towns themselves, presents a
singular contrast in the nature of the agencies by which the health of
the inhabitants is impaired. Within the towns we find the houses and
streets filthy, the air fœtid, disease, typhus, and other epidemics rife
amongst the population, bringing, in the train, destitution and the need
of pecuniary as well as medical relief; all mainly arising from the
presence of the richest materials of production, the complete absence of
which would, in a great measure, restore health, avert the recurrence of
disease, and, if properly applied, would promote abundance, cheapen
food, and increase the demand for beneficial labour. Outside the
afflicted districts, and at a short distance from them, as in the
adjacent rural districts, we find the aspect of the country poor and
thinly clad with vegetation, except rushes and plants favoured by a
superabundance of moisture, the crops meagre, the labouring agricultural
population few, and afflicted with rheumatism and other maladies,
arising from damp and an excess of water, which, if removed, would
relieve them from a cause of disease, the land from an impediment to
production, and if conveyed for the use of the town population, would
give that population the element of which they stand in peculiar need,
as a means to relieve them from that which is their own cause of
depression, and return it for use on the land as a means of the highest
fertility. The fact of the existence of these evils, and that they are
removable is not more certain than that their removal would be attended
by reductions of existing burdens, and might be rendered productive of
general advantage, if due means, guided by science, and applied by
properly qualified officers, be resorted to. The impediments arising
from the existing state of the law and of its local administration, form
a subject for separate representation.
Before stating the cost in life and money attributable to the noxious
causes external to the dwelling, it is desirable to notice other noxious
causes, within the recognised province of legislative interference, that
appear to be similarly under control, namely, the overcrowding of places
where large numbers are assembled together, such as the overcrowding of
places of work.
III.—CIRCUMSTANCES CHIEFLY IN THE INTERNAL ECONOMY AND BAD VENTILATION
OF PLACES OF WORK; WORKMEN’S LODGING-HOUSES, DWELLINGS, AND THE DOMESTIC
HABITS AFFECTING THE HEALTH OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.
The evils arising from the bad ventilation of places of work will
probably be most distinctly brought to view, by the consideration of the
evidence as to its effects on one particular class of workpeople.
The frequency of cases of early deaths, and orphanage, and widowhood
amongst one class of labourers, the journeymen tailors, led me to make
some inquiries as to the causes affecting them; and I submit the
following evidence for peculiar consideration, as an illustration of the
operation of one predominant cause;—bad ventilation or overcrowding, and
the consequences on the moral habits, the loss of healthful existence
and happiness to the labourer, the loss of profit to the employer, and
of produce to the community, and the loss in expenditure for the relief
of the destitution, which original cause (the bad ventilation) we have
high scientific authority for stating to be easily and economically
controllable.
_Mr. Thomas Brownlow_, tailor, aged 52:—
“It is stated that you have been a journeyman tailor, and now work for
yourself. At what description of places have you worked?—I have always
worked at the largest places in London; one part of my time I worked
at Messrs Allen’s, of Old Bond-street, where I worked eight years; at
another part of my time I worked at Messrs. Stultze’s, in
Clifford-street, where I worked four years. At Messrs. Allen’s they
had then from 80 to 100 men at work; at Messrs. Stultze’s they had,
when I worked there, about 250 men.
“Will you describe the places of work, and the effects manifested in
the health of the workmen?—The place in which we used to work at
Messrs. Allen’s was a room where 80 men worked together. It was a room
about 16 or 18 yards long, and 7 or 8 yards wide, lighted with
skylights; the men were close together, nearly knee to knee. In summer
time the heat of the men and the heat of the irons made the room 20 or
30 degrees higher than the heat outside; the heat was then most
suffocating, especially after the candles were lighted. I have known
young men, tailors from the country, faint away in the shop from the
excessive heat and closeness; persons, working-men, coming into the
shop to see some of the men, used to complain of the heat, and also of
the smell as intolerable; the smell occasioned by the heat of the
irons and the various breaths of the men really was at times
intolerable. The men sat as loosely as they possibly could, and the
perspiration ran from them from the heat and the closeness. It is of
frequent occurrence in such workshops that light suits of clothes are
spoiled from the perspiration of the hand, and the dust and flue which
arises darkening the work. I have seen 40_l._ or 50_l._ worth of work
spoiled in the course of the summer season from this cause.
“In what condition are these work-places in winter?—They are more
unhealthy in winter, as the heat from the candles and the closeness is
much greater. Any cold currents of air which come in give annoyance to
those who are sitting near the draught. There is continued squabbling
as to the windows being opened; those who are near the windows, and
who do not feel the heat so much as the men near the stoves, objecting
to their being opened. The oldest, who had been inured to the heat,
did not like the cold, and generally prevailed in keeping out the cold
or the fresh air. Such has been the state of the atmosphere, that in
the very coldest nights large thick tallow candles (quarter of a pound
candles) have melted and fallen over from the heat.
“What was the effect of this state of the work-places upon the habits
of the workmen?—It had a very depressing effect on the energies; that
was the general complaint of those who came into it. Many could not
stay out the hours, and went away earlier. Those who were not
accustomed to the places generally lost appetite. The natural effect
of the depression was, that we had recourse to drink as a stimulant.
We went into the shop at six o’clock in the morning; but at seven
o’clock when orders for the breakfast were called for, gin was brought
in, and the common allowance was half-a-quartern. The younger hands
did not begin with gin.
“Was gin the first thing taken before any solid food was taken?—Yes,
and the breakfast was very light; those who took gin generally took
only half-a-pint of tea and half a twopenny loaf as breakfast.
“When again was liquor brought in?—At eleven o’clock.
“What was taken then?—Some took beer, some took gin again. In a
general way, they took a pint of porter at eleven o’clock. It was
seldom the men took more than the half-quartern of gin.
“When again was liquor brought in?—At three o’clock, when some took
beer and some gin, just the same as in the morning. At five o’clock
the beer and gin came in again, and was usually taken in the same
quantities. At seven o’clock the shop was closed.
“After work was there any drinking?—Yes; nearly all the young men went
to the public-house, and some of the others.
“What were the wages they received?—Sixpence per hour, which, at the
full work, made 6s. a-day, or 36s. a-week.
“Did they make any reserves from this amount of wages?—No; very few
had anything for themselves at the end of the week.
“How much of the habit of drinking was produced by the state of the
work-place?—I should say the greater part of it; because when men work
by themselves, or only two or three together, in cooler and less close
places, there is scarcely any drinking between times. Nearly all this
drinking proceeds from the large shops, where the men are crowded
together in close rooms: it is the same in the shops in the country,
as well as those in the town. In a rural place, the tailor, where he
works by himself, or with only two or three together, takes very
little of the fermented liquor or spirits which the men feel
themselves under a sort of necessity for doing in towns. The closer
the ventilation of the place of work, the worse are the habits of the
men working in them.
“You referred to the practice of one large shop where you worked some
time since; was that the general practice, and has there been no
alteration?—It was and is now the general practice. Of late, since
coffee has become cheaper, somewhat more of coffee and less of beer
has been bought in; but there is as much gin now brought in between
times, and sometimes more.
“What would be the effect of an alteration of the place of work—a
ventilation which would give them a better atmosphere?—It would,
without doubt, have an immediately beneficial effect on the habits. It
might not cure those who have got into the habit of drinking; but the
men would certainly drink less, and the younger ones would not be led
into the habit so forcibly as they are.
“What is the general effect of this state of things upon the health of
the men exposed to them?—Great numbers of them die of consumption. “A
decline” is the general disease of which they die. By their own rules,
a man at 50 years of age is superannuated, and is thought not to be
fit to do a full day’s work.
“What was the average of the ages of the men at work at such shops as
those you have worked at?—Thirty-two, or thereabouts.
“In such shops were there many superannuated men, or men above 50
years of age?—Very few. Amongst the tailors employed in the shops, I
should say there were not 10 men in the hundred above 50 years of age.
“When they die, what becomes of their widows and children, as they
seldom make any reserve of wages?—No provision is made for the
families; nothing is heard of them, and, if they cannot provide for
themselves, they must go upon the parish.
“Are these habits created by the closeness of the rooms, attended by
carelessness as to their mode of living elsewhere?—I think not as to
their lodgings. The English and Scotch tailors are more careful as to
their places of lodging, and prefer sleeping in an open place. The
men, however, who take their pint of porter and their pipe of tobacco
in a public-house after their hours of work, take it at a place which
is sometimes as crowded as a shop. Here the single men will stay until
bedtime.
“Are gin and beer the only stimulants which you conceive are taken in
consequence of the want of ventilation and the state of the place of
work when crowded?—No: snuff is very much taken as a stimulant; the
men think snuff has a beneficial effect on the eyes. After going into
these close shops from the open air, the first sensation experienced
is frequently a sensation of drowsiness, then a sort of itching or
uneasiness at the eye, then a dimness of the sight. Some men of the
strongest sight will complain of this dimness; all eyes are affected
much in a similar manner. Snuff is much used as a stimulant to awaken
them up; smoking in the shops is not approved of, though it is much
attempted; and the journeymen tailors of the large shops are in
general great smokers at the public-houses.
“Do the tailors from villages take snuff or smoke as well as drink so
much as the tailors in the large shops in the towns?—They neither take
so much snuff nor tobacco, nor so much of any of the stimulants, as
are taken by the workmen in the crowded shops of the towns.
“Do their eyes fail them as soon?—No, certainly not.
“With the tailors, is it the eye that fails first?—Yes; after long
hours of work the first thing complained of by the tailors is that the
eyes fail; the sight becomes dim, and a sort of mist comes between
them and their work.
“Judging from your own practical experience, how long do you conceive
that a man would work in a well-ventilated or uncrowded room, as
compared with a close, crowded, ill-ventilated room?—I think it would
make a difference of two hours in the day to a man. He would, for
example, be able, in an uncrowded or well-ventilated room, to do his
twelve hours’ work in the twelve hours; whereas in the close-crowded
room he would not do more than ten hours’ work in the twelve.
“Of two men beginning at 20 years of age, what would be the difference
in extent of labour performed by them in town shops or in the
country?—A man who had begun at 20 in these crowded shops would not be
so good a man at 40 as a man working to 50 in a country village; of
the two, the country tailor would be in the best condition in health
and strength: in point of fact he is so. The difference may be set
down as a gain of 10 years’ good labour. There are very few who can
stand such work as the town shops 20 years.
“The eyes then become permanently injured, as well as fail during the
day, in these crowded shops?—Yes, they do. After 45 years of age, the
eyes begin to fail, and he cannot do a full day’s work.
“Supposing a workman to work in a well-ventilated room, and to be
freed from the nervous exhaustion consequent on the state of the
place, might he not save at least all that he drinks in the times
between his meals, or be enabled to apply it better, if he were so
disposed; and, perhaps, the value of the two hours’ extra work in the
12, when he is working piece-work?—Yes, certainly he might.
“Taking your account of the average loss by nervous exhaustion and bad
habits to be two hours’ work for 20 years, and 12 hours daily work for
10 years in addition, supposing him to be employed full time, it would
be a loss of the value of 50,000 hours of productive labour (of the
value at 6_d._ per hour, 1,250_l._); or, if he were only in work half
a-year, at a loss of 25,000 hours; so that if he were employed the
half time at the full wages, or full time at the half wages, such
workmen will have lost the means of putting by a sum of not less than
600_l._ to maintain him in comfort when he is no longer able to
work?—Yes, I think that would be found to be correct. Very few do
save; but I have known some save considerable sums. I knew one man, of
the name of John Hale, who saved about 600_l._ He was not one of the
most sober men, but he was in constant employment, sometimes at
Allen’s and sometimes at Weston’s, and he was very careful; but he
died when he was about 45. I knew another man, whose name was Philip
Gray, who used to prefer the smaller shops. He was a man of a very
good constitution, and he lived until he was about 70. He was a
journeyman all his life, and he had, when he died, more than
1,500_l._, all saved by London journey work. He used to live in a
baker’s shop in Silver-street, Golden-square.
“Was he of a penurious disposition?—He associated less with the men
than others, and they knew little about him. He was dressed much the
same as the rest, but he was much more clean in his person: he was
remarkable for his cleanliness, and he was very neat in his person.
Both he and Hale were single men.
“Can you doubt that, under favourable sanitary circumstances, such
instances would become frequent?—It cannot be doubted. I have known
other instances of saving, but those were not of men working on the
board: they were mostly of men who had situations in the
cutting-rooms.”
_Mr. John Fowler_:—
“You are a tailor, are you not?—I have been all my life a journeyman
tailor, and worked in the metropolis; but I have long been
superannuated, and now act as collector to the Benevolent Institution
for the Relief of Aged and Infirm Tailors.
“That is supported by the masters, is it not?—Yes; the journeymen
tailors subscribe, but it is principally supported by masters, who
subscribe to it most liberally. Mr. Stultze, for example, has
subscribed 795_l._ in money, and is a yearly subscriber of 25 guineas.
He has made a present to the institution of the ground for the
erection of almshouses, worth about 1000_l._, and has undertaken to
build six houses at his own expense, for the reception of 20 poor
pensioners. The funds are about 11,000_l._, principally subscribed by
the masters.
“Have you belonged to any other society?—I was clerk to a trade
society, consisting of upwards of 500 men.
“Have you worked in the more crowded shops?—I have worked at Mr.
Allen’s, and Mr. William’s, of Conduit-street, which was a shop
containing about as many men as Mr. Allen’s. I have worked at other
shops, not so large as Mr. Allen’s.
“Have you read Mr. Brownlow’s evidence?—Yes, I have.
“How far do the facts generally coincide with your own
observations?—Generally they do. I agree with him as to the effects of
work in close workshops, and as to the time a man would last as a
workman, under the most favourable circumstances, in a well-ventilated
place. I do not think the drinking of gin was general, to the extent
he mentions; and I think the improvement as to drinking beer, as well
as spirits, is now very great; particularly in spirits, since tea and
coffee have been so much drank. Of late, as far as my knowledge
extends, there is very little beer-drinking in the afternoon. I knew
the individuals he mentions as having saved money, and I have known
many others do so too. Some of them have become opulent and
respectable masters, who were fellow-shopmen with me. I conceive that
the establishment of coffee-shops has been of great benefit to the
health and morals of the men: it has taken them from the public-house.
I have known a very large proportion of men carried off young, and in
middle life, by consumption; but, in general, irregular habits were
mixed up with the effects of the work in close places. The crowding of
the large shops must be considered as occurring only in the season.”
The following is the examination of a tailor in Marlborough, taken by
Mr. Grainger:—
_Charles Dobson_, 58 years old,—
“Has been a tailor since he was 16 years old. Has always lived in the
country. Has two sons journeymen tailors, who have been employed in
London, one seven and the other five years. Formerly employed seven or
eight men, who worked with witness in a shop which was very close, so
that if there were nine men they could scarcely sit on the board.
Although there was very little drinking, they were so much oppressed
in the summer, and at other seasons when the candles were lighted,
that he has seen the men reel after getting off the board. Used
himself, when it was very warm, to feel faint. Attributes these
effects to the heat of the shop, arising from the closeness, the
stove, and the hot irons; also to the smell of the cloth and the
breath of the men. Latterly has worked with lower hands and in a more
open shop; finds his health better, and that he is not oppressed by
the work. Has often noticed in this town, where there are a few shops
containing, in the summer, 14 or 15 journeymen, that when men go into
them who have previously worked in the neighbouring villages, they
became pale and unhealthy-looking: attributes this to the heat. His
sons have complained to him that their health suffers from working in
large shops in London. Has seen many who have gone to London return
‘looking far worse than when they went.’ From his experience, thinks
that a man may enjoy his health in this business, if he works moderate
hours and in an airy shop, where the number is small. Should consider
12 hours, allowing out of them one hour for dinner, moderate: these
are the common hours in this part of the country. Has known many men
who have worked in the neighbouring villages; they are generally quite
as healthy as other people, ‘does not see any difference.’ They are
more strong and not so chilly as those who work in shops. Has known
many upwards of 50, who were quite able to go on with the work; they
are only obliged to give it up from failure of sight as they advance
in age: ‘from nothing else.’ Knew one man in this town who went on
till he was 77. Has himself good health.”
I have collected the evidence of several master tailors on the effects
of work in crowded or bad ventilated rooms. Some are inclined to ascribe
more of the ill health to the habits of the journeymen in drinking at
public-houses, and to the state of their private dwellings, but in the
main results the loss of daily power—_i. e._, the loss of at least
one-third the industrial capabilities enjoyed by men working under
advantageous circumstances—the nervous exhaustion attendant on work in
crowds, and the consequent temptation to resort continually to
stimulants, which in their turn increase the exhaustion, are fully
proved, and indeed generally admitted. I have caused the mortuary
registers to be examined, but find that they do not distinguish the
masters from the journeymen, and that there are no ready means of
distinguishing those of the deceased who have been employed in the
larger shops. It is also stated that many who come to work in town and
become diseased, return and die in the villages. But in the registered
causes of death of 233 persons entered during the year 1839 in the
eastern and western Unions of the metropolis, under the general head
“tailor,” no less than 123 are registered as having died of disease of
the respiratory organs, of whom 92 died of consumption;[13] 16 of
diseases of the nervous system, of whom 8 died of apoplexy; 16 of
epidemic or contagious diseases, of whom 11 died of typhus; 23 are
registered as having died of diseases of “uncertain seat,” of whom 13
fell victims of dropsy; 8 died of diseases of the digestive organs, and
six of “heart disease;” and of the whole number of 233 only 29 of old
age; and of these, if they could be traced, we may pronounce confidently
that the greater proportion of them would be found to be not journeymen,
of whom not two or three per cent. attain old age, but masters. On
comparing the mortuary registers in the metropolis with the registers in
north-western and the south-western parts of England, where we may
expect a larger proportion of men working separately, I find that whilst
53 per cent. of the men die of diseases of the respiratory organs in the
metropolis, only 39 per cent. die of these diseases in the remote
districts; that whilst five per cent. die. of typhus in London, only one
per cent. fall victims to it in the country; that whilst in London only
12 in the hundred attain old age, 25 in the hundred are registered as
having attained it in the remote districts.
It is due to Messrs. Stultze, the employers mentioned by the first
witness, to state, that since he worked with them they have made
considerable alterations with the view to increase the ventilation of
their workshops, and have expressed their desire to adopt whatever
improvements may be pointed out to them.
I have been informed, that some tailors’ workshops at Glasgow have been
carefully ventilated, and that the immediate results are as satisfactory
as were anticipated, but the change has been too recent to permit any
estimate of the effects on the general habits of the workmen.
The preceding case may serve as a general instance of the practical
difference of the effects in the saving of suffering as well as of
expense, by active benevolence exerted with foresight in measures of
prevention, as compared with benevolence exerted in measures of
alleviation of disease after it has occurred.
The subscriptions to the benevolent institution for the relief of the
aged and infirm tailors, by individual masters in the metropolis, appear
to be large and liberal, and amount to upwards of 11,000_l._; yet it is
to be observed, that if they or the men had been aware of the effects of
vitiated atmospheres on the constitution and general strength, and of
the means of ventilation, the practicable gain of money from the gain of
labour by that sanitary measure could not have been less in one large
shop, employing 200 men, than 100,000_l._ Independently of subscriptions
of the whole trade, it would, during their working period of life, have
been sufficient, with the enjoyment of greater health and comfort by
every workman during the time of work, to have purchased him an annuity
of 1_l._ per week for comfortable and respectable self-support during a
period of superannuation, commencing soon after _fifty_ years of age.
Of that which in these instances appear to be the main cause of
premature disease and death, defective ventilation, it is to be remarked
that until very lately little had been observed or understood, even by
professional men or men of science; and that it is only when the public
health is made a matter of public care by a responsible public agency
that, what is understood can be expected to be generally and effectually
applied for the public protection. Vitiated air not being seen, and air
which is pure in winter being cold, the cold is felt and the air is
excluded by the workmen. The great desideratum hitherto has been to
obtain a circulation of air which was _warm_, as well as fresh. This
desideratum has been attained, after much trial, in the House of
Commons; but there is reason to believe that, by various means, at an
expense within the reach certainly of large places of work, a
ventilation equally good might be secured with mutual advantage.
The effects of bad ventilation, it need not be pointed out, are chiefly
manifested in consumption, the disease by which the greatest slaughter
is committed. The causes of fever are comparatively few and prominent,
but they appear to have a concurrent effect in producing consumption.
The investigation of the whole of the contributary causes to the
production of the immense mass of mortality occasioned by that disease,
would be beyond the time or means allowed for the present inquiry; but
defective ventilation and defective management in respect to changes of
temperature, are causes everywhere apparent amongst the labouring
classes. The effects of good ventilation, as a single cause of the
prevention or alleviation of disease, are nowhere so clearly manifest as
in their effects on hospital treatment. What Dr. Bisset Hawkins states
in respect to the sanitary measures necessary to ensure successful
treatment in hospitals, may be stated in respect to common dwellings as
well as places of work.
“Next to the influence of national causes, the mortality of hospitals
is most affected by position and internal economy. These circumstances
appear more powerful than even the various merits of practice; and,
happily for mankind, they are advantages of a definite nature, easily
comprehended, and, of late years, generally demanded. The case was
formerly very different, when a singular prejudice or indifference
existed in respect to ventilation. At the Leeds hospital no case of
compound fracture, nor of trepan, survived. At the Hôtel Dieu, of
Paris, compound fractures were also almost always fatal, and few
survived amputation. The system which will bear improper air with
impunity during health becomes keenly susceptible of its mischief when
diseased, and a change of air will often restore where the strictest
diet has failed. Mortality is seldom to be assigned to the influence
of bad practice, which, probably, does not often destroy life. An
accomplished friend made particular notes on the comparative mortality
under three physicians in the same hospital; one was expectant, one
tonic, and the other eclectic. The mortality was the same, but the
length of the disorder, the character of the convalescence, and the
chances of relapse were very different.
“The earliest statement which we possess of the mortality of our
hospitals is in Sir William Petty’s work on Political Arithmetic, from
which it appears, that in the year 1685 the proportion of the deaths
to the cures in St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’s hospitals was about
1 to 7. The annual printed report of St. Thomas’s hospital for 1689 is
still preserved: the mortality was then about 1 in 10. During the ten
years from 1773 to 1783, the mortality at St Thomas’s became still
smaller, it was 1 in 14. About the year 1783, some improvements were
made with respect to cleanliness and ventilation, and during the ten
subsequent years the annual deaths were accordingly still fewer than
before, less than 1 in 15. During the ten years intervening between
1803 and 1813 the improvement continued, and the proportion fell to
only 1 in 16. The average during the 50 years from 1764 to 1813 was
remarkably small, only 1 in 15.”
_Parent Du Chátelet_ notices in the following terms the diminution in
the mortality of the Hôtel Dieu from better ventilation:—
“The mortality has diminished in the Hôtel Dieu in remarkable
proportions. Without saying anything of the enlargement of the
windows, of the warm clothing, of a better system of heating the
apartments, are we to count for nothing the destruction of all the
high houses which surrounded the Hôtel Dieu on every side? In our
opinion the pure and dry air which circulates now in every part, the
sun which penetrates there, the stoves which have been erected, have
as much contributed to its healthiness as the suppression of the
amphitheatres of anatomy which were in its neighbourhood.”
The reports of other hospitals present similar and generally
corroborative experience. In the space of four years, ending in 1784, in
a badly-ventilated house, the Lying-in Hospital in Dublin, there died
2,944 children out of 7,650; but after freer ventilation, the deaths in
the same period of time, and in a like number of children, amounted only
to 279.
One effect of the attention given to the condition of the workers in the
factories has been, that ventilation has been extensively introduced,
and with marked effects, on the condition of the workpeople. When I was
at Glasgow a striking instance was pointed out to me of the beneficial
effects of ventilation when applied to the dwellings of the working
classes connected with such establishments. I was informed there was in
that city an assemblage of dwellings for their workpeople, called, from
its mode of construction and the crowd collected in it, the Barracks.
This building contained 500 persons; every room contained one family.
The consequences of this crowding of the apartments, which were badly
ventilated, and the filth were, that fever was scarcely ever absent from
the building. There were sometimes as many as seven cases in one day,
and in the last two months of 1831 there were 57 cases in the building.
All attempts to induce the inmates to ventilate their rooms were
ineffectual, and the proprietors of the work, on the recommendation of
Mr. Fleming, a surgeon of the district, fixed a simple tin tube of two
inches in diameter, into the ceiling of each room, and these tubes led
into one general tube, the extremity of which was inserted into the
chimney of the factory furnace. By the perpetual draught thus produced
upon the atmosphere of each room the inmates were compelled, whether
they would or not, to breathe pure air. The effect was that, during the
ensuing eight years, fever was scarcely known in the place. The process
was apparently defective only in not providing for the appropriate
warmth of the air introduced. The cost of remedies previously applied in
the public hospitals to the fever cases, continually produced as
described in the barracks, were stated by Dr. Cowan to have afforded a
striking contrast to the cost of the means of prevention.
Similar defective ventilation and overcrowding in rooms of work, with
the addition of the deterioration of the air by the use of candles or
gas-lamps at night-work, produce similar effects on the milliners and
dressmakers employed at the larger workshops of the metropolis. In a
return of the causes of death to the milliners and dressmakers who died
during the year 1839, in the unions of the metropolis, in which we have
no means of distinguishing those who worked separately or in small
numbers, the results were as follows:—
TABULAR STATEMENT of DEATHS from Disease of Milliners and
Dressmakers, in the Metropolitan Unions during the year 1839, as
shown by the Mortuary Registers.
┌───────────┬───────┬───────┬────────────┬───────┬─────────┬───────┐
│ Age. │Number │Average│ Number of │Average│Number of│Average│
│ │ of │ Age. │Deaths from │ Age. │ Deaths │ Age. │
│ │Deaths.│ │Consumption.│ │ from │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ other │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Lung │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │Diseases.│ │
├───────────┼───────┼───────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┤
│ Under 20│ 6│ 17│ 4│ 18│ │ │
│20 Under 30│ 24│ 24│ 17│ 23│ 1│ 23│
│30 Under 40│ 11│ 34│ 6│ 34│ 1│ 33│
│40 Under 50│ 2│ 45│ │ │ 1│ 40│
│50 Under 60│ 4│ 54│ 1│ 58│ 2│ 55│
│60 Under 70│ 5│ 64│ │ │ │ │
├───────────┼───────┼───────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┤
│ Total│ 52│ 32│ 28│ 26│ 5│ 41│
└───────────┴───────┴───────┴────────────┴───────┴─────────┴───────┘
Out of 52 deaths in the year, 41 of the deceased attained an age of
25. The average age of the 33 who died of lung diseases was 28.
It is not doubted by medical witnesses that in this class of cases, as
in the case of the tailors, one-third at least of the healthful duration
of adult life will be found to have been destroyed by the ignorance of
the want of ventilation.
Unhappily, this fatal ignorance as to the requisites of the places of
work is as frequently manifested in the overcrowded places of repose. I
take an illustration from the answers of _Mr. Isaac Gilchrist_, surgeon
of Aberdeen, to the question as to the causes of fever:—
“In answering this query, the circumstance that calls for most remark
in reference to this district is the overcrowded state of dwelling
apartments. Six, eight, and even ten occupying one room is anything
but uncommon; and these, too, it frequently happens, are lone women,
all employed at the manufactories during the day and huddled together
during the night. Fever finding its way into any of these apartments,
seldom quits it until every member has been attacked. In some
instances of families of eight or ten members, not one individual has
escaped the disease. I believe also that deficient cleanliness (to a
certain extent the result of poverty) and bad ventilation co-operate
with the overcrowded state of the apartments in propagating fever.”
Similar information is frequent from the metropolis and other districts.
It is understood, and it may confidently be expected, that the
Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners appointed to investigate the
employment of young persons employed in large numbers in other
manufactures than those now included in the provisions of the Factory
Act will investigate more closely than has hitherto been done the
sanitary condition of the labourers employed in the mines as well as in
other branches of industry. I take the following evidence respecting the
condition of the lodging-shops, obtained by _Dr. Mitchell_, one of the
Assistant Commissioners, in the course of his inquiries into the
condition of the labouring population engaged in working the mines in
Durham and Northumberland. He gives the following description of their
sleeping places:—
“Many of the miners, including young persons and boys, will go three
miles and upwards from their own homes in the morning to work in the
mines, or to wash the ore, and return again after their work at night.
Some miners, who are too far off to be able to go and come in this
way, find lodgings for the four nights in the week, and the washers
for five nights, at some houses not too far from the mines. The usual
price is 6_d._ a-week each, for which sum there is a bed between two
of them, leave to make their ‘crowdy’ on the fire in the morning, and
they have their potatoes boiled for them in the evening. They bring
their provisions in a wallet on the Monday mornings: the miners go
back on the Friday, and the washers of ore on the Saturday. But there
are many mines, and some of them very large, in remote situations in
the Fells, far away from all dwelling-houses, where lodgings might be
had, and the proprietors have erected for their miners and washers
buildings called ‘lodging-shops,’ which I now am about to describe:—
“The first one of them which I visited was about nine miles across the
Fell, south from Stanhope. It was a plain building, constructed of
sandstone, covered with a coarse slate; and all very substantial.
There was no opening or window at either end, nor at the back, nor on
the roof. On the front or south side was a door towards the west end,
and two windows, one a little above the other. On entering the door,
it was seen that the lower part was one room, lighted by one of the
windows, and had a great fire burning at the east end. By pacing the
floor the length was ascertained to be about 18 feet, and the breadth
about 15 feet. Along the one side, that next the window, was a deal
table, extending the whole length of the room, and alongside of it was
a form, and there were two other forms in the room. All along the
other side on the wall were little cupboards, 48 in number, in four
tiers above each other; six of the cupboards with the doors off, but
the most of the rest carefully locked with padlocks, and in which the
several miners had deposited their wallets with their provisions for
five days. Throughout the room, more particularly at the end furthest
from the fire, were hung from hooks and nails in the joists, miners’
trousers and jackets to be put on in case of the owners returning wet
from their work.
“In addition to the articles already named were the following:—
“One earthen pitcher to fetch water; one tea-kettle; one pan for
boiling potatoes; two pans for frying bacon; iron fender, a poker, and
shovel; a besom.
“There was a large box in the room secured by a padlock, said to
contain the clothes which the masters put on when they come to see the
mines.
“On ascending to the upper room by a ladder, it was seen to be a
sleeping-room. The dimensions of the floor were of course the same as
of the room below. There was no fire-place, which indeed was not
wanted, but neither was there any opening into a chimney to produce
circulation of air. Along one side of the room were three beds, each
six feet long by about four feet and a-half wide, the three beds
extending the length of the room; then there were three other beds on
the other side, and at the furthest end was a seventh bed extending
from the one line of beds to the other. Immediately over these seven
beds, and supported on posts, were seven other beds placed exactly in
the same way. Of course the person who slept in each of the six beds
of the upper tier next the wall could raise his head only a very
little way on account of the roof. Each of these 14 beds was intended
for two persons, when only few men were employed at the mines, but
they might be made to receive three men each, and, in case of need, a
boy might lie across at their feet. There was no opening of any sort
to let out the foul air, yet from 39 to 40 persons might have slept
there, the men perspiring from their work and inhaling the small dust
from their clothes floating in clouds. The beds were stuffed with
chaff. There were blankets but no sheets. The furniture of the
lodging-shops is supplied by the masters. The beds and blankets are
supplied by the miners themselves. They are taken home sometimes to be
washed. On Friday, when the miners leave, the beds are rolled up to
prevent damp. I visited the lodging-shop on Monday morning. The beds
had not been slept in for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights
preceding, yet was the smell most noxious. There was one excellent
thing connected with this lodging-shop: there was a small but
beautiful stream of water which was conducted across the Fell to this
spot, and came through an iron pipe near the door, so that the men had
an abundant supply of the pure element. I next went to see another
lodging-shop on a larger scale. On the ground-floor were five rooms.
The first is a blacksmith’s shop. Next to it is the cooking and
eating-room of the washers of ore; from 20 to 30 men and boys, if so
many, were employed. It was locked up, and I did not see it. The upper
room, extended over the blacksmith’s shop and the cooking room, is the
sleeping-room of the washers, men and boys. The next room on the
ground-floor is a cooking and eating-room of the miners, exactly like
the room of the lodging-shop already described. Adjoining to it is a
room in which they hang up their wet clothes. At the end is a stable
for the horses which are employed to draw the waggons with ore from
the pits. By a ladder close to the wall between the cooking-room and
drying-room is an ascent to a room exactly like that in the
lodging-house already described, with the same number of beds. One
little pipe of about two inches diameter was the only communication
with the exterior air. Through the partition wall is an opening into a
bed-room, extending over the drying-room and the stable. Across this
room extended two beds, leaving a space for passing. Above these two
was a tier of other two beds: then at a short interval was a second
set of beds, four in number; and further on, a third set similarly
arranged, four in number. Thus in the space above the cooking-room,
drying-room, and stable, were 26 beds, each intended for two or three
men, as it might be, and perhaps more; and the same beds for sets of
miners in their turns, as one set came from their work and another
went off.
“Though the beds had not been occupied for the three preceding nights,
the smell was to me utterly intolerable. What the place must be in the
summer nights is, happily for those who have never felt it, utterly
inconceivable. The medical men are best able to give a judgment on
these matters, but for my own part I cannot but believe that these
lodging-houses are more destructive than the air of the mines. I
should think it no hardship to have to remain 24 hours in a mine, but
I should be terrified at being ordered to be shut up a quarter of an
hour in the bed-room of a lodging-shop.
“Many miners speak of the horrors of lodging-shops of former days; but
the only difference I could learn was, that at many mines there were
not now so many men and boys at work, and consequently the
lodging-shops were not so crowded. Some mines are not now wrought
which formerly had large lodging-shops; for example, Mannergill, of
which a miner stated to me that he was one of 120 who lodged in a
suite of rooms there; and he declared that the nuisance was much
aggravated by the great number.
“In such a dense accumulation of bodies, one man who might be ill was
a disturbance to all the rest. The coughing of a few interrupted the
sleep of others. Men coming from the mine at 12 o’clock at night, and
frying their bacon at the fire below, sent up an odour which added to
the already too suffocating smell of the sleeping-room above. The
great number was an aggravation of what is intolerable at best.
“The miners showed me a tank through which running water passed, in
which they had placed their bottles of milk which they had brought
with them for their coffee.
“There was an excellent supply of running water of the best quality,
and it was the only beverage which the men had; for they stated that
there was no public-house or beer-shop nearer than seven miles, and if
there were one, they durst not go into it for fear of being
discharged.
“The men all said that their lodging-shop was a fair sample of all the
lodging-shops in the country, the only difference being the greater or
less number of men lodging in them, which would depend entirely on the
state of the mine. I have, however, since seen one refinement of which
these men did not seem to be aware, and that was a lodging-shop in
which were not only the beds in tiers all round the room, but there
also was a bed suspended or swung from the top of the room, which
economically filled up a space which otherwise would have been
vacant.”
The following is the account given by a miner himself of the
lodging-places:—
_William Eddy_, one of the miners, states;—
“I went to work in Greenside four years. Our lodging-rooms were such
as not to be fit for a swine to live in. In one house there was 16
bedsteads in the room up stairs, and 50 occupied these beds at the
same time. We could not always get all in together, but we got in when
we could. Often three at a time in the bed, and one at the foot. I
have several times had to get out of bed, and sit up all night to make
room for my little brothers, who were there as washers. There was not
a single flag or board on the lower floor, and there were pools of
water 12 inches deep. You might have taken a coal-rake and raked off
the dirt and potatoe peelings six inches deep. At one time we had not
a single coal. After I had been there two years, rules were laid down,
and two men were appointed by the master to clean the house up stairs
twice a-week. The lower apartment was to be cleaned twice a-day. Then
the shop floor was boarded, and two tables were placed in the shop.
After that two more shops were fitted up, but the increase of workmen
more than kept up with the increased accommodation. The breathing at
night when all were in bed was dreadful. The workmen received more
harm from the sleeping-places than from the work. There was one pane
of glass which we could open, but it was close to a bed-head.
“The mines at Greenside were well ventilated, and in that respect
there was nothing to complain of.
“In the winter time the icicles came through the roof, and within 12
inches of the people sleeping in bed. During a thaw, water dropped
plentifully into the beds. In the upper beds the person sleeping next
to the wall cannot raise his head or change his shirt.”
_Joseph Eddy_, another workman, states:—
“I consider the lodging-shops more injurious to the health of the
miners than their work itself. So many sleeping in the same room, so
many breaths, so much stour arising from their working-clothes, so
much perspiration from the men themselves, it is impossible to be
comfortable. Two miners occupy one bed, sometimes three. The beds are
shaken once a-week on the Monday morning, when the miners come. Some
miners make their beds every night. The rooms are in general very
dirty, being never washed, and very seldom swept, not over once
a-month. There is no ventilation, so that the air is very close at
night.”
It is observed of this particular class of men that they are worn out
soon after forty; but a large share of this result may also be ascribed
to their places of work. The following is a return of the ages of all
the miners who died during one year, including those who slept at their
own homes, with those who had been accustomed to sleep at the
lodging-shops.
STATEMENT of Deaths from Disease
and Accidents of Miners,
Colliers, and Pitmen, in the
Unions of Cumberland and
Westmoreland, and parts of the
Counties of Lancaster and
Northumberland (Population
Census of 1831, 338,273), during
the Year ended 31st December,
1839, as shown by the Mortuary
Registers.
┌──────────────┬───────┬───────┐
│ Periods of │Number │Average│
│ Age. │ of │ Age. │
│ │Deaths.│ │
├──────────────┼───────┼───────┤
│ Under 20│ 37│ 15│
│ 20 Under 30│ 39│ 23│
│ 30 Under 40│ 27│ 33│
│ 40 Under 50│ 27│ 44│
│ 50 Under 60│ 23│ 55│
│ 60 Under 70│ 32│ 64│
│ 70 Under 80│ 17│ 75│
│80 and upwards│ 10│ 86│
├──────────────┼───────┼───────┤
│ Total deaths │ 212│ 42│
└──────────────┴───────┴───────┘
The following is a summary view of the causes of death, from which it
will be seen that out of 212 deaths 69 fell from diseases of the
respiratory organs, and of these 52 died from consumption, whose average
age of death was no more than 36½, and that no less than 58 were
destroyed by accidents.
STATEMENT of the Causes of Death amongst Miners in the Unions of
Cumberland and Westmoreland and parts of the Counties of Lancaster and
Northumberland, during the Year ended 31st December, 1839, as shown by
the Mortuary Registers.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────┐
│ Cause of Death. │No. of Deaths.│
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│Disease of Respiratory Organs:— │ │
│ Consumption │ 52│
│ Other Diseases │ 17│
│Epidemic and Contagious Disease │ 20│
│Accidents:— │ │
│ In Mine │ 37│
│ Not stated to be in Mine│ 21│
│Diseases of the Brain and Nerves │ 12│
│Diseases of the Digestive Organs │ 10│
│Disease of the Heart │ 2│
│Other Causes of Disease │ 22│
│Natural Decay and Old Age │ 19│
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ Total Deaths │ 212│
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────┘
In a subsequent portion of this report I shall advert to the state of
the health of the miners in Cornwall, as compared by Dr. Barham with the
state of the agricultural labourers in the immediate vicinity of the
mines.
I would here request attention to a suggestion which appears to me to
arise from a consideration of the evils above displayed, (and that will
receive further corroboration in the course of this report,) that if
there were a regular system of periodical inspection of the places of
work or places of large assemblage, it would be attended with great
advantage to the lower orders of the community, in which the other
classes could not fail to participate.
One most important result of such investigations would be to disabuse
the popular mind of much prejudice against particular branches of
industry arising from the belief that causes of ill health really
_accidental_ and removable, and sometimes unconnected, are _essentials_
to the employment itself. By pointing out the real causes, warning will
be given for their avoidance, and indications extended for the
application of more certain remedies. Medical men who see only a few
patients of the same occupation at distant intervals; who see them in
their own dispensaries or in the hospitals, and who have no
opportunities of observing such patients under the varied circumstances
in which the disease may have been contracted, are left to mere guesses
as to its cause. A working person of any of the classes whose condition
I have described, presenting himself with the symptoms of a consumption,
the medical man has no means of detecting _the_ one of many causes by
which it may have been occasioned, and the individual patient himself is
more likely to mislead than to inform him. Unless his attention were
accidentally directed to it, or unless the medical investigator had
himself the means of observing the different personal condition of the
different sets of persons following the same occupation in town and in
country, it is highly probable that the evidence that the disease is not
essential to the occupation would escape him. Thus, between different
sets of workmen who work at the same descriptions of work during the
same hours, and in the same town, but in well or in ill-ventilated
factories a marked difference in the personal condition and general
health of the workpeople has been perceived. Great differences are
perceptible in the general personal condition of persons working during
the same hours in cotton-mills in town, and in cotton-mills in rural
districts, where they have not only a purer atmosphere, but commonly
larger and more commodious places of abode. The factory superintendents
generally state that the workers in the country mills are
distinguishable at sight by their more healthy appearance, and by the
increased proportions amongst them who have florid complexions. Very
lately the attention of the Austrian government was called to the labour
of the persons working in the cotton-factories in the neighbourhood of
Vienna.[14] One half, perhaps, of the mills are of the ordinary
construction of the cotton-mills in England of from thirty to forty
years’ date, and they work on the average as much as fifteen hours per
diem. But it appears that the houses in which the workers live belong to
the capitalists who own the mills, many of whom have displayed a desire
to ensure, as far as the state of the private residences can ensure, the
comfort of those whom they employ, and they have accordingly built for
them a superior description of tenements. It is stated that the result
of the inquiry conducted by the government physicians was, that the
average health enjoyed by the workers in those mills is greater than
that of any other class of workpeople in the neighbourhood where the
mills are situate, and where the general condition of the population is
deemed good; the difference in the general health of the two classes
(indicated by the proportions of death—of 1 in 27 of the general
population, and 1 in 31 of the manufacturing population), was ascribed
to the difference of the residences. My colleagues and myself of the
central board of the Factory Commission of Inquiry were fully sensible
that the effect of one cause on the health of the working population
could not fairly be judged of unless its operation was observed under
various circumstances, and unless amongst them the influence of the
domestic circumstances, as well as the nature of the work and the place
of work, were duly examined. We could not but deem it important that the
state of the dwellings of the workpeople, who were the subject of
inquiry, should also be investigated; and we gave instructions with that
view to the district medical commissioners; but the limited time allowed
by Parliament for the investigation, prevented its being made as we
desired, a circumstance that, for the sake of the workpeople, is much to
be regretted, as great injury is done to them by attention being
diverted, as it commonly has been, from the real means of
prevention.[15]
M. Parent Du Châtelet and M. d’Arcet having presented to the Board of
Health of Paris a report on an investigation with a view to discover the
physical or medical means by which particular sorts of work might be
ameliorated, observe—
“Perhaps it will be said that the task has been already performed, and
that several celebrated men, whose works are in the hands of all the
world, have preceded us in this career, without leaving to their
successors the hope to add anything to what they have published.
“We are assured beforehand that this objection will not be made by our
colleagues, who have penetrated into manufactures and have studied
their influence with a mind free from prejudice. It is because we have
studied the works which treat of the maladies of artisans, and have
seen a great number of these workmen in their shops; it is because we
have compared books with actual observation; it is, finally, because
we have not believed authors on their word, and have subjected them
all to a severe verification, that we have seen the insufficiency, nay
more, the inaccuracy of the greater part of their assertions.
“This method of proceeding has demonstrated to us that the works of
which we speak, far from being the fruit of long observation, have
been composed in the silence of the cabinet by men who have only had a
casual view of artisans and manufactures; and who, generalizing a few
facts presented to them by accident, have singularly exaggerated the
inconveniencies of some professions, and attributed to others
influences which they are far from exercising.”—_Mémoire sur les
Véritables Influences du Tabac sur la Santé des Ouvriers._ Par M.
Parent Du Châtelet.
They give, as an illustration, the exaggerated accounts of the
manufacture of tobacco, of which the supposed evils are proved to be
entirely fictitious, or at best an erroneous application to the
manufacture,—of effects which, though incidentally met with in the
workmen, were equally common to others of their station. In an abstract
of their paper, inserted in the Appendix, there is even an enumeration,
by eminent physicians, of specific cases of death from the fancied
agency of tobacco, but they only show the extent of error produced in
this and kindred instances by the previous conviction of the noxious
influence of particular circumstances, and by referring all existing
maladies to these without further inquiry. If I might add my testimony
on this point, derived from my own observations on two of the
commissions of inquiry on which I have had the honour to serve, it would
be entirely in corroboration of the above statement. On comparing the
actual condition of workmen with the medical descriptions of these
diseases, and the causes, we commonly found that the results of a
cluster of causes are commonly ascribed to one; and in respect to
several classes of workmen the real cause, the invariable antecedent,
such as defective ventilation, is unnoticed. No persons were frequently
more surprised than the intelligent workmen, by the frequent exaggerated
accounts of the operations of particular causes upon them, and the
erroneous association of effects to causes with which they were known to
have no real connexion. For example, in the work of M. Patissier, one
which is the chief work, and of European authority, on the diseases of
artisans, he adverts to the diseases of tailors. His description was
read to _Mr. Brownlow_, the tailor, examined upon the subject of the
overcrowding of places of work, and the observations of that witness on
the statement of M. Patissier are given in answer:—
_M. Patissier._ “The employment of tailor is one of the most
sedentary: seated constantly on a board, his legs crossed, his body
stooping forward, this class of labourers exercises not part of the
body but the arms, and that only the right one.”
_Witness._ “That is not so: there is a good deal of action with the
left arm in holding and sewing: in using the iron also there is a good
deal of action with the arms and knees, and with the rest of the body.
Journeymen tailors are remarked as being full breasted, as compared
with other workmen; they carry themselves higher, and the chest is
more fully developed; so that the labour has, as compared with much
other labour, the effect of opening the chest.”
_M. Patissier._ “Their position is particularly injurious to the
functions of the viscera of the abdomen and chest. It produces
difficulty of digestion, injures the gastric juices, brings on
constipation, hemorrhoides, chronic catarrhs of the bladder, and
obstructions of the bowels.”
_Witness._ “I have never heard complaints beginning with the bowels.
The stomach may be out of order; they eat very little solid food, and
of course the action of the bowels will not be very good; but as to
the effect of the tailors’ work on the chest, we do not consider it at
all injurious.”
_M. Patissier._ “I attended a tailor who every time that he applied
himself diligently to his work, was attacked with nausea, colic,
jaundice, and symptoms that denoted irritation of the liver. I have
known, says Stoll, a great number of tailors who have suffered more
particularly from diseases of the lungs.”
_Witness._ “The only complaints I have ever heard are those arising
from the foul air, perhaps the dust arising from cloth is injurious. I
have already said that men coming from the country to a town shop will
faint, and be obliged to leave it in the afternoon.”
_M. Patissier._ “As they are almost constantly in a sitting posture,
the body bent, with the head stooping forward, the blood is unequally
distributed, and too large a quantity accumulates in the lungs, either
because the bowels of the abdomen, compressed by the position of the
body, admit of less blood, and which is therefore forced back into the
vessels situated above, or because the short respirations of those who
are sedentary, prevents the blood which enters the lungs from passing
out with sufficient rapidity, by which local plethora in the heart and
lungs is produced. In short, tailors are very liable to pulmonary
phthisis, hydro-thorax, and hæmoptysis, which often accompanies them
to a very advanced age. M. Corvisart has observed that diseases of the
heart and of the larger vessels are not less frequent amongst this
class of artisans. As the posture of the tailor causes the blood to
flow into the upper part of the body, the circulation in the lower
members is consequently much less active, which explains the
emaciation and feebleness of the legs and thighs of this class of
artisans, and the peculiar walk which distinguishes them.”
_Witness._ “As to the circulation of the blood, I should say that it
was more free than amongst persons sitting at a desk; as soon as the
journeyman tailor begins to feel warm and swell, he loosens everything
that he has on; his coat is off, and his shirt neck is open; if he
wears a handkerchief it is very loose; a tailor wears no garters,
nothing that can stop the circulation of the blood: the only
confinement that arises is from the position, which is certainly
sedentary, but he frequently changes it, and puts one leg over the
other when they are tired; they also stretch their legs out. Their
breathing even in the close shops is not noticed as short.”
_M. Patissier._ “Ramazzini says they are very subject to numbness of
the thighs, neuralgic sciatica, and lameness.”
_Witness._ “The tailors are frequently subject to rheumatism, but that
is from going from a hot to the cold open air in the way described.
Men who are generally emaciated will have their legs emaciated too:
the whole frame goes together, but I have never heard young men or
tailors in the middle of life being remarked as deficient in that part
of bodily capability. Those whom I have known to be emaciated have
been spirit drinkers; the emaciation has been more from
spirit-drinking than from the heat of the shop, though one brings on
the other. Some years ago there used to be much racing at about five
o’clock in the morning in the parks, sometimes amongst the tailors
themselves, and sometimes with other runners who had celebrity. The
tailors were generally good competitors and more active than other
workmen in London. There was one of the country tailors at Faversham
who some years ago was considered the first runner in England for a
hundred yards. The tailors have certainly a peculiar walk, but all
whom I have known to be lame were lame originally. When a lad has
anything the matter with him, which occasions him not to be strong
enough for anything working on his feet, it is a common thing to say,
‘Then we must make him a tailor.’ It is a very frequent thing to send
weakly children to be tailors, though it is a bad choice, for the lad
has little chance of recovering himself in the town shops, and a more
open trade would be better for him. Many tailors go for sailors and
soldiers, and they are always thought to be good men. I should think
there are many tailors in the guards.”
_M. Patissier._ “There is sometimes to be observed on the surface of
their skin a psoriform eruption, which by some writers is ascribed to
the irritation of the woollen cloth which these artisans are
continually handling. Guldner, however, considers that this eruption
is produced by their mode of living.”
_Witness._ “I never saw or heard of any peculiar eruption on the skin
of the tailors, though they perhaps do not attend sufficiently to
personal cleanliness. The dye of cloth is sometimes bad, but I never
observed any effects from it.”
_M. Patissier._ “Tailors are apt to prick themselves with their
needles, and these wounds often bring on festerings.”
_Witness._ “That is certainly the case; the needle may carry with it
some of the dye, and the festering may also be occasioned by the bad
state of the body.”
_M. Patissier._ “They almost all have decayed teeth, which are
destroyed by the habit of biting their thread with them. It is very
rare to see a tailor of advanced age with any front teeth.”
_Witness._ “That is certainly so: they have many of them bad teeth,
but I have not noticed any deficiency of the front teeth.”
_M. Patissier._ “Their sight is soon enfeebled by the fine work which
they have to execute, often at night by the light of candles. When
they work in the evening at open windows, they are liable to be
affected by earache, tooth-ache, cold in the head, and sore eyes.”
_Witness._ “That is very correct with respect to the tailors in town,
but it is not noticed so much with tailors in the country.”
_M. Patissier._ “The sedentary life which they lead produces heavy,
soft flesh, that has no firmness; they generally are thin in body,
legs are spare and feeble, and their complexion rather jaundiced.”
_Witness._ “Almost all this will be found to be the effect of habits
that have nothing to do with the trade.”
_M. Patissier._ “Tailors ought to walk in the open air every evening
when their work will admit of it, rub their limbs well with flannel,
abstain from all food difficult of digestion, avoid all excesses, and
generally every kind of debauchery.”
_Witness._ “The men when they leave their shop-boards do not begin
rubbing their legs, and do not appear to feel the least want of it.
The appetites of men working in shops being bad, they do commonly take
food that is easy of digestion, as they cannot do with the coarser
food. When a tailor comes from the country he will eat a twopenny loaf
and take a pint of coffee for breakfast; but after three or four
months working in the close shop getting exhausted, then taking beer
and then spirits, his appetite fails him, and I have seen him eat only
a small slice of bread and butter, and take half a pint of coffee for
breakfast, and his appetite generally fails him. The young men on
going back to their work in the country, generally recover their
appetites unless disease has taken such root that they cannot
recover.”
The evidence of Mr. Brownlow was read to Dr. Weber, who has had under
his care between 200 and 300 cases of journeymen tailors who were
treated by him, as physician to the St. George’s Dispensary, which is
much resorted to by those of that class of workmen who reside at the
west end of the metropolis. Dr. Weber confirms the general tenor of the
evidence as to the medical facts, and especially the general conclusion
that the greatest proportion of the diseases to which they are subject
arise from circumstances separable from their occupation. The evidence
as to the personal condition and habits of the workmen is generally
corroborated by several master tailors, who state that the journeyman
tailor in the rural district who works singly, or in a well-ventilated
apartment, is in person commonly the opposite of the one described by M.
Patissier; he is described as being a hard worker, but at times a man
who is in most village foot races, and not unfrequently the foremost
runner, and in games of foot-ball not the last. The journeymen tailors
are found amongst the best men in the life guards. In consequence of a
strike of tailors, one dragoon regiment had a troop chiefly enlisted
from them, and military men state that they greatly distinguished
themselves.
If we thus find the crowding of unventilated places of work injurious—in
which persons rarely pass more than 12 out of the 24 hours, being free
during the remaining time to breathe what air they please—how much worse
should we expect the consequences to be of the same fault in workhouses,
hospitals, schools, and prisons, in which individuals often pass both
day and night in the same apartments, or if in different apartments,
still in the same crowd. Accordingly, since the attention of medical men
has been sufficiently directed to the subject, the explanation has
become complete of many deplorable cases of general ill health and
mortality in such places, attributed at first to deficiency or bad
quality of food, or to any cause but the true one,—want of ventilation.
A striking illustration of this was afforded in the case of a large
school for children during the years 1836 and 1837, as recorded in the
second volume of the Poor Law Reports. Such general failure of health
and such mortality had occurred among the children as to attract public
notice and the animadversions of many medical men and others who visited
the schools; but by most the evil was attributed chiefly to faulty
nourishment; and it was only after the more complete examination, made
by direction of the board, and of which the report is published, as
above stated, that the diet was found to be unusually good, but the
ventilation very imperfect. Suitable changes were then made; and now, in
the same space where 700 children were by illness awakening extensive
sympathy, 1100 now enjoy excellent health. The defective state of
information on the subject of ventilation is frequently shown in reports
which assume that apartments containing given cubic feet of space are
all that is requisite for life and health, whereas if a spacious
drawing-room be completely closed against the admission of air, an
inhabitant confined to it would in time be stifled, whilst, by active
ventilation or change of air, men working in connexion with
diving-machines live in the space of a helmet, which merely confines the
head.
In the majority of instances of the defective ventilation of schools,
the pallid countenance and delicate health of the schoolboy, which is
commonly laid to the account of over-application to his book, is due
simply to the defective construction of the school-room. In the dame
schools, and the schools for the labouring classes, the defective
ventilation is the most frequent and mischievous.
_Mr. Riddall Wood_, an agent of the Manchester Statistical Society, thus
describes some of the crowded schools found in the course of
examinations, from house to house, of the condition of the town
population in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, and York:—
“I may mention that in one school where the average attendance was, I
think, 36, not above eight children were present. Upon my inquiring of
the mistress as to the reason, she stated that the remainder of her
scholars had been taken with the measles. I perceived a bed in the
school-room, upon which lay a child much disfigured by that complaint.
Another child of the mistress had died of the measles. I had reason to
believe that the contagion had been communicated originally from that
child, because the cases of the scholars all occurred subsequently. In
a school in Liverpool, having above 40 scholars in average attendance,
I found the number diminished to somewhere about 10. On inquiring into
this case, I ascertained that it arose from the prevalence of scarlet
fever, and the master made this remark: ‘It is a very strange thing
how this fever should have attacked almost all the children coming to
my school, whilst none of my neighbours have got it.’ I attributed
that to the very crowded state of the school. The room was very low.
When the whole of his scholars were in attendance, it must have been
excessively crowded. There was no thorough ventilation.
“I found that in many of the schools there were from 20 to (in some
cases) nearly 100 scholars crammed into a dirty house or cellar,
without air or ventilation, the effluvia from whose breath and clothes
was exceedingly offensive, and must, I am sure, be very injurious to
the children’s health. In most of these places, too, I have found that
the ordinary household occupations have been carried on by the old
women.”
Another inquirer states, that in the neighbourhood of Bolton he saw 70
scholars cooped up in a badly ventilated room not 12 feet square.
_Bad ventilation and overcrowding of private houses._
The reports from the great majority of the new unions present evidence
of the severe overcrowding of the cottages in the rural districts, and
the tenements occupied by the working classes in towns.
From the returns as laid before the public from the commissioners
appointed to take the last census, it would appear, however, that the
number of houses has more than kept pace with the increase of the
population.
From these returns it would appear that the increase of houses even in
Scotland has more than kept pace with the increase of population. But
this result was so much at variance with the reports and communications
from all parts of the country relating to the dwellings of the labouring
classes, that if any increase of the proportions of houses to the
population had taken place, it must have been in the houses of the
middle and higher classes of the community. I learn, however, the fact
to be, that whilst in obtaining the previous census, merely the heading
was given without any instruction for the officer to fill up the “number
of houses” on the occasion of taking the last census, the commissioners
ordered each separate occupation under the same roof to be returned as a
house. In the Scotch towns, and in many of the English towns where it is
the custom to let off as separate tenements the flats or floors under
the same roof, there will, unless it be explained, appear to have been,
as compared with the numbers in the last census, when the buildings and
not its subdivisions were returned, an increase of accommodation, when,
in reality, there may only have been an increased subdivision of
tenements in consequence of an increased pressure of population. The
evidence received from every part of the country, from rural districts
as well as from towns, attest that the dwellings of large numbers of the
labouring population are overcrowded, and from many districts that the
overcrowding has increased.
For example, the report of _Dr. Laurie_ from Greenock states, that such
is the crowding of the population in the town that—
“Toward the east or old part of the town the amount of population
crowded into a small space can hardly be credited, the rapid increase
of the population has so far overstepped the means of accommodation
that not the meanest outhouse remains without its tenants.”
_Dr. Walker_, one of the senior surgeons to the Greenock Infirmary, also
states that,—
“The rooms are in most instances small, and frequently far too much
crowded. It is not unusual to see ten or twelve human beings occupying
a room not as many feet square. The lower classes in these districts
are grossly filthy in their persons and dwellings; and even many of
our operatives who receive good wages are extremely inattentive to
cleanliness, both in person and dwelling.”
In a paper on the causes of destitution in Scotland, by _Professor
Alison_, read before the Statistical Society of London, it is stated
that—
“From a report on the late census, made to the Lord Provost of Glasgow
by Mr. Strang, Chamberlain, (19th July, 1841,) it appears that in the
most densely peopled part of the town, (Blackfriars’ parish,) the
population since 1831 has increased 40 per cent., while the number of
inhabited houses has not increased at all; and again, in the Gorbals,
‘there is an increase in the population of 20 per cent, since 1831,’
though no new buildings have been erected, and where the great
majority of the houses are of the smallest class.”—(Watt’s Report, p.
11.)
_Dr. Scott Alison_ in his report on Tranent, states,—
“In many houses in and around Tranent, fowls roost on the rafters and
on the tops of the bedsteads. The effluvia in these houses are
offensive, and must prove very unwholesome. It is scarcely necessary
to say that these houses are very filthy. They swarm likewise with
fleas. Dogs live in the interior of the lowest houses, and must, of
course, be opposed to cleanliness. I have seen horses in two houses in
Tranent inhabiting the same apartment with numerous families. One was
in Dow’s Bounds. Several of the family were ill of typhus fever, and I
remember the horse stood at the back of the bed. In this case the
stench was dreadful. In addition to the horse there were fowls, and I
think the family was not under ten souls. The father died of typhus on
this occasion. The families of most of the labouring people are
crowded, in consequence of the smallness of the apartment. Where there
are many children, it is common for 10 or 12 people to inhabit one
apartment, and for four children to lie in one bed, both in health and
sickness. When a collier has few or no children, he sometimes takes
single men and women as lodgers.”
_Dr. Keith_ says the—
“Crowding is fearful. I have seen six or eight sleeping in one
apartment, with every crevice stopped, and have more than once been
nearly suffocated by entering the apartment even after several of them
were up and out.”
As the information sought from the medical officers and witnesses in the
course of this inquiry was chiefly as to the sanitary condition of the
population, they might, naturally be expected only to notice the
overcrowding as one of the causes of ill health; and they do frequently
notice the fact in that sense; but the overcrowding is also frequently
noticed as a cause of extreme demoralization and recklessness, and
recklessness, again, as a cause of disease. The following may be given
as examples of the statements in respect to overcrowding in the rural
districts in England.
_Mr. T. P. J. Grantham_, medical officer of the Sleaford union, in
reference to the typhus fever in the family of an agricultural labourer,
gives the following instance of the overcrowding which is frequent in
the rural districts:—
“The domestic economy in this house was deplorable; eight persons
slept in one small ill-ventilated apartment, with scarcely any
bed-clothing; the smell arising from want of cleanliness, and the
dirty clothes of the children being allowed to accumulate, was most
intolerable. Considering the situation of the house, its filthy state,
and the vitiated air which must have been respired over and over
again, by eight individuals sleeping in one confined apartment, it is
not surprising that this family should have been afflicted with fever,
and that of a very malignant type; the mother and one child fell
victims to it in a very short time.”
_The want of separate apartments, and overcrowding of private
dwellings._
The following extract from a communication from the clerk to the
Ampthill union, pourtrays the effects of this overcrowding on the morals
of the population.
“A large proportion of the cottages in the Union are very miserable
places, small and inconvenient, in which it is impossible to keep up
even the common decencies of life. I will refer to one instance with
which I am well acquainted:—A man, his wife, and family, consisting in
all of 11 individuals, resided in a cottage containing only two rooms.
The man, his wife, and four children, sometimes five, slept in one of
the rooms, and in one bed, some at the foot, others at the top, one a
girl above 14, another a boy above 12, the rest younger. The other
part of the family slept in one bed in the keeping-room, that is, the
room in which their cooking, washing, and eating were performed. How
could it be otherwise with this family than that they should be sunk
into a most deplorable state of degradation and depravity? This, it
may be said, is an extreme case, but there are many similar, and a
very great number that make near approaches to it. To pursue a further
account of this family: the man is reported to be a good labourer, the
cottage he held was recently pulled down, and being unable to procure
another, he was forced to come into the workhouse. After being in a
short time, they left to try again to get a home, but again failed.
The man then absconded, and the family returned to the workhouse. The
eldest, a female, has had a bastard child, and another, younger, also
a female but grown up, has recently been sentenced to transportation
for stealing in a dwelling house. The family, when they came in, were
observed to be of grossly filthy habits and of disgusting behaviour; I
am glad to say, however, that their general conduct and appearance is
very much improved since they have become inmates of the workhouse. I
without scruple express my opinion that their degraded moral state is
mainly attributable to the wretched way in which they have lived and
herded together as previously described. I have been thus particular
in my account of this family, knowing it to be a type of many others,
and intending it to apply to that part of your letter inquiring
respecting the comparative character of the female inmates and
children of the two descriptions of cottages in question.”
The _relieving officer_ of the Leighton Buzzard union states that, in
Leighton,—
“There are a number of cottages without sleeping-rooms separate from
the day-rooms, and frequently three or four families are found
occupying the same bed-room, and young men and women promiscuously
sleeping in the same apartment.”
_Mr. Blick_, the medical officer of the Bicester union, states that:—
“The residences of the poor in that part of the district are most
wretched, the majority consisting of only one room below and one
above, in which a family of eight or ten (upon an average, I should
say five), live and sleep. In one of these rooms I have witnessed a
father, mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, lying at
the same time with typhus fever: but few of the adjacent residents
escaped the infection.”
Mr. _L. O. Fox_, the medical officer of the Romsey union, states:—
“There is not only a great want of cottages, but also of room in those
which now stand. In the parish of Mottisfont I have known 14
individuals of one family together in a small room, the mother being
in labour at the time, and in the adjoining room seven other persons
sleeping, making 21 persons, in a space which should be occupied by
six persons only at most. Here are the young woman and young man of 18
or 20 years of age lying alongside of the father and mother, and the
latter actually in labour. It will be asked what is the condition of
the inmates?—Just such as might be expected.”
_Dr. Gilly_, the canon of Durham, whose appeal on behalf of the border
peasantry, and description of the sheds into which they are placed have
been cited, observes, upon the crowding of these small places, 24 feet
by 16, with 8, 10, or even 12 persons:—
“How they lie down to rest, how they sleep, how they can preserve
common decency, how unutterable horrors are avoided, is beyond all
conception. The case is aggravated when there is a young woman to be
lodged in this confined space who is not a member of the family, but
is hired to do the field-work, for which every hind is bound to
provide a female. It shocks every feeling of propriety to think that
in a room, and within such a space as I have been describing,
civilized beings should be herding together without a decent
separation of age and sex. So long as the agricultural system in this
district requires the hind to find room for a fellow-servant of the
other sex in his cabin, the least that morality and decency can demand
is that he should have a second apartment where the unmarried female
and those of a tender age should sleep apart from him and his wife.
Last Whitsuntide, when the annual lettings were taking place, a hind,
who had lived one year in the hovel he was about to quit, called to
say farewell, and to thank me for some trifling kindness I had been
able to show him. He was a fine tall man of about 45, a fair specimen
of the frank, sensible, well-spoken, well-informed Northumbrian
peasantry—of that peasantry of which a militia regiment was composed,
which so amazed the Londoners (when it was garrisoned in the capital
many years ago) by the size, the noble deportment, the soldier-like
bearing, and the good conduct of the men. I thought this a good
opportunity of asking some questions. Where was he going? and how
would he dispose of his large family (eleven in number)? He told me
they were to inhabit one of these hind’s cottages, whose narrow
dimensions were less than 24 feet by 15, and that the eleven would
have only three beds to sleep on; that he himself, his wife, a
daughter of 6, and a boy of 4 years old, would sleep in one bed; that
a daughter of 18, a son of 12, a son of 10, and a daughter of 8 would
have a second bed; and a third would receive his three sons of the age
of 20, 16, and 14. ‘Pray,’ said I, ‘do you not think that this is a
very improper way of disposing of your family?’ ‘Yes, certainly,’ was
the answer; ‘it is very improper in a Christian point of view; but
what can we do until they build us better houses.’”
_Mr. Riddall Wood_ was examined as to the effects of overcrowded
tenements on the moral habits observed in the course of his visits from
house to house in the various towns he was engaged to examine:—
“In what towns did you find instances of the greatest crowding of the
habitations?—In Manchester, Liverpool, Ashton-under-Lyne, and
Pendleton. In a cellar in Pendleton, I recollect there were three beds
in the two apartments of which the habitation consisted, but having no
door between them, in one of which a man and his wife slept; in
another, a man, his wife and child; and in a third two unmarried
females. In Hull I have met with cases somewhat similar. A mother
about 50 years of age, and her son I should think 25, at all events
above 21, sleeping in the same bed, and a lodger in the same room. I
have two or three instances in Hull in which a mother was sleeping
with her grown up son, and in most cases there were other persons
sleeping in the same room, in another bed. In a cellar in Liverpool, I
found a mother and her grown-up daughters sleeping on a bed of chaff
on the ground in one corner of the cellar, and in the other corner
three sailors had their bed. I have met with upwards of 40 persons
sleeping in the same room, married and single, including, of course,
children and several young adult persons of either sex. In Manchester
I could enumerate a variety of instances in which I found such
promiscuous mixture of the sexes in sleeping-rooms. I may mention one;
a man, his wife and child sleeping in one bed; in another bed, two
grown up females; and in the same room two young men, unmarried. I
have met with instances of a man, his wife, and his wife’s sister,
sleeping in the same bed together. I have known at least half-a-dozen
cases in Manchester in which that has been regularly practised, the
unmarried sister being an adult.
“In the course of your own inquiry, how many instances, if you were to
look over your Notes, of persons of different sexes sleeping
promiscuously, do you think you met with?—I think I am speaking within
bounds when I say I have amongst my memoranda above 100 cases,
including, of course, cases of persons of different sexes sleeping in
the same room.
“Was it so common as to be in nowise deemed extraordinary or culpable
amongst that class of persons?—It seemed not to be thought of. As a
proof of this I may mention one circumstance which just occurs to
me:—Early in my visitation of Pendleton, I called at the dwelling of a
person whose sons worked with himself in a colliery. It was in the
afternoon, when a young man, one of the sons, came down stairs in his
shirt and stood before the fire where a very decently-dressed young
female was sitting. The son asked his mother for a clean shirt, and on
its being given to him, very deliberately threw off the shirt he had
on, and after warming the clean one, put it on. In another dwelling in
Pendleton, a young girl 18 years of age, sat by the fire in her
chemise during the whole time of my visit. Both these were houses of
working people (colliers), and not by any means of ill-fame.
“During your inquiries were you able to observe any further
demoralization attendant upon these circumstances?—I have frequently
met with instances in which the parties themselves have traced their
own depravity to these circumstances. As, for example, while I was
following out my inquiries in Hull, I found in one room a prostitute,
with whom I remonstrated on her course of life, and asked her whether
she would not be in a better condition if she were an honest servant
instead of living in vice and wretchedness. She admitted she should,
and on asking the cause of her being brought to her present condition,
she stated that she had lodged with a married sister, and slept in the
same bed with her and her husband; that hence improper intercourse
took place, and from that she gradually became more and more depraved;
and at length was thrown upon the town, because, having lost her
character, the town was her only resource. Another female of this
description admitted that her first false step was in consequence of
her sleeping in the same room with a married couple. In the instance I
have mentioned of the two single women sleeping in the same room with
the married people, I have good authority for believing that they were
common to the men. In the case which I have mentioned of the two
daughters and the woman where I found the sailors, I learned, from the
mother’s admission, that they were common to the lodgers. In all of
these cases the sense of decency was obliterated.”
_Mr. Baker_, in his report on the condition of the labouring classes in
Leeds corroborates this statement:—
“In the houses of the working classes, brothers and sisters, and
lodgers of both sexes, are found occupying the same sleeping-room with
the parents, and consequences occur which humanity shudders to
contemplate. It is but three or four years ago since a father and
daughter stood at the bar of the Leeds Sessions as criminals, the one
in concealing, and the other in being an accessary to concealing, the
birth of an illegitimate child, born on the body of the daughter by
the father; and now, in November, 1841, one of the Registrars of Leeds
has recorded the birth of an illegitimate child born on the body of a
young girl, only 16 years of age, who lived with her mother, who
cohabited with her lodger, the father of this child, of which the girl
had been pregnant five months, when the mother died.”
The overcrowding of the tenements of the labouring classes is productive
of demoralization in a mode pointed out by _Mr. Barnett_, the clerk to
the Nottingham Union, who states—
“That the houses are generally too small to afford a comfortable
reception to the family, and the consequence is that the junior
members are generally in the streets. Girls and youths destitute of
adequate house-room, and freed from parental control, are accustomed
to gross immoralities.”
Hereafter, when considering the pecuniary means of defraying the expense
of sanitary measures, it will be shown how much less of such
consequences in most districts than may be supposed is ascribable to
absolute poverty or real inability to pay for better accommodation. To
obviate even immediate impressions of this description, I might adduce
much evidence of the character of the following testimony of _Mr. J.
Thomson_, of Clitheroe:—
“What is the number of persons whom you have in your employment?—Men,
women, and children, between 900 and 1000.
“Are you the owner of any of the tenements where they reside?—Very
few; not more than 12 or 15.
“What description of tenements are they?—Houses with two rooms above,
two rooms below, and a yard; and letting at a rent of from 7_l._ to
8_l._ per annum. These are occupied by foremen in various departments,
and the better description of artisans.
“What wages do this description of persons earn?—Various, from 30_s._
to 3_l._ weekly; averaging, perhaps, 2_l._ weekly; out of which they
pay 3_s._ per week for rent.
“What is your experience in respect to the habits of the workpeople in
these tenements?—The remark which I have to make is on the very low
state of feeling prevalent amongst even a high class of workmen as to
decency or propriety. The tenements sufficed for them when they were
young, but when the female children become young women, and the boys
advance to puberty, and decency requires them to have separate rooms,
the usual practice of the parents is to take the young women into
their own sleeping-rooms. I have one highly respectable foreman who
has one daughter aged 20, and another aged 22, sleeping on each side
of the bed in which himself and his wife sleep. The next bed-room is
filled with the younger children of both sexes, boys and girls, up to
16 years of age. The earnings of this family must have been 50_s._ per
week. The rent they paid was 3_s._ weekly, which was little more than
the interest on the money invested. I have remonstrated on the
indecency of such habits, and on their bad effects, but the expense of
the extra shilling a-week for a house with another bed-room was
considered a sufficient answer to my remonstrance. In my own tenements
I have built the additional room, and notwithstanding the
remonstrances, I have required the additional rent. When they have
remonstrated, I have told them of the fact, that the cost of the
additional room would only be a beneficial deduction from the money
spent in liquor.”
It would require much time and various opportunities of observation to
attempt to make an exact analysis of the combined causes, and an
estimate of the effect of each separate cause which operate to produce
the masses of moral and physical wretchedness met with in the
investigation of the condition of the lowest population. But it became
evident, in the progress of the inquiry, that several separate
circumstances had each its separate moral as well as physical influence.
Thus tenements of inferior construction had manifestly an injurious
operation on the moral as well as on the sanitary condition,
independently of any overcrowding. For example, it appears to be matter
of common observation, in the instance of migrant families of workpeople
who are obliged to occupy inferior tenements, that their habits soon
become “of a piece” with the dwelling. A gentleman who has observed
closely the condition of the workpeople in the south of Cheshire and the
north of Lancashire, men of similar race and education, working at the
same description of work, namely, as cotton-spinners, mill hands, and
earning nearly the same amount of wages, states that the workmen of the
north of Lancashire are obviously inferior to those in the south of
Cheshire, in health and habits of personal cleanliness and general
condition. The difference is traced mainly to the circumstance, that the
labourers in the north of Lancashire inhabit stone houses of a
description that absorb moisture, the dampness of which affects the
health, and causes personal uncleanliness, induced by the difficulty of
keeping a clean house. The operation of the same deteriorating
influences were also observable in Scotland, and it may be illustrated
by several instances which I have met with in the course of my own
personal inquiries.
One of the circumstances most favourable to the improvement of the
condition of an artisan or an agricultural labourer, is his obtaining as
a wife a female who has had a good industrial training in the well
regulated household of persons of a higher condition. The following
instance of the effect of the dwelling itself on the condition of a
female servant when married, was brought to my notice by a member of the
family in which they had been brought up. One was of a young woman who
had been taught the habits of neatness, order, and cleanliness most
thoroughly as regards household work.
“Her attention to personal neatness,” says a lady who is my informant,
“was very great; her face seemed always as if it were just washed, and
with her bright hair neatly combed underneath her snowwhite cap, a
smooth white apron, and her gown and handkerchief carefully put on,
she used to look very comely. After a year or two, she married the
serving man, who, as he was retained in his situation, was obliged to
take a house as near his place as possible. The cottages in the
neighbourhood were of the most wretched kind, mere hovels built of
rough stones and covered with ragged thatch; there were few even of
these, so there was no choice, and they were obliged to be content
with the first that was vacant, which was in the most retired
situation. After they had been married about two years, I happened to
be walking past one of these miserable cottages, and as the door was
open, I had the curiosity to enter. I found it was the home of the
servant I have been describing. But what a change had come over her!
Her face was dirty, and her tangled hair hung over her eyes. Her cap,
though of good materials, was ill washed and slovenly put on. Her
whole dress, though apparently good and serviceable, was very untidy,
and looked dirty and slatternly; everything indeed about her seemed
wretched and neglected, (except her little child,) and she appeared
very discontented. She seemed aware of the change there must be in her
appearance since I had last seen her, for she immediately began to
complain of her house. The wet came in at the door of the _only room_,
and when it rained, through every part of the roof also, except just
over the hearth-stone; large drops fell upon her as she lay in bed, or
as she was working at the window: in short, she had found it
impossible to keep things in order, so had gradually ceased to make
any exertions. Her condition had been borne down by the condition of
the house. Then her husband was dissatisfied with his home and with
her; his visits became less frequent, and if he had been a day
labourer, and there had been a beer-shop or a public-house, the
preference of that to his home would have been inevitable, and in the
one instance would have presented an example of a multitude of cases.
“She was afterwards, however, removed to a new cottage, which was
water-tight, and had some conveniences, and was built close to the
road, which her former mistress and all her friends must constantly
pass along. She soon resumed, in a great degree, her former good
habits, but still there was a little of the _dawdle_ left about her;
the remains of the dispiritedness caused by her former very
unfavourable circumstances.”
I visited some other dwellings not far from the one above described, and
met with another instance of a female who had been brought up as a
servant in a well-ordered house, and who, for her station, had received
a very excellent religious and moral education. Before her marriage she
had been distinguished by the refinement with which she sung national
airs, and for her knowledge of the Bible and of the doctrines of her
church. Her personal condition had become of “a piece” with the wretched
stone undrained hovel, with a pigsty before it, in which she had been
taken. We found her with rings of dirt about her neck, and turning over
with dirty hands Brown’s Dictionary, to see whether the newly-elected
minister was “sound” in his doctrine. In this case no moral lapse was
apparent, but the children were apparently brought up under great
disadvantages.
There, however, as in most cases, the internal economy of the houses
were primarily affected by the defective internal and surrounding
drainage that produced the damp and wet, and thence the dirt against
which the inmates had ceased to contend. On inquiry of the male
labourers in the district, it appeared that almost every third man was
subjected to rheumatism; and with them, it was evident that the
prevalence of damp and marsh miasma from the want of drainage, if it did
not necessitate, formed a strong temptation to, the use of ardent
spirits. With them as with the females, the wretched condition of the
tenement formed a strong barrier against personal cleanliness and the
use of decent clothes.
In the rural districts the very defects of the cottages which let in the
fresh air, in spite of all the efforts of the inmates to exclude it,
often obviate the effects of the overcrowding and defective ventilation.
It has been observed, that while the labouring population of several
districts have had no shelter but huts, similar to those described by
Dr. Gilly, as the habitations of the border peasantry, which afforded a
free passage for currents of air, they were not subject to fevers,
though they were to rheumatism; but when, through the good intentions of
the proprietors, such habitations were provided as were deemed more
comfortable from excluding the weather effectually, but which, from the
neglect of ventilation afforded recesses for stagnating air, and
impurities which they had not the means or had not a sufficient love of
cleanliness to remove; though rheumatism was excluded, febrile infection
was generated. In the towns the access of the wind is impeded by the
closeness of the surrounding habitations, and the internal construction
of the dwellings tends to exclude the air still more effectually. Were
the closed windows opened, it would frequently be only to admit a worse
compound, the air from neglected privies, and the miasma from the wet
and undrained court or street.
The close pent up air in these abodes has, undoubtedly, a depressing
effect on the nervous energies, and this again, with the uneducated, and
indeed with many of the educated workpeople, has an effect on the moral
habits by acting as a strong and often irresistible provocative to the
use of fermented liquors and ardent spirits. Much may be due to the
incitement of association of greater numbers of people, but it is a
common fact that, the same workpeople indulge more in drink when living
in the close courts and lanes of the town than when living in the
country, and that the residence in the different places is attended with
a difference of effects similar to those described in respect to the
tailors working in crowded rooms in towns and the tailors working
separately or in the country. The workpeople who have fallen into habits
of drinking, strenuously allege the impossibility of avoiding the
practice in such places; they do, however, drink in greater quantities
in such places, and give increased effect to the noxious miasma by which
they are surrounded.
Some inquiries from _Mr. Liddle_, the medical officer of the Whitechapel
union, as to the condition of the workpeople he visited in such places
as he has described, brought to notice another indirect effect of the
external as well as the internal condition of the dwelling on their
domestic economy and general condition.
It appeared that the persons whom he visited for the purpose of
administering medical relief, were men earning, when in work, from
16_s._ to 20_s._ per week, the women earning proportionably. Yet
whenever they were subjected to the frequent attacks of sickness which
prevailed amongst them, they were in the most, wretched destitution: the
house was bare of everything; they had no provisions and no credit, and
their need for relief was most imminent. In answer to the inquiry how
this was to be accounted for, inasmuch as with agricultural labourers
who earned little more than half that sum, and paid nearly as much for
their food, in visiting their cottages with their ministers, I had
commonly observed some store of provisions; Mr. Liddle stated that in
such places as those in his district, in such atmospheres, a store of
provisions would not keep: everything decayed rapidly, and the
workpeople consequently lived “from hand to mouth.” On inquiring as to
this fact from a respectable butcher, accustomed to sell meat to persons
living in such situations, he stated that—
“Meat sold on a Saturday night, in hot weather, to poor people, who
have only one close room, in which they sleep, and live, and cook,
will certainly turn before the Sunday morning; when, if it were kept
in the butcher’s shop, or in a well-ventilated place, it would be in
as good a condition on the Monday morning. There is a great deal of
loss of meat in consequence of the want of ventilation and bad
condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes. The butter kept in
such places sooner becomes rancid, and the bread dry and
disagreeable.”
Here, then, we have from the one agent, a close and polluted atmosphere,
two different sets of effects; the one set here noticed engendering
improvidence, expense, and waste,—the other, the depressing effects of
external and internal miasma on the nervous system, tending to incite
the habitual use of ardent spirits; both tending to precipitate this
population into disease and misery.
The familiarity with the sickness and death constantly present in the
crowded and unwholesome districts, appears to re-act as another
concurrent, cause in aggravation of the wretchedness and vice in which
they are plunged. Seeing the apparent uncertainty of the morrow, the
inhabitants really take no heed of it, and abandon themselves with the
recklessness and avidity of common soldiers in a war to whatever gross
enjoyment comes within their reach. All the districts I visited, where
the rate of sickness and mortality was high, presented, as might be
expected, a proportionate amount of severe cases of destitute orphanage
and widowhood; and the same places were marked by excessive recklessness
of the labouring population. In Dumfries, for example, it is estimated,
that the cholera, swept away one-eleventh part of the population. Until
recently, the town had not recovered the severe effects of the
visitation, and the condition of the orphans was most deplorable.
Amongst young artisans who were earning from 16_s._ to 18_s._ a-week, I
was informed that there were very few who made any reserves against the
casualties of sickness. I was led to ask the provost what number of
bakers’ shops there were? “Twelve,” was his answer. And what number of
whiskey-shops may the town possess? “Seventy-nine” was the reply. If we
might rely on the inquiries made of working-men when Dr. Arnott and I
went through the wynds of Edinburgh, their consumption of spirits bore
almost the like proportion to the consumption of wholesome food. We
observed to Captain Stuart, the superintendent of the police at
Edinburgh, in our inspection of the wynds, that life appeared to be of
little value, and was likely to be held cheap in such spots. He stated,
in answer, that a short time ago a man had been executed for the murder
of his wife in a fit of passion in the very room we had accidentally
entered, and where we were led to make the observation. At a short
distance from that spot, and amidst others of this class of habitation,
were those which had been the scenes of the murders by Burke and Hare.
Yet amidst these were the residences of working men engaged in regular
industry. The indiscriminate mixture of workpeople and their children in
the immediate vicinity, and often in the same rooms with persons whose
character was denoted by the question and answer more than once
exchanged, “When were you last washed?” “When I was last in prison,” was
only one mark of the entire degradation to which they had been brought.
The working-classes living in these districts were equally marked by the
abandonment, of every civil or social regulation. Asking some children
in one of the rooms of the wynds in which they swarmed in Glasgow what
were their names, they hesitated to answer, when one of the inmates
said, they called them ——, mentioning some nicknames. “The fact is,”
observed Captain Miller, the superintendent of the police, “they really
have no names. Within this range of buildings I have no doubt I should
be able to find a thousand children who have no names whatever, or only
nicknames, like dogs.” There were found amidst the occupants, labourers
earning wages undoubtedly sufficient to have paid for comfortable
tenements, men and women who were intelligent, and so far as could be
ascertained, had received the ordinary education which should have given
better tastes and led to better habits. My own observations have been
confirmed by the statement of Mr. Sheriff Alison, of Glasgow, that in
the great manufacturing towns of Scotland, “in the contest with whiskey,
in their crowded population, education has been entirely overthrown.”
The ministers, it will be seen, make similar reports from the rural
districts. On the observation of other districts, and the comparison of
the habits of the same workmen in town and country, it will be seen that
I consider that the use of the whiskey and the prostration of the
education and moral habits for which the Scottish labourers have been
distinguished is, to a considerable extent, attributable to the
surrounding physical circumstances, including the effects of the bad
ventilation. The labourers presented to our notice in the condition
described, in the crowded districts, were almost all Scotch. It is
common to ascribe the extreme of misery and vice wholly to the Irish
portion of the population of the towns in Scotland. A short inspection
on the spot would correct this error. Mr. Baird, in his report on the
sanitary condition of the poor of Glasgow, observes that “the bad name
of the poor Irish had been too long attached to them.” Dr. Cowan, of
Glasgow, stated that “From ample opportunities of observation, they
appeared to him to exhibit much less of that squalid misery and
addiction to the use of ardent spirits than the Scotch of the same
grade.” Instances were indeed stated to us, where the Irish were
preferred for employment from their superior steadiness and docility;
and Mr. Stuart, the Factory Inspector for Scotland, states, that
“instances are now occurring of a preference being given to them as
workers in the flax factories on account of their regular habits, and
that very significant hints have been given by extensive factory owners,
that Irish workmen will be selected unless the natives of the place, and
other persons employed by them, relinquish the prevailing habits of
intemperance.” Dr. Scott Alison, in his report on Tranent, has described
the population in receipt of high wages, but living under similar
influences, as prone to passionate excitement, and as apt instruments
for political discontents; their moral perceptions appeared to have been
obliterated, and they might be said to be characterised by a “ferocious
indocility which makes them prompt to wrong and violence, destroys their
social nature, and transforms them into something little better than
wild beasts.”
It is to be regretted that the coincidence of pestilence and moral
disorder is not confined to one part of the island, nor to any one race
of the population. The overcrowding and the removal of what may be
termed the architectural barriers or protections of decency and
propriety, and the causes of physical deterioration in connexion with
the moral deterioration, are also fearfully manifest in the districts in
England, which, at the time to which the evidence refers, were in a
state of prosperity.
_Mr. Baker_, in his report on the condition of the population, after
giving an instance of the contrast presented by the working people
living in better dwellings, situated in better cleansed neighbourhoods
(to which I shall advert when submitting the evidence in respect to
preventive measures), describes the population living in houses—
“With broken panes in every window-frame, and filth and vermin in
every nook. With the walls unwhitewashed for years, black with the
smoke of foul chimneys, without water, with corded bed-stocks for
beds, and sacking for bed-clothing, with floors unwashed from year to
year, without out-offices, * * * * while without, there are streets,
elevated a foot, sometimes two, above the level of the causeway, by
the accumulation of years, and stagnant puddles here and there, with
their fœtid exhalations, causeways broken and dangerous, ash-places
choked up with filth, and excrementitious deposits on all sides as a
consequence, undrained, unpaved, unventilated, uncared-for by any
authority but the landlord, who weekly collects his miserable rents
from his miserable tenants.
“Can we wonder that such places are the hot-beds of disease, or that
it obtains, upon constitutions thus liberally predisposed to receive
it, and forms the mortality which Leeds exhibits. Adult life, exposed
to such miasmata, gives way. How much more then infant life, when
ushered into, and attempted to be reared in, such obnoxious
atmospheres. On the moral habits similar effects are produced. An
inattention on the part of the local authorities to the state of the
streets diminishes year by year the respectability of their occupiers.
None dwell in such localities but to whom propinquity to employment is
absolutely essential. Those who might advocate a better state of
things, depart; and of those who remain, the one-half, by repeated
exhibitions of indecency and vulgarity, and indeed by the mere fact of
neighbourship, sink into the moral degradation which is natural to the
other, and vicious habits and criminal propensities precede the death
which these combinations prepare.”
No education as yet commonly given appears to have availed against such
demoralizing circumstances as those described; but the cases of moral
improvement of a population, by cleansing, draining, and the improvement
of the internal and external conditions of the dwellings, of which
instances will be presented, are more numerous and decided, though there
still occur instances of persons in whom the love of ardent spirits has
gained such entire possession as to have withstood all such means of
retrieving them. The most experienced public officers acquainted with
the condition of the inferior population of the towns would agree in
giving the first place in efficiency and importance to the removal of
what may be termed the physical barriers to improvement, and that as
against such barriers moral agencies have but a remote chance of
success.
A gentleman who has had considerable experience in the management of
large numbers of the manufacturing population stated to me that in every
case of personal and moral improvement the successful step was made by
the removal of the party from the ill-conditioned neighbourhood in which
he had been brought up. When a young workman married, he interfered to
get him a better residence apart from the rest; and when this was done
important alterations followed; but if he took up his abode in the old
neighbourhood, the condition of the wife was soon brought down to the
common level, and the marriage became a source of wretchedness.
Benevolent persons, viewing the bare aspect of some of the most
afflicted neighbourhoods, have raised subscriptions for the purchase of
furniture, bedding, and blankets, for the relief of the inmates, but by
this pecuniary aid they have only added fuel to the flame; that is, they
have enabled the inmates to purchase more ardent spirits. The force of
the habit, which is aggravated by misdirected charity, is indicated in
the following instances, of which one was mentioned to me by the _Rev.
Whitwell Elwin_:—
“I was lately informed by a master tailor of Bath that one of his men,
who had earned 3_l._ a-week at piece-work for years, had never within
his knowledge possessed table, chairs, or bedding. I found the
statement on examination to be strictly true. Some straw on which he
slept, a square block of wood, a low three-legged stool, and an old
tea-caddy, are the complete inventory of the articles of a room, the
occupier of which, with only himself and his wife to maintain, was
wealthier than many in the station of gentlemen. He had frequently
excited lively compassion in benevolent individuals, who, supposing
that he was struggling for very existence, furnished him with a
variety of household goods, which were regularly pawned before a week
was out, and afforded to the superficial observer fresh evidence of
the extremity of his distress. The cause of all this is quickly told:
the wife was to be seen going to and fro several times a-day with a
cream-jug of gin, and to gratify this appetite, they had voluntarily
reduced themselves to the condition of savages. I could add numerous
instances of a similar kind. Indeed, were a stranger to go through the
town, and judge only from the appearance of things, I am convinced
that he would select his examples of greatest privation not from the
really poor, but from men who were in the receipt of more than 30_s._
a-week. Charity, which when prompted by pure motives, always blesses
him that gives, does not always bless him that takes. I am afraid that
the indiscriminate adoption of dirt and rags as a test of poverty,
especially in a town like Bath, where private charity prevails on an
extensive scale, operates as a premium upon ill habits, and as a
discouragement to cleanliness, and leads many to affect a vice which
was not habitual to them.”
As an instance of that state of voluntary wretchedness which renders all
such charity or assistance worse than useless, I may give an incident
mentioned to me by _Sir Charles Shaw_, the chief commissioner of the new
police force in Manchester:—
“A week since,” says Sir Charles, “I sent an inspector of police to
examine a lodging-house. He came back to state that he had never
witnessed such a sight. He found in one room, totally destitute of
furniture, three men and two women lying on the bare floor, without
straw, and with bricks only for their pillows. I observed, that I
supposed they were drunk. ‘Yes,’ said the inspector; ‘they were, and I
found the lodging-house keeper himself in a tolerable bed, and in
another room I found bundles of fine fresh straw. I blamed the man for
not giving that straw to his lodgers.’ He answered, ‘I keep that straw
for the people who prefer purchasing it to gin: those above stairs
preferred the gin.’ It is, I find, a common thing here for
lodging-house keepers to have straw for sale.”
In the course of an examination which I took, under the Poor Law
Commission of Inquiry, from the late _Mr. Walker_, the stipendiary
magistrate of the Thames Police Office, he observed, in respect to cases
of apparent destitution:—
“Casualties occurring among the indigent or profligate are at all
times liable to be represented as cases resulting from the neglect of
the proper authorities. Some time ago, in going round the parish of
Whitechapel with the churchwardens, during service-time, we entered an
old building in Rosemary-lane, for which there was then no owner, the
stairs were so dark and ruinous that though it was mid-day we were
obliged to have a candle, to enable us to go up to them: the
first-floor was the receptacle of every description of filth. We
entered one room, in which we found two half-naked dirty children;
their mother lay in one corner on some dirty straw, covered only with
a sack. There was no furniture nor other articles in the place, except
a fagot of wood and a few broken plates, a basket of skate, and some
sprats strewed on the floor. This woman was a fish-hawker, a business
by which, in all probability, she gained enough to have made her
extremely comfortable, but she preferred an alternation of great
privation and profligate enjoyment. Had she accidentally died in this
state, here would have been a scene of misery, and a case of
excitement for the philanthropists! In our district there are other
premises under similar circumstances, all of which are tenanted by
persons of the very lowest grade; and it is surprising, considering
the state in which they live, that unaccountable deaths, having the
semblance of starvation, do not take place amongst them. From what I
have observed of these places, I am fully convinced that if shambles
were built on any spot, and all who choose were allowed to occupy
them, they would soon be occupied by a race lower than any yet known.
I have often said that if empty casks were placed along the streets of
Whitechapel, in a few days each of them would have a tenant, and these
tenants would keep up their kind, and prey upon the rest of the
community. I am sure that if such facilities were offered, there is no
conceivable degradation to which portions of the species might not be
reduced. Allow these tub-men no education, and you would have so many
savages living in the midst of civilization. Wherever there are empty
houses which are not secured, they are soon tenanted by wretched
objects, and these tenants continue so long as there is a harbour for
them. Parish officers and others come to me to aid them in clearing
such places. I tell the police and the parish that there is no use in
their watching these places, that they must board them up if they
would get rid of the occupants. If they will give the accommodation
they will get the occupants. If you will have marshes and stagnant
waters you will there have suitable animals, and the only way of
getting rid of them is by draining the marshes.”
The _Reverend Whitwell Elwin_ observes upon this subject that—
“Those who think that labourers will work for themselves a reform in
their habitations very much underrate the effects of habit. A person
accustomed to fresh air, and all the comforts of civilized life, goes
into a miserable room, dirty, bare, and, above all, sickening from the
smell. Judging from his own sensations, he conceives that nothing but
the most abject poverty could have produced this state of things, and
he can imagine nothing necessary to a cure but a way for escape. A
very simple experiment will correct these erroneous impressions. Let
him remain a short time in the room, and the perception of closeness
will so entirely vanish that he will almost fancy that the atmosphere
has been purified since his entrance. There are few who are not
familiar with this fact; and if such are the effects of an hour in
blunting our refined sensations, and rendering them insensible to
noxious exhalations, what must be the influence of years on the
coarser perceptions of the working-man?
“All who know the lower classes will testify that the last want felt
by the dirty is cleanliness, that their last expenditure is on the
comforts of their home. Two winters ago I found a painter whose bed
was without blankets, whose room was without furniture, who was
destitute even of the ordinary utensils of civilized life, whose floor
was covered with worse filth than that of the streets—I found this man
at dinner with a roast loin of pork stuffed with onions, a Yorkshire
pudding, a large jug of ale, cheese, and a salad. I will undertake to
say that half the gentlemen in Bath did not sit down on that Sunday to
so good a dinner.”
A number of communications simply assign “intemperance” as the cause of
fever, and of the prevalent mortality. Of most of these communications,
which it were unnecessary to recite, it may be observed, that when
intemperance is mentioned as the cause of disease, as being the
immediate antecedent, on carrying investigation a little further back,
discomfort is found to be the immediate antecedent to the intemperance;
and where the external causes of positive discomfort do not prevail in
the towns, the workpeople are generally found to have few or no rival
pleasures to wean them from habits of intemperance, and to have come
from districts subject to the discomforts likely to engender them. In
one of the returns from Scotland it is observed that with the people,
whether for a fever, a cold, or consumption, or a pleurisy, whiskey is
the universal antidote. The popular belief that fermented liquor or
ardent spirits are proper antidotes to the effects of damp or cold has
been universal, and has not wanted even medical sanction. Out-door
allowances of beer have been prescribed by some medical officers in
marshy and undrained districts as the proper preservatives against ague
or rheumatism. The Board will now be in a position to urge the
importance of facilitating drainage as a means for the protection of the
population by the prevention of disease and the inducement to pernicious
habits, as well as a source of profitable industry. It is now beginning
to be observed in several dangerous occupations that temperance is the
best means of withstanding the effects of the noxious agencies which
they have to encounter. Amongst the painters, for example, the men who
are temperate and cleanly suffer little from the occupation, but if any
one of them become intemperate, the noxious causes take effect with a
certainty and rapidity proportioned to the relaxed domestic habits. The
Inquiry presents many instances of the beneficial effects of the changes
of the popular habit of having recourse to fermented liquors or to
spirits as necessary protective stimulants. In several of the mining
districts, for example, it is an extensive practice to provide for the
accommodation of the miners out of the hot mines a room in which they
may drink beer as a preservative against the effects of the change to
the cold and damp air to which they are about to expose themselves. _Dr.
Barham_, in his Report to the Commissioners appointed to inquire into
the Employment of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactories, notices an
admirable example within the province of voluntary exertion, and the
beneficial effects produced by it at the Dolcoath copper and tin mine,
Camborne, Cornwall. There the proprietors, besides establishing other
easy and economical preventive arrangements, provide a warm room for the
miners to change their dresses and take hot meat-soup, which is cheaper,
probably, than beer. “And the men” (says a witness) “say they never feel
cold when they take it. We conceive that there have been much fewer
cases of consumption on the club since this practice has been adopted.”
The effects of the noxious physical agencies on the moral condition of
the population will receive more full illustration in connexion with the
statistical evidence as to their effects, with the evidence on the
practical operation of the means of prevention.
_Domestic mismanagement, a predisposing cause of disease._
The subsequent examples relate chiefly to the effects of general
domestic mismanagement as a concurrent cause of disease.
_Dr. Baker_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the population
of Derby, states that—
“There is also another cause of sickness to be found in their houses,
and which, like the former, _i. e._, the external circumstances, is in
constant operation: I mean the want of domestic comforts, a want which
the wages they earn would, in many instances, enable them to remove if
their means were not, as too often happens, expended viciously or
improvidently. It is with regret that I speak unfavourably of the
poor, whilst my whole aim, in this communication, has been to awaken a
sympathy towards those sufferings of which I have been so often a
witness. But several years’ experience of the habits of the poor,
derived from my situation as an hospital physician, and backed by the
additional evidence I have obtained by acting for three years as a
guardian of the poor in this large town, has, I am sorry to say,
served but to confirm me in the opinion I have just now expressed; and
in support of which I shall instance the family of the Slaters
mentioned at No. 12, in Short-street.
“The earnings of four members of this family were as follows:—
_s._ _d._
The father 14 0 per week, at gardening, &c.
The eldest son, aged 20 12 0 per week, at a brewery.
Daughter {Twins, } 6 0 per week, at a factory.
Son {aged 18} 9 0 per week, at the same factory.
—— —— —
£2 1 0 per week.
“The mother of this family, it appears, is left disengaged from all
but her household duties and the care of the younger children; the
house, nevertheless, is nearly destitute of furniture, and presents a
picture of disorder and want. On the other hand, at No. 15, (Briggs)
although the husband has for some years past been a weak and ailing
man, the family is well ordered and cleanly; and to this fact I mainly
attribute the milder and modified form of fever which affected the
children.”
The Committee of Physicians and Surgeons at Birmingham, in their report,
indicate the powerful operation of depraved domestic habits as a
predisposing cause to disease:—
“It cannot,” they say, “be doubted that whilst the arts and
manufactures of the place prove in some instances injurious to health,
and in a few possibly destructive to life, these evil consequences, as
well as hereditary predisposition to disease, are promoted by
intemperance, not that intemperance is an infinitely more frequent
cause of disease and death amongst the artisans than all the various
employments of all the manufactories combined.
“In the expenditure of their weekly earnings, improvidence and
thoughtless extravagance prevail to a lamentable degree. The
observations upon which this opinion is formed are made upon the
habits of the people themselves, confirmed by extensive and recent
inquiries among the shopkeepers with whom they deal. Tea, coffee,
sugar, butter, cheese, bacon, (of which a great deal is consumed in
this town,) and other articles, the working people purchase in small
quantities from the hucksters, who charge an enormous profit upon
them, being, as they state, compelled to do so to cover the losses
which they frequently sustain by bad debts. Huckster dealing is a most
extravagant mode of dealing; there were in this town, in 1834, 717 of
these shops, and the number has greatly increased since that time.
Meat is purchased in the same improvident manner; the working men
generally contrive to have a good joint of meat upon the Sunday; the
dinner on the other days of the week is made from steaks or chops,
which is the most extravagant mode either of purchasing or cooking
meat.
“The improvidence of this class of persons arises in many instances
from the indulgence of vicious propensities. Drunkenness, with all its
attendant miseries, prevails to a great extent, though it is by no
means to be regarded as a characteristic feature of the mechanic of
this town in particular. It most generally prevails among that class
of workmen who obtain the highest wages, but who are often found in
the most deplorable and abject condition. The improvidence of which we
are speaking is to be traced in very many instances to extreme
ignorance on the part of the wives of these people. The females are
from necessity bred up from their youth in the workshops, as the
earnings of the younger members contribute to the support of the
family. The minds and morals of the girls become debased, and they
marry totally ignorant of all those habits of domestic economy which
tend to render a husband’s home comfortable and happy; and this is
very often the cause of the man being driven to the alehouse to seek
that comfort after his day of toil which he looks for in vain by his
own fireside. The habit of a manufacturing life being once established
in a woman, she continues it, and leaves her home and children to the
care of a neighbour or of a hired child, sometimes only a few years
older than her own children, whose services cost her probably as much
as she obtains for her labour. To this neglect on the part of their
parents is to be traced the death of many children; they are left in
the house with a fire before they are old enough to know the danger to
which they are exposed, and are often dreadfully burnt.”
_Mr. Mott’s_ report on the sanitary condition of the population of his
district presents parallel instances of the different economy prevalent
amongst these classes:—
_Contrast in the Economy of Families._
1. 1.
Cellar in Wellington-court, In a dwelling-house in Chorlton
Chorlton-upon-Medlock; a man, his Union, containing one sitting-room
wife and seven children; income per and two bed-rooms; a man, his wife
week, 1_l._ 11_s._; rent 1_s._ and three children; rent 2_s._
6_d._ per week; three beds for 6_d._ per week; income per week
seven, in a dark, unventilated back 12_s._ 6_d._, being an average of
room, bed-covering of the meanest 2_s._ 6_d._ per week for each
and scantiest kind—the man and wife person. Here, with a sickly man,
occupying the front room as a the house presented an appearance
sleeping-room for themselves, in of comfort in every part, as also
which the whole family take their the bedding was in good order.
food and spend their leisure time;
here the family, in a filthy
destitute state, with an income
averaging 3_s._ 5¼_d._ each per
week, four being children under 11
years of age.
2. 2.
Cellar in York-street, In a dwelling-house, Stove-street,
Chorlton-upon-Medlock; a man—a one sitting-room, one kitchen and
hand-loom weaver—his wife and two bed-rooms, rent 4_s._ per week.
family (one daughter married, with A poor widow, with a daughter also
her husband forms part of the a widow, with ten children, making
family), comprising altogether together 13 in family; 1_l._ 6_s._
seven persons; income 2_l._ 7_s._, per week, averaging 2_s._ per head
or 6_s._ 8½_d._ per head; rent per week. Here there is every
2_s._ Here, with the largest amount appearance of cleanliness and
of income, the family occupy two comfort.
filthy, damp, unwholesome cellars,
one of which is a back place
without pavement or flooring of any
kind, occupied by the loom of the
family, and used as a sleeping-room
for the married couple and single
daughter.
3. 3.
John Salt, of Carr Bank (labourer), George Hall, of Carr Bank
wages 12_s._ per week; a wife, and (labourer), wages 10_s._ per week;
one child aged 15: he is a drunken, has reared ten children; he is in
disorderly fellow, and very much in comfortable circumstances.
debt.
4. 4.
William Haynes, of Oakamoore John Hammonds, of Woodhead
(wire-drawer), wages 1_l._ per (collier), wages 18_s._ per week;
week; he has a wife and five has six children to support; he is
children; he is in debt, and his a steady man and saving money.
family is shamefully neglected.
5. 5.
George Locket, of Kingsley George Mosley, of Kingsley
(boatman), wages 18_s._ per week, (collier), wages 18_s._ per week;
with a wife and seven children; his he has a wife and seven children;
family are in a miserable he is saving money.
condition.
6. 6.
John Banks, of Cheadle (collier), William Faulkner, of Tean
wages 18_s._ per week; wife and (tape-weaver), wages 18_s._ per
three children; his house is in a week; supports his wife and seven
filthy state, and the furniture not children without assistance.
worth 10_s._
7. 7.
William Weaver, of Kingsley Charles Rushton, of
(boatman), wages 18_s._ per week; Lightwoodfields, wages 14_s._ per
wife and three children; he is a week; he supports his wife and five
drunken, disorderly fellow, and his children in credit.
family entirely destitute.
8. 8.
Richard Barlow, of Cheadle William Sargeant, of
(labourer), wages 12_s._ per week; Lightwoodfields (labourer), wages
wife and five children, in 13_s._ a-week; he has a wife and
miserable circumstance, not a bed six children, whom he supports
to lie on. comfortably.
9. 9.
Thomas Bartlem, of Tean (labourer), William Box, of Tean (tape-weaver),
wages 14_s._ per week; his wife wages 18_s._ or 20_s._ per week;
earns 7_s._ per week; five supports his wife in bad health,
children; he is very much in debt; and five children.
home neglected.
10. 10.
Thomas Johnson, of Tean Ralph Faulkner, of Tean
(blacksmith), wages 18_s._ per (tape-weaver), wages 18_s._ or
week; his wife earns 7_s._ per 20_s._ per week; supports a wife
week; three children; he is very and five children, three of them
much in debt, and his family are deaf and dumb.
grossly neglected.
_Mr. Harrison_, the medical officer of the Preston union, observes that—
“I have known many families whose income has exceeded 100_l._ a-year,
who in times of sickness have been in great distress, and even some
who have been obliged to have recourse to the parish for assistance.
And I am acquainted with several families now of the best paid class
of workpeople, whose total weekly earnings will average 2_l._, and in
some cases 3_l._ a-week, who, should sickness overtake the head of the
family, and some of the principal workers among the children, would be
thrown upon the parish. I have been convinced from extensive
observation, that the masters of these people have it in their power
to improve the condition and happiness of their workpeople beyond what
can be effected by any other agency.”
These descriptions are not confined to the English towns. Mr. Jupp and
others cite instances from the rural districts. They are similarly
prevalent in Scotland. As an example I would refer to the description
given by Dr. Scott Alison, of the condition of the highly-paid collier
population of Tranent. Take another instance of the condition of the
same class, the colliers at Ayr, given by _Dr. Sym_, in his report on
the sanitary condition of the population of that town:—
“Although the colliers have large wages, they are, from their want of
economy and their dissolute habits, uniformly in poverty; and their
families, though well fed, are miserably clothed, ill lodged,
uneducated, and less industrious than the families of the weavers; the
females of which work with great constancy at hand-sewing. The modes
of living of these two classes are very different. The weaver is not
intemperate, because he cannot afford to purchase ardent spirits, and
the nature of his employment prevents him from having those hours of
idleness during the day which the collier is so apt to consume in
dissipation. He lives on very innutritious food, seldom eats butchers’
meat, and the most indigent, who are generally Irishmen, subsist
chiefly on potatoes. The collier, on the other hand, indulges to
excess in ardent spirits, and both he and his family partake of animal
food every day. In short, the colliers live better than any of the
other labouring classes in Ayr.”
_Dr. Scott Alison_, speaking of the colliers of Tranent, states that
they obtain very high wages. “A man, his wife, and perhaps two children
may earn perhaps 40_s._ a-week, if industriously employed during that
time.” On the subject of appearances of destitution, on which medical
men sometimes report, he observes—
“I have had occasion to know that medical men, judging from internal
appearances of the dwellings of the labouring classes, are liable to
be led into erroneous inferences as to the extent of destitution. The
appearance of the place or of the person is no test of the want of
means or of the highness or lowness of wages. Filth is more frequently
evidence of depravity than of destitution; indeed, in places where the
wages or means are really scanty, there is very frequently
considerable cleanliness. If a stranger went into the house of a
collier, he might exclaim, ‘What extreme wretchedness and
destitution!’ when, in fact, on the Saturday they had received 30_s._,
which before the Tuesday had all been squandered. I think medical men,
who are not intimately acquainted with the character of people, are
often drawn into mistakes.”
The domestic condition of this population admits of a contrast with the
condition of individuals of their own description of employment, or with
the condition of other classes of miners who receive no higher wages,
but whose condition is highly superior, to show that the depraved habits
and condition are not the necessary result of the employment. He
contrasts the condition of the colliery population of Tranent with the
condition of the agricultural labourers in the immediate vicinity of the
town:—
“With very few exceptions, the condition of the interior of the houses
of the hind population is excellent, most pleasing to the eye, and
comfortable. These respectable people, in spite of the defective
construction of their cottages, manage to throw an air of comfort,
plenty, neatness, and order around their homes. I have often been
delighted to observe these characteristics, and not less so to mark
the co-existence of pure, moral, and religious principles in the
inmates, the presence of practical religion and practical morals. When
the floor wears away, it is repaired; when the walls lose their
whiteness, they are whitewashed; and every few days the whole wooden
furniture in the house is subjected to thorough cleansing with sand
and warm water. The various articles of furniture, and the different
household utensils, are kept in places allotted to them; and the
earthenware and china well cleaned, are neatly arranged, and made to
serve as ornaments to the apartment. The metal spoons, candlesticks,
and pitchers for containing milk and water, are well burnished. The
milk taken from the cow may be seen set apart in vessels kept in the
nicest order; and beside them lie the churning-barrel and strainer. A
fire sheds its cheerful influence over the scene; the kettle never
wants hot water; and the honest, frugal housewife is ever discharging
some household duty in a spirit of placid contentment, attending to
her partner when present, or preparing his meals against his return
from the fields.
“The external economy of the houses of the hinds is on the whole very
good. The ground in front of the cottages is kept clean and free of
impurities. The little garden, which is almost invariably connected
with the cottage, is kept in good order, and is in general well
cultivated.”
The like contrast, derived from an intimate knowledge of the population
of another class, is presented in the following portions of a report
from _Mr. Wood_, of Dundee:—
“There are many families among the working classes who are in the
receipt of from 15_s._ to 22_s._ per week, who are insufficiently
clothed, and irregularly and poorly fed, and whose houses as well as
their persons appear filthy, disorderly, and uncomfortable. There are
other families among them, containing the same number of persons,
whose incomes average from 10_s._ to 14_s._ a-week, who are neatly,
cleanly, and sufficiently clothed, regularly and suitably fed, and
whose houses appear orderly and comfortable. The former class care
little for the physical comfort, and far less for the intellectual,
moral, and religious education of their children; in many cases,
indeed, they neglect the education of their offspring when it is
offered to them gratuitously, and in place of sending them to school,
where they might be fitted for the duties and disappointments of life,
they send them at a very early age to some employment, where they will
earn the poor pittance of 1_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ a-week. The latter
class, on the contrary, are most anxious to give their children a good
education: they study to obtain it for them by every means in their
power, and they pay for it most cheerfully. The former class again
grasp at every benefit which the charitable institutions of the place
have provided for the poor. When, for example, medical attendance is
given them gratuitously, they not unfrequently despise and refuse it,
unless medicines are given them gratuitously also. Whereas the latter
description of families are not only ready and willing to pay for
medicines when prescribed to them, but they generally manifest much
gratitude, and very often present their medical attendant with a small
fee.
“Now it is among the former class of families where generally there
appears to me to be a deficiency of wholesome food and of warm
clothing; where contagious, febrile diseases are most commonly found;
and from whence they are most extensively propagated. Fever is no
doubt found among the latter, more frugal, and therefore better
conditioned families, but seldom of that malignant, contagious
character which it invariably assumes among the other class of
families. Here, then, we have on the one hand, filth, destitution, and
disease, associated with good wages; and on the other, cleanliness,
comfort, and comparative good health, in connexion with wages which
are much lower. The difference in the amount of their incomes does not
account for the difference in the amount of comfort which is found
existing among the working classes. The statements just made make
known the fact, that above a certain amount, say 12_s._ or 14_s._ of
weekly income, wages _alone_, without intelligence and good habits,
contributes nothing towards the comfort, health, and independence of
the working population. * * * Were I asked how I would propose to
relieve such a family, I would say, show them how they may live
comfortably within their incomes; let them be taught and trained to
habits of industry, frugality, sobriety, cleanliness, &c., and with
this 12_s._ or 14_s._ they may live in health and happiness as others
in similar circumstances have lived and are now living. The man who
maintains himself and his family in comfort on 12_s._ or 14_s._ of
weekly income, possesses what he well deserves, happiness at home, and
he stands forth in his neighbourhood a noble example of honest
independence. I am persuaded that the filth, fever, and destitution in
many families is occasioned, not by their small incomes, but by a
misapplication or a prodigal waste of a part, in some cases a great
part, of their otherwise sufficient wages. Frequently cases are found
where, with a want of skill and economy, there is combined the
intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, and here the misery may be
said to be complete.
“Such is the explanation which I have to offer regarding much of the
misery now prevalent, and it is the explanation invariably given by
the economical working classes themselves when questioned on the
subject. Heads of families, having three or four children, whose
incomes average from 14_s._ to 18_s._ per week, have assured me that a
man with a wife and three or four children can live comfortably on
12_s._ or 14_s._ a-week; and they generally account for the misery and
destitution existing among families by saying, that many who have good
wages reduce themselves to poverty and deprive themselves of
sufficient food and clothing by their mismanagement, want of
frugality, and drinking practices. Cases of waste and dissipation have
been related to me, where the husband having gone to the
tippling-house to enjoy his glass and his friend, the wife, knowing
this, sent for her bottle and her friend, and enjoyed herself at home.
A single visit to one of these spendthrift families, who are in the
receipt of good wages, would convince any one that their persons and
houses might be far more orderly, clean, and comfortable, were they
but half trained to the tastes and habits of household industry,
sobriety, and economy.”
The more closely the investigation as to the causes of epidemic disease
is carried the more have the grounds been narrowed on which any
presumption can be raised that it is generally occasioned by extreme
indigence, or that it could be made generally to disappear simply by
grants of money.
In the great mass of cases in every part of the country, in the rural
districts and in the places of commercial pressure, the attacks of
disease are upon those in full employment, the attack of fever precedes
the destitution, not the destitution the disease. There is strong
evidence of the existence of a large class of persons in severe penury
in some places, as in Glasgow, being subject to fever, but the fever
patients did not, as a class, present evidence of being in destitution
in any of the places we examined. _Dr. William Davidson_, the senior
physician of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, who has written a Treatise on
the Sources and Propagation of Continued Fevers, for which the prize
instituted by Dr. Thackeray, of Chester, was unanimously awarded at the
annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association,
states in that treatise, when speaking of the influence of delicacy of
constitution as a predisposing cause of fever,—
“We have kept a record of the physical habit of the patients admitted
into the Glasgow Fever Hospital from May 1st to November 1st, 1839,
and the following were the divisions adopted:—
“1. Moderate, by which is meant a person having an ordinary quantity
of muscle and cellular substance.
“2. Full or plethoric, having an extra quantity of adipose texture or
of blood.
“3. Muscular.
“4. Spare.
“5. Emaciated or unhealthy in appearance.
┌──────────────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┐
│ │ Males. │Females.│ Total. │
├──────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤
│Moderate │ 116│ 93│ 209│
│Full or Plethoric │ 28│ 73│ 101│
│Muscular │ 44│ │ 44│
│Spare │ 24│ 41│ 65│
│Unhealthy or Emaciated│ 2│ 8│ 10│
│ │ │ │ ———│
│ │ │ │ 429│
└──────────────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┘
“The whole of these 429 cases were characterized by the typhoid
eruption, and will therefore be considered as decided cases of typhus.
It appears from this table that there were only 10 cases in an
emaciated or unhealthy condition; and almost all of them, as far as
could be ascertained, were engaged in their ordinary occupations at
the time of their seizure. The spare and unhealthy, when added
together, only form about 17 per cent. of the whole number.”
He gives two tables of the proportionate numbers of persons admitted,
during the year 1839, into the Glasgow Fever Hospital, whose persons
were clean or filthy:—
“These two tables show that, among 611 cases admitted as continued
fever, there were 340 filthy and 271 clean, or about 55 per cent.
filthy; that among 395 cases of eruptive typhus, there were 245 filthy
and 150 clean, or about 62 per cent. filthy; and that among 48 cases
of febricula there were 14 filthy and 34 clean, or about 29 per cent.
filthy.”
Amongst the fever patients are found a larger proportion of the highly
intemperate than appear to be usually found amongst the labouring
classes.
_Dr. Davidson_, in remarking on the influence of intemperance on fever,
adduces the following table to show the proportion of temperate and
intemperate individuals who were admitted into the Glasgow Fever
Hospital from November 1st, 1838, to November 1st, 1839, whose habits
could be ascertained with more or less certainty. He states that the
eruptive cases only are included:—
Temperate. A little Intemperate. Intemperate.
Typhus (MALES) 125 51 73
Typhus (FEMALES) 76 8 30
I have been informed that those were classed as “temperate” who never
indulged in strong liquors to the extent of inebriety; those a “little
intemperate” who now and again, perhaps at long intervals, drank to
intoxication; and those as “intemperate” who were habitually so—who
drank whenever they could get ardent spirits.
He adds,—
“In the Glasgow Fever Hospital there occurred 81 deaths from eruptive
typhus in individuals whose habits were ascertained, and 34 of these
were reported as intemperate, 19 a little intemperate, and 28
temperate. In Dr. Craigie’s table of the deaths in 31 fever cases that
occurred in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, there were 15 stated to be
irregular or dissipated; only two regular; the habits of the remainder
are not stated.
“It is also a singular fact, which has been noticed by several
writers, that fever is more fatal among the higher than among the
lower classes. Dr. Braken states, in reference to the fever which
prevailed at Waterford during the years 1817–18–19, that ‘it would be
difficult to adjust the rates of mortality in the upper classes, but
it seems probable that one-fourth, or perhaps one-third of all those
persons who were attacked with fever fell victims to its power.’
“Drs. Barker and Cheyne, in their historical account of the Irish
epidemic, state that, ‘in every part of the country, fever was
reported to have been much more fatal amongst the upper than the lower
classes.’ To what is this difference of mortality, so generally
remarked by experienced hospital physicians, to be attributed, and
which in Ireland seemed to be very remarkable, namely, in the lower
classes about one in twenty-three cases, and in the upper classes one
in three or four generally, but in other places about one in seven?
Can the difference in the mode of living account for this anomaly? as
the first live very much on potatoes, while the others use a larger or
smaller proportion of animal food; and the lower classes almost
everywhere in this country use less animal food and stimulating dishes
than those who are more wealthy and in a higher sphere of society.”
In remarking on the supposed influence of fear and the depressing
passions in producing fever, _Dr. Davidson_, however, remarks:—
“The influence of fear and the depressing passions has also been
considered as very powerful in predisposing persons to be affected
with typhus contagion. There can be no doubt that fear has a tendency
to produce a temporary depression of the physical powers; but, as has
been already shown, there is no proof that persons of a naturally
spare or weak habit of body, who are generally very sensitive, are
more liable to fever than those of an ordinary constitution; this
opinion must also be considered hypothetical. Indeed the facts, as far
as our inquiries have enabled us to judge, seem to prove that the
apprehension of fever, more particularly when it is not epidemic, is
very rarely felt until the person is actually seized with the disease;
for some cannot recollect of a single circumstance by which they could
be exposed to contagion; and a considerable number of those who had
undoubtedly been exposed to it were only made aware of the fact when
it had been elicited by cross-examination. We are quite aware that
cases may be brought forward of sensitive individuals who have been
seized with fever soon after visiting a person labouring under the
disease; but as this fact can be opposed with at least an equal number
of persons who were destitute of fear, and yet caught it after an
exposure to contagion, no conclusion whatever can be drawn from them.
It must be observed, however, that though there is no proof that
persons who are naturally weak in body or of a sensitive disposition
are more susceptible of fever than those who are naturally vigorous
and robust, yet that, during famine or commercial distress, poverty,
by depressing the mind and lowering the physical status from
insufficient aliment, does powerfully predispose a community to become
affected with fever. This has been already shown in a former part of
the essay, and has been again alluded to in order that the distinction
might be made between an individual of naturally weak mental and
physical stamina, and one who has been reduced to that state by
deficient nutriment.”
There appears to be little evidence on one side or the other in support
of this last hypothesis, other than such as that cited from Dr. Davidson
himself; but it is to be observed that the wet or bad seasons, which
suspend agricultural industry and much labour in the towns, is usually
of a character of itself to predispose to disease, if not to produce it;
and that it does propagate it amongst all classes, high and low, in
proportion to their exposure to it. It appears to be highly probable
that the privation attendant on the stoppage of work, by diminishing the
means for the purchase of fuel, of soap, &c., and in various ways by
inducing lax habits of life, may increase the amount of exposure to and
loss from the all-pervading cause.
The preponderant evidence given on this subject by the great majority of
the medical officers in England who are accustomed to visit the
labouring classes in their own dwellings, is however of the tenor of the
following from the medical officer of the Whitechapel union acting in
Spitalfields parish.
_Mr. Byles_, the medical officer of the Whitechapel union:—
“What is the number of cases you have had to visit during the year
1841 as a medical officer?—I think the number of cases I have had to
visit during each year since the commencement of the Union has been
upwards of 2,000 cases of various disease, of which 1,400 were cases
out of the workhouse.
“Has the present winter been unhealthy?—I do not think it has; there
has been an increase of fever cases during the last month. The number
of cases is, however, still below the average of 1838.
“Is there not, however, unusual distress in your district,
comprehending Spitalfields and a portion of Whitechapel?—Yes, there
is: I believe that more than half the looms are out of work.
“Do you not find that fever attacks in greatest number those who are
out of work?—On the contrary, the greatest number of the cases of
fever we have are those who fall ill during the time they are in
employment. I think they are more attacked when in work, when the
windows are closed, and there is no ventilation. Many of them are
obliged to work with closed windows, to keep out the moist air, and
prevent the dust blowing upon their work. When they are out of work,
they are more out of doors looking after work, more in the open air,
and that very exercise may be the means of keeping them in health.
This observation applies to the weavers. I find that they have
generally less fever when they are out of work. The reverse, I think,
holds as respects out-door labourers, such as those who work at the
docks. When they are out of work, they stand about waiting in the
cold, and when cold, they generally take cheap gin, and no food: they
catch cold, and on going to their close filthy habitations, their cold
is apt to generate fever.
“There was an unusual amount of fever prevalent in Spitalfields and
Whitechapel, was there not, in the year 1838?—Yes, there was; in the
proportion, perhaps, of more than two to one of the present amount. My
last account for the year ending Lady-day, 1842, was about 250 fever
cases; it has been as high as 800.
“Did it prevail proportionately amongst the weavers?—Yes, I believe it
did.
“Was there any marked or unusual distress at that period?—Not that I
remember.
“Do you find in the course of your experience that the diminution of
food is followed by fever?—Not as a general cause, I should say. If
these two persons, casually exposed to the contagion of fever, the one
in full vigour, and with a full stomach, the other with an empty
stomach, the person with the empty stomach would be the most obnoxious
to its influence. In my experience, however, intemperance is a much
more frequent antecedent to fever than destitution or want of food.
“Have you ever observed that habits of intemperance are created by
distress of mind?—Such cases may occur, but I have not observed them,
and I think it does not operate as a general cause.
“What are the chief remedies which your experience in this district
would lead you to recommend for the prevention of fever and contagious
diseases?—The promotion of cleanly habits amongst the poor; the
promotion of sewerage and drainage; having proper supplies of water
laid on in the houses; the removal of privies from improper
situations. I could point out in our neighbourhood many houses, and
some courts, that ought to be pulled down as wholly unfit for human
habitation.
“What is the personal state of the labouring classes in your
district?—Generally extremely filthy. I have said that I could almost
smell from what street a man came who came to my surgery: I do not
think the poor themselves are conscious of it, but the smell to other
persons must be extremely offensive. I certainly think that the want
of personal cleanliness, and of cleanliness in their rooms, and the
prevalence of fever, stand in the relation of cause and effect.
“Your colleague has pointed out that the want of proper and convenient
supplies of water is an antecedent to the filth and the fever. Does
your experience enable you to concur with him?—My experience entirely
agrees with his on that point.”
The late _Dr. Cowan_, of Glasgow, and the great majority of the medical
officers, assign the foremost place to these physical agencies as
antecedents to fever.
The medical controversy as to the causes of fever; as to whether it is
caused by filth and vitiated atmosphere, or whether the state of the
atmosphere is a predisposing cause to the reception of the fever, or the
means of propagating that disease, which has really some other superior,
independent, or specific cause, does not appear to be one that for
practical purposes need be considered, except that its effect is
prejudicial in diverting attention from the practical means of
prevention.
_Dr. Bancroft_, one of the controversialists cited by Dr. Davidson,
observes,—
“That fever often exists in them” (gaols) “cannot be denied; but this
circumstance can afford no evidence of its being generated therein,
any more than the multiplication of vermin in such places could
demonstrate the spontaneous generation of these and other insects by
the nastiness which favours the deposition and hatching of their
eggs.”
Taking the controversy at this point, and admitting the force of this
statement, the decision upon it will not alter the practical value of
cleanliness, or of its protective effects in prevention, whether it
remove an original or only a predisposing cause.
Yet it cannot but be regretted that the enlightened force of the
professional opinion should sustain any diminution from an apparent want
of unanimity on so important a question as the necessity of removing
these causes, whether original or predisposing: that, for example,
whilst the fleets were ravaged by fever and disease, men of high
standing should have occupied the attention of the public with
speculations on contagion, and infection from the gaols as the original
cause, and diverted attention from the means of prevention, cleansing
and ventilation, the means by which, as will hereafter be shown, the
pestilence was ultimately banished. The main error of those who have
ascribed fever to destitution, appears to have been in adopting too
hastily as evidence of the fact of destitution, such _primâ facie_
appearances as are noticed by Dr. Scott Alison, an error which
non-professional experience may correct. In more than one instance
where, in a district in which the demand for labour was still great, and
the wages high, benevolent gentlemen have propounded similar doctrines,
which, being at variance with the known state of the labour-market, I
have requested that the names of these fever cases might be given, that
their antecedent circumstances might be examined, and the accuracy of
the conclusions tested, by officers of experience in such
investigations; but I think it right to state the names or means of
inquiry have never been forthcoming. In general, medical practitioners
and benevolent individuals are extremely liable to deceive themselves
and to deceive others, by what they call the evidence of their own eyes.
The occurrence of severe destitution is denied as a general cause of
fever, not as a consequence. The evidence shows that the best means of
preventing the consequent destitution are those which prevent the
attacks of fever and other epidemics upon all classes of the community.
By an extract from a report of the late Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, given
in the Appendix, it will be seen that at the time he wrote, 1797, when
only 9500 of the population are reported to have lived in cellars, the
proportion of fever cases was nearly the same as at present, when the
cellar population has risen to 40,000; the disease has been almost as
constant as the surrounding physical circumstances of bad ventilation,
filth, and damp then pointed out as removable, and the disease has
continued in every period of the prosperity of the town in its progress
from a population of 77,000 to 223,000 in 1841. So the late Dr. Ferriar,
of Manchester, when writing between 30 and 40 years ago, of the state of
the population in periods of great prosperity, especially for hand-loom
weaving, described the effect of the bad economy of the habitations much
as they were described in the year 1829 by Dr. Kay, and as they are
described in 1840 by Dr. Baron Howard. _Dr. Ferriar_, when he wrote to
warn the labouring classes as to the choice of their dwellings, stated
that—
“The custom of inhabiting cellars also tends to promote both the
origin and preservation of febrile infection. But even in them the
action of filth and confined air is always apparent when fevers arise.
I have often observed that the cellar of a fever patient was to be
known by a shattered pane, patched with paper or stuffed with rags,
and by every external sign of complete dirtiness.”
The false opinions as to destitution being the general cause of fever,
and as to its propagation, have had extensively the disastrous effect of
preventing efforts being made for the removal of the circumstances which
are proved to be followed by a diminution of the pestilence.
The opinion of the majority of the medical officers of the unions in
England on this topic, acting in districts in every condition, might be
expressed in the terms used by _Dr. Davidson_:—
“It has already been shown that filth and deficient ventilation tend
much to spread the contagion of typhus, being almost constant
concomitants; and that while it generally affects the whole members,
or the large proportion of a family among the lower orders, it rarely
spreads in this manner among the better classes of society, who attend
more to cleanliness and ventilation. It is quite obvious that an
amelioration of the physical condition of the lower orders, in these
particulars, would, in proportion as this was effected, diminish their
chances of catching the contagion, which would not only operate in
lessening directly its diffusion, but by reducing the number of its
sources, must tend to lessen the actual quantity of this principle
that might be generated in a given time.
“But can this amelioration be effected to any appreciable extent; or,
if effected, could it be maintained for any length of time? We fear
that little permanent amelioration could be effected without a
legislative enactment; for though our philanthropists are very active
in their charities during the prevalence of an epidemic, it no sooner
subsides than they relapse into a comparative quiescence, and our
working population into their former habits of filth and intemperance.
And the evil will continue to assail us so long as our cities contain
so many narrow and filthy lanes, so long as the houses situated there
are little better than dens or hovels, so long as dunghills and other
nuisances are allowed to accumulate in their vicinity, so long as
these hovels are crowded with inmates, and so long as there is so much
poverty and destitution. Why, then, should we not have a legislative
enactment that would level these hovels to the ground—that would
regulate the width of every street—that would regulate the ventilation
of every dwelling-house—that would prevent the lodging-houses of the
poor from being crowded with human beings, and that would provide for
their destitution? It may be said that this would interfere too much
with the liberty of the subject, and no doubt it would be vehemently
opposed by many interested persons. In place, however, of being an
infringement on the liberty of the subject, it might rather be
designated an attempt to prevent the improper liberties of the
subject; for what right, moral or constitutional, has any man to form
streets, construct houses, and crowd them with human beings, so as to
deteriorate health and shorten life, because he finds it profitable to
do so? As well ought the law to tolerate the sale of unwholesome food
because it might be profitable to the retailer of it.”
But the professional experience and weight of professional testimony on
this subject is not confined to this country. In a report prepared under
the superintendence of a commission of the Royal Academy of Medicine at
Paris,[16] appointed to investigate the epidemics prevalent in France,
similar general conclusions are announced upon similar evidence adduced,
of which we select the following instance:—
“If an example,” says the report, “be necessary to justify this
placing of circumstances as cause and effect, we shall find one in the
terrible epidemic which desolated the commune of Prades, in the
department of Ariège, at the end of the year 1838. Out of 750 healthy
and vigorous inhabitants of this commune 310 were attacked with the
disease, and 95 died, thus the deaths were 1 in every 3¼ cases. The
cause of this epidemic, violent and sudden in its nature, and which
broke out in all points at once, is not less evident. It proceeded
from a sewer, the receptacle of all the water from the neighbourhood,
and of the filth which the water brought with it, and of the dead
animals of the district. The hot, damp weather which preceded it no
doubt augmented the activity of this focus of infection. The first
persons attacked were the women employed in washing linen in this
pestiferous pool, and the labourers working in the neighbourhood of
it. This terrible epidemic recurred three times, which the invalids in
their simplicity attributed to the influence of the moon, but which
mainly depended upon the wind at certain periods passing over the
infected pool, and bringing the miasma in the direction of their
dwellings. If for want of sufficient description it is not possible to
prove completely the similarity of the epidemic at Prades with the
typhus fever, yet it may be inferred from the symptoms, viz. that when
the skin was broken deep sores were formed, and that serous abscesses
showed themselves in the lymphatic ganglions, that this disease was
very similar to the ancient putrid and malignant fevers formerly
described by authors, and which are entirely replaced in our
_nosology_ by the typhoid affection. The physicians of Ariège, in
order to prove that the disease was not _contagious_, and to re-assure
the inhabitants, lay in the beds from which the invalids had been
removed.”
Adverting to the local reports they have received, the Commissioners
state—“These reports have awakened in us the sad conviction that many
localities are quite devoid of even the most simple ideas on public
health; the inhabitants live surrounded by marshes, drains, stagnant
pools, manure heaps, without having the slightest idea of the dangers
they are incurring. Indeed, many of them blindly speculate in these
heaps of infection, increasing the manure which is to enrich their
fields at the expense of their health, and often of their lives.”
The Commissioners observe,—“Most of the improvements in public health
have been brought about through the experience and science united in our
large cities; so much so that now epidemics often come to us from the
rural districts. These epidemics are generally much less fatal than
formerly, but are still very prevalent even in the wealthiest and the
most civilized departments. It would be an important problem to solve,
what are the causes which produce these epidemics in the agricultural as
well as in the manufacturing counties, as in ancient Normandy and
Picardy. One cause is certainly the unhealthiness of the houses. The
inhabitants of these districts are, in general, well fed, well clothed,
but ill lodged. We are surprised to find in the midst of a fertile plain
wide districts covered with luxuriant vegetation, villages buried in the
ground, _smothered_ with large trees, and cottages constructed without
any art or plan, and almost entirely without windows.” The Commissioners
state, further,—“If you wish to have a robust and healthy people, you
must have a care for their physical education, their houses, and their
modes of living. Do not allow generation after generation to be
depressed under the evil effects of recurring epidemics, which must
eventually ruin the strongest constitutions, as is seen to be the case
in marshy and ill-drained districts, where fevers, _goitres_, and
scrofulas constantly prevail.”
In another report made on the proceedings of the Conseil de Salubrité,
the diseases prevalent amongst the population in the towns is adverted
to:—“We must be like the men so well painted by the Psalmist, to reject
such evidence—_eyes have they, and see not_. How shall we explain, or
rather to what shall we attribute the difference that is remarked
between the mortality of one quarter and that of another quarter of the
same town; of one street and that of another street of the same quarter
or of the same village; or, lastly, the difference that is observed in
this respect between the houses of the same street and those houses
which are completely isolated? Misery, it is replied to us, is the
cause. Yes, without doubt, misery is a powerful cause; but it is so
especially when it is driven back into the most insalubrious quarters,
streets, and houses; when it lives habitually in the midst of filth and
dirt, that is to say, in the midst of an infected atmosphere; and when
there is no misery, or when it exists in the same degree in the
quarters, in the villages, in the streets, and in the houses with which
the comparison is made; and, stronger still, when poverty is met with
precisely there where there is the least mortality; in what is to be
found the cause of this difference, if it is not in the insalubrity of
the dwelling-places?”
The report on the local epidemics concludes by earnestly recommending to
the government—“That sanitary measures be adopted by means of which the
constitution of the people may be renewed, and their longevity
increased. If this recommendation be fulfilled, we may then hope to see
the condition of some of the departments ameliorated, in which now the
population is so degenerated that the men seem to diminish in size each
time they are measured for the conscriptions.”
Evidence on the mismanagement of expenditure in respect to supplies of
food, on mismanagement also in respect to clothing and fuel by the
labouring classes, might be added to complete the view of the principal
causes of disease prevalent amongst them, but these do not come within
the immediate scope of the present inquiry, which has been directed
chiefly to the investigation of the evils affecting their sanitary
condition, that come within the recognized provinces of legislation or
local administration.
The information on the means for the prevention of epidemic disease
arising in the common lodging-houses maintained for the accommodation of
trampers and vagrants, might also have been considered in connexion with
the subject of the effects of overcrowding and filth which they strongly
exemplify; but it appeared most convenient to consider them apart, from
the exposition of what may be termed the indigenous evils that afflict
the settled inhabitants of the labouring class.
I would now submit for consideration, 1st, the total expense of the
present state of things, so far as a proximate view of it can be
obtained, on the health, strength, and life of the lower classes of the
population. 2d, a proximate view of the pecuniary expense of such
partial remedies as are at present applied or applicable to alleviate
the consequences of these preventable diseases.
IV.—COMPARATIVE CHANCES OF LIFE IN DIFFERENT CLASSES OF THE COMMUNITY.
Very dangerous errors arise from statistical returns and insurance
tables of the mean chances of life made up from gross returns of the
mortality prevalent amongst large classes, who differ widely in their
circumstances. Thus we find, on inquiry into the sanitary condition of
the population of different districts, that the average chances of life
of the people of one class in one street will be 15 years, and of
another class in a street immediately adjacent, 60 years. In one
district of the same town I find, on the examination of the registries,
the mortality only 1 out of every 57 of the population; and in another
district 1 out of every 28 dies annually. A return of the average or the
mean of the chances of life, or the proportions of death in either
instance, would and does lead to very dangerous errors, and amongst
others to serious misapprehensions as to the condition of the inferior
districts, and to false inferences as to the proper rates of insurance.
With the view of arriving at some estimate of the comparative extent of
the operation of the chief causes of sickness and mortality proved to be
prevalent, amidst the different classes of society, in the towns where
the sanitary inquiries have been made; I have obtained the following
returns from the clerks of the several unions acting as superintendent
registrars. These returns have, as far as practicable, been corrected by
particular local inquiry, and are submitted as the best approximations
that can readily be obtained. In all districts, and especially in the
manufacturing districts, there is some migration of labourers which
would, for the obtainment of perfect accuracy as to the chances of life
in particular localities, have rendered necessary an examination of
every individual case enumerated. This extent of labour has been
considered unnecessary. In the returns from single towns, the numbers of
deaths of persons of the first class are too small not to be affected by
accidental disturbances, but when large numbers of the like class are
taken, the uniform operation of the like circumstances are shown in the
like results. It is at present a general defect of the important head of
information, “the occupation of the deceased,” that the deaths of
masters are not carefully distinguished from the deaths of journeymen.
So far as this error prevails, it will tend to raise the apparent
chances of life amongst the labouring classes. In some instances the
occupations of the deceased, or of the parents of the deceased, in the
case of children, are not described in the registries. With these and
possibly with other defects that may have escaped notice, these returns
will be received as corroborative of the reports of the medical officers
and physicians who have attended and observed many of the individual
cases themselves, though not enumerated by them. Had the mortality
prevalent amongst workpeople of particular trades and their families
been taken, instead of the mean chances of persons of all occupations
deriving subsistence from weekly wages, the case of classes with still
lower chances would have been presented; but these would have appeared
to suggest particular remedies. Such returns of the effects of common
evils were therefore taken as appeared applicable to the consideration
of common or general means of prevention.
One of the first returns obtained is from _Dr. Barham_, as to the
different rates of mortality in Truro:—
“The information derived from the registers of deaths and sickness has
been arranged in a series of tables.[17] The first gives a return of
the condition in life, average ages, and the causes of death, with
respect to all who died in Truro from July 1st, 1837, to December
31st, 1840. The occupation of the deceased not being stated in the
register, except in the case of adult males, the condition of others
has been inferred in the majority of cases from that of the parent or
husband, in many from my own knowledge of the parties, and in others
from the place of abode or other collateral evidence. Altogether I am
confident that the statement is not materially erroneous.”
The sum of these several returns was as follows:—
No. of TRURO. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
33 Professional persons or gentry, and their families 40 years.
138 Persons engaged in trade, or similarly circumstanced,
and their families 33
447 Labourers, artisans, and others similarly
circumstanced, and their families 28
In Derby the proportions appear to be as exhibited in the following
table:—
No. of DERBY. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
10 Professional persons or gentry 49 years.
125 Tradesmen 38
752 Labourers and artisans 21
To compare the chances of life between a crowded manufacturing
population and a less crowded rural population, I selected the county of
Rutland, because it had been selected as an average agricultural
district for a comparison as to its general condition by the members of
the Statistical Society of Manchester, and they deputed their agent,
_Mr. J. R. Wood_, to make inquiries on an examination from house to
house. The following are portions of his examination:—
“Amidst what population have you inquired from house to house?—Amidst
a portion of the population of Manchester, viz. Pendleton, having a
population of about 10,000; I visited every house. In like manner I
went through Branstoun, Engleton, and Hambleton, in Rutlandshire,
being a rural population of upwards of 1,000, and Hull, having a
population of nearly 40,000, exclusive of Sculcoates, Ashton, and
Dukinfield. I also went over for the purpose of checking an inquiry
into the state of the population of those towns, which had been
previously made by another party. In Liverpool I did not go from house
to house; I went into a considerable number of the houses amidst the
poorer districts. In certain districts of Manchester, though not for
the Statistical Society, I did the same. In Birmingham I made many
memoranda, and, as far as my limited time would permit, I visited a
portion of the population. In York, containing a population of 26,000,
I went into every street and court, visiting occasionally, to obtain a
general idea of the condition of the inhabitants. York included 23
parishes of small extent, all which I visited.
“What did you find to be the condition of the tenements in the rural
districts as compared with the towns you examined?—In Branstoun,
Egleton, and Hambleton, being in a rural district, the houses are low,
never exceeding two stories; many of them are thatched, and nearly all
are built of stone. To each a garden is attached, which is generally
of sufficient dimensions to supply the family with vegetables. As
there are no cellars, most of the houses have a small dairy or
store-room attached, which, however, has not been counted in reckoning
the number of rooms in each house. Forty-one per cent. of the
dwellings in Branstoun, and 51 per cent. in Egleton and Hambleton I
found to be “_well furnished_.” In Manchester and Salford 52 per
cent., and in the Dukinfield district 61 per cent., had that
character. The proportion reported to be _comfortable_ in each
district were:—
“In Branstoun 50 per cent.
Egleton and Hambleton 65 per cent.
Manchester, &c. 72 per cent.
Dukinfield 95 per cent.
“The word ‘_comfortable_’ must always be a vague and varying epithet,
nor is it possible to attach any precise definition to it. In filling
up this column I was guided by observing the condition of the
dwelling, apart from any consideration of order, cleanliness, and
furniture. If I considered it capable of being made comfortable for
the tenant, I set it down accordingly; if it were damp, the flooring
bad, and the walls ill-conditioned, I reported it uncomfortable. The
general appearance of the interior of the houses (in Rutlandshire)
indicated thrifty poverty, and instances of the squalid misery so
frequent in large towns were here extremely rare. In comparing the
physical condition of the people in the three parishes, Egleton and
Hambleton appeared to have some slight advantage over Branstoun, while
31 per cent. of the houses in the former parishes contained four rooms
only; 17 per cent. in the latter had this advantage. In its amount of
sleeping accommodation, also Branstoun is inferior to the neighbouring
parishes.
“From a comparison of the tables with those in a former Report, it
appeared that in Egleton, &c., 14 per cent. of the families have more
than three persons to a bed; Branstoun, 19 ditto; Dukinfield, 33
ditto; and Bury, 35 ditto.
“The rents of the houses in Rutlandshire would appear to be very low
compared with those in large manufacturing towns. Not only is the
average cost of the former less than half of the latter, but for that
diminished cost the dimensions of the houses are double those in large
towns, with comforts and conveniences which the latter never can
possess.
£. _s._ _d._
“Egleton, &c., average yearly rent 2 17 3
Branstoun 3 0 0
Dukinfield, &c. 6 14 0
Manchester, &c. 7 11 8”
But moral causes, inducing habits of sobriety, appear from the report of
the Manchester Society to contribute to the general result of the
superior condition of the Rutland population, in which the duration of
life amongst the lowest classes appears to be nearly as high as amongst
the highest classes in Manchester. Wages in Lancashire, it must be
premised, were then (in 1837), and, as I am well informed from the
payers of several thousand labourers, are now at least double what they
are in Rutlandshire. The Society state in their report that it appears—
“That the people do nearly as much for themselves in Rutlandshire as
they do in Manchester, notwithstanding the more extensive endowment of
their schools.
“In a separate examination of three parishes in Rutlandshire, carried
on from house to house, the larger attendance of children at school in
that county was confirmed, and it also appeared that the average time
of their remaining at day schools was greater than in Lancashire. In
Pendleton, near Manchester, one third only of the children appeared to
remain at school above five years, and one third remained less than
three years; while, in the three parishes of Rutlandshire which were
visited, it was found that, of the children who had left school, one
half had remained there above five years.
“The teachers generally bear irreproachable characters, which has
doubtless much influence on the character and deportment of the
population, whose manners appeared exceedingly orderly and respectful.
“In the dame schools it was very gratifying to observe the marked
difference in general appearance and order, as compared with schools
of a similar class in large towns. The mistresses are almost
invariably persons of good moral character, of quiet orderly habits,
cleanly in their habitations, decent in their personal appearance, and
of respectful deportment. The scholars, too, except in one or two
instances, were found clean and tidy, however mean their attire, and
generally remained orderly and quiet during the visit. The rod or cane
is much less in use than in the towns formerly examined, though it
usually forms part of the furniture of the school. The girls were
generally found sewing or knitting, and in many schools the boys learn
to knit.
“A society for the promotion of industry, supported by subscriptions,
exist in the county; and prizes are given to those children, who,
according to their age, have performed the most work during the year.
This excites a great competition as to which village shall produce the
queen of the knitters, or the queen of the sewers, and many ladies in
the county consider the Society to have great influence in inducing
habits of diligence and order. The moral effect is no doubt good, and
a greater interest in the lower class of schools is also thereby
created amongst the gentry.
“In conclusion, we may observe that the visitation of the houses of
the labouring poor in Rutlandshire, and the observation of their
language, manners, and habits, leave a favourable impression with
regard to their moral condition. Swearing and drunkenness are far from
common, and the general conduct of the people is marked by sobriety,
frugality, and industry.”
Mr. Wood was asked—
“You have seen the following returns of the average ages of death
amongst the different classes of people in Manchester and
Rutlandshire:—
Average Age of Death.
In Manchester. In Rutlandshire.
Years. Years.
“Professional persons and gentry, and
their families 38 52
Tradesmen and their families, (in
Rutlandshire, farmers and graziers
are included with shopkeepers) 20 41
Mechanics, labourers, and their
families 17 38
Bearing in mind the fact that wages are nearly double in Manchester to
the average of wages in Rutlandshire, though rents are higher in
Manchester: are the different chances of life amongst each class of
the population to the extent they are indicated by the returns,
conformable to what you would have anticipated from your personal
examinations of the houses and observation of the condition of the
inhabitants?—They are decidedly conformable to my anticipation in the
general results. I apprehend, however, that some allowance must
perhaps be made for the very high average age in Rutlandshire, from
the circumstance that many of the children or young people migrate
from thence to manufacturing neighbourhoods for employment. These
would certainly have passed the age at which the greatest mortality
takes place amongst children; but we may expect that their migration,
as it is a constant migration, might to some extent increase the
average age of death or apparent duration of life in Rutlandshire,
though not very materially. On the other hand, there is, perhaps, a
larger proportion of children in Manchester. The results certainly
correspond with my own impressions as to the relative condition of the
different classes in the different neighbourhoods.”
In the union comprehending the adjacent manufacturing district of
Bolton, the proportions of deaths in the several classes as returned by
the superintendent-registrar were as follows in the year 1839:—
No. of BOLTON UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
103 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 34 years.
381 Tradesmen and their families 23
2,232 Mechanics, servants, labourers, and their families 18
It is proper to observe, that so far as I was informed upon the evidence
received in the Factory Inquiry, and more recently on the cases of
children of migrant families, that opinion is erroneous which ascribes
greater sickness and mortality to the children employed in factories
than amongst the children who remain in such homes as these towns afford
to the labouring classes. However defective the ventilation of many of
the factories may yet be, they are all of them drier and more equably
warm than the residence of the parent; and we had proof that weakly
children have been put into the better-managed factories as healthier
places for them than their own homes. It is an appalling fact that, of
all who are born of the labouring classes in Manchester, more than 57
per cent. die before they attain five years of age; that is, before they
can be engaged in factory labour, or in any other labour whatsoever.
Of 4,629 deaths of persons of the labouring classes who died in the year
1840 in Manchester, the numbers who died were at the several periods as
follows:—
Under 5 years of age 2,649 or 1 in 1‑7/10
Above 5 and under 10 215 or 1 in 22
Above 10 and under 15 107 or 1 in 43
Above 15 and under 20 135 or 1 in 34
At seven, eight, or nine years of age the children of the working
classes begin to enter into employment in the cotton and other
factories. It appears that, at the period between 5 and 10 years of age
the proportions of deaths which occur amongst the labouring classes, as
indicated by these returns, are not so great as the proportions of
deaths which occur amongst the children of the middle classes who are
not so engaged. Allowing for the circumstance that some of the weakest
of the labourers’ children will have been swept away in the first stage,
the effect of employment is not shown to be injurious in any increase of
the proportion who die in the second stage.
In a return obtained from a district differently situated (Bethnal
Green, where the manufactory is chiefly domestic) it appears that of
1,268 deaths amongst the labouring classes in the year 1839, no less
than 782, or 1 in 1‑4/7, died at their own residences under 5 years of
age. One in 15 of the deaths occurred between 5 and 10, the age when
employment commences. The proportion of deaths which occurred between 10
and 15, the period at which full employment usually takes place, is 1 in
60 only.
In that district the average age of deaths in the year 1839 was as
follows, in the several classes, from a population of 62,018:—
No. of BETHNAL GREEN. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
101 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 45 years.
273 Tradesmen and their families 26
1,258 Mechanics, servants, and labourers, and their
families 16
The mean chances of life amongst the several classes in Leeds appear
from the returns to the Registrar-general generally to correspond with
the anticipations raised by the descriptions given of the condition of
the labouring population.
No. of LEEDS BOROUGH. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
79 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 44 years.
824 Tradesmen, farmers, and their families 27
3,395 Operatives, labourers, and their families 19
But in Liverpool (which is a commercial and not a manufacturing town)
where, however, the condition of the dwellings are reported to be the
worst, where, according to the report of Dr. Duncan, 40,000 of the
population live in cellars, where 1 in 25 of the population are annually
attacked with fever,—there the mean chances of life appear from the
returns to the Registrar-general to be still lower than in Manchester,
Leeds, or amongst the silk weavers in Bethnal Green. During the year
1840, the deaths, distinguishable in classes, were as follows:—
No. of LIVERPOOL, 1840. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
137 Gentry and professional persons, &c. 35 years.
1,738 Tradesmen and their families 22
5,597 Labourers, mechanics, and servants, &c. 15
Of the deaths which occurred amongst the labouring classes, it appears
that no less than 62 per cent. of the total number were deaths under
five years of age. Even amongst those entered as shopkeepers and
tradesmen, no less than 50 per cent. died before they attained that
period. The proportion of mortality for Birmingham, where there are many
insalubrious manufactories, but where the drainage of the town and the
general condition of the inhabitants is comparatively good, was, in
1838, 1 in 40; whilst in Liverpool it was 1 in 31.
I have appended the copy of a map of Bethnal Green, made with the view
of showing the proportions in which the mortality from epidemic diseases
and diseases affected by localities, fell on different classes of
tenements during the same year. The localities in which the marks of
death (×) are most crowded are the poorest and the worst of the
district; where the marks are few and widely spread, the houses and
streets, and the whole condition of the population, is better. By the
inspection of a map of Leeds, which Mr. Baker has prepared at my
request, to show the localities of epidemic diseases, it will be
perceived that they similarly fall on the uncleansed and close streets
and wards occupied by the labouring classes; and that the track of the
cholera is nearly identical with the tract of fever. It will also be
observed that in the badly cleansed and badly drained wards to the right
of the map, the proportional mortality is nearly double that which
prevails in the better conditioned districts to the left.
To obtain the means of judging of the references to the localities in
the sanitary returns from Aberdeen, the reporters were requested to mark
on a map the places where the disease fell, and to distinguish with a
deeper tint those places on which it fell with the greatest intensity.
They were also requested to distinguish by different colours the streets
inhabited by the higher, middle, and lower classes of society. They
returned a map so marked as to disease, but stated that it had been
thought unnecessary to distinguish the streets inhabited by the
different orders of society, as that was done with sufficient accuracy
by the different tints representing the degrees of intensity of the
prevalence of fever.
In the Whitechapel union, in which the special investigation which led
to the inquiry into the sanitary condition of the metropolis was first
directed, the numbers were as follows in the year 1838:—
No. of WHITECHAPEL UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
37 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 45 years.
387 Tradesmen and their families 27
1,762 Mechanics, servants, and labourers, and their
families 22
To judge of the comparative mortality amongst the average of a town
population, I obtained the following returns; the one from the clerk of
the Strand union, the other from the clerk of the Kensington union:—
No. of STRAND UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
86 Gentry and persons engaged in professions and their
families 43 years.
221 Tradesmen and their families 33
674 Mechanics, labourers, servants, and their families 24
[Illustration: SANITARY MAP of the Town OF LEEDS.]
[Illustration: _Sanitary Report P.L.C._ Map of BETHNAL GREEN PARISH,
_Shewing the Mortality from four classes of Disease in certain
localities during the year, ended 31st. Dec’r., 1838, distinguishing the
Houses occupied by Weavers & Labourers & Tradesmen_.]
No. of KENSINGTON UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
331 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
families 44 years.
348 Tradesmen and their families 29
1,258 Labourers, artisans, and others similarly
circumstanced, and their families 26
The remarkable result obtained from the examination of the mortuary
registries of the county of Rutland induced me to have them examined for
different periods. They have accordingly been examined for three
complete years, 1838, 1839, and 1840, and it is found that the same
general law of mortality obtains with little variation for each period.
As the climate or soil of that county might possess some peculiarities,
I caused an examination to be made of the average periods of death
amongst the agricultural population of all the unions in the county of
Wilts during 1840. In this examination the registries of deaths in the
towns were excluded, and only those of persons included who were
described as agricultural labourers, or as farmers and graziers, or as
gentry and professional persons resident in the rural districts. The
results of this examination are as follow:—
No. of UNIONS IN THE COUNTY OF WILTS. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
119 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 50 years.
218 Farmers and their families 48
2,061 Agricultural labourers and their families 33
The following table exhibits the mortality prevalent amongst the
different classes, partly mining and manufacturing, and partly
agricultural, returned by the clerk of the Kendal union:—
No. of KENDAL UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
52 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 45 years.
138 Tradesmen and their families 39
413 Operatives, labourers, servants, and their families 34
The following tables exhibit the results of such returns of mortality as
have been made for quinquennial and decennial periods, from an
examination of upwards of 25,000 cases for this inquiry. They show in
the mean ratios for large numbers of the like class the steady influence
of the different circumstances under which each class is placed. The
labouring classes, it is generally known, become old the soonest, and
the effects of the unfavourable influences in the adolescent and adult
stages is shown in the smaller proportions who attain extreme old age,
and also in the periods of the deaths of heads of families of this
class, by which widowhood is produced. These last will be shown in
subsequent tables.
_Tabular Views of the Ages at which Deaths have occurred in Different
Classes of Society._[18]
┌───────────────────────────┬──────┬───────────────────────┬──────────┐
│ CLASSES. │Total │ │ │
│ │No. of│ │ │
│ │Deaths│ │Proportion│
│ │under │ │of Deaths │
│ │ 20 │ Proportion of Deaths │ under 20 │
│ │Years │ which occurred at the │ Years to │
│ │ of │under-mentioned periods│ Total │
│ │ Age. │ of Age. │ Deaths. │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┬───────┬───────┼──────────┤
│ │ │Between│Between│Between│ │
│ │ │ 0–5 │ 5–10 │ 10–20 │ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ _Gentry and Professional │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Persons, Children of._ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 21│1 in 3│1 in 24│1 in 54│ 1 in 3 │
│Leeds │ 20│1 in 5│1 in 26│1 in 40│ 1 in 4 │
│Liverpool │ 61│1 in 3│1 in 11│1 in 23│ 1 in 2½ │
│Bath │ 32│1 in 11│1 in 12│1 in 31│ 1 in 4½ │
│Bethnal Green │ 33│1 in 5│1 in 20│1 in 13│ 1 in 3 │
│Strand Union │ 21│1 in 6│1 in 29│1 in 29│ 1 in 4 │
│Kendal Union │ 15│1 in 7│1 in 26│1 in 9│ 1 in 3 │
│County of Wilts (Unions of)│ 25│1 in 9│1 in 40│1 in 13│ 1 in 5 │
│County of Rutland (Unions │ │ │ │ │ │
│ of) │ 4│1 in 4│ │ │ 1 in 7 │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 232│1 in 5│1 in 19│1 in 19│ 1 in 3½ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ _Farmers, Tradesmen, and │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Persons similarly │ │ │ │ │ │
│ circumstanced, Children │ │ │ │ │ │
│ of._ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 444│1 in 2│1 in 18│1 in 27│ 1 in 2 │
│Leeds │ 425│1 in 2│1 in 18│1 in 18│ 1 in 2 │
│Liverpool │ 1,033│1 in 2│1 in 19│1 in 33│ 1 in 1¾ │
│Bath │ 78│1 in 4│1 in 24│1 in 30│ 1 in 3 │
│Bethnal Green │ 142│1 in 2│1 in 20│1 in 28│ 1 in 2 │
│Strand Union │ 99│1 in 3│1 in 20│1 in 25│ 1 in 2 │
│Kendal Union │ 47│1 in 4│1 in 35│1 in 14│ 1 in 3 │
│County of Wilts (Unions of)│ 54│1 in 7│1 in 27│1 in 15│ 1 in 4 │
│County of Rutland (Unions │ │ │ │ │ │
│ of) │ 174│1 in 3│1 in 30│1 in 17│ 1 in 3 │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 2,496│1 in 2¼│1 in 20│1 in 23│ 1 in 2 │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ _Agricultural and other │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Labourers, Artisans, and │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Servants, Children of._ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 3,106│1 in 2 │1 in 22│1 in 19│ 1 in 1½ │
│Leeds │ 2,245│1 in 2 │1 in 14│1 in 14│ 1 in 1½ │
│Liverpool │ 4,004│1 in 1½│1 in 15│1 in 33│ 1 in 1¼ │
│Bath │ 508│1 in 2 │1 in 19│1 in 18│ 1 in 1¾ │
│Bethnal Green │ 908│1 in 2 │1 in 15│1 in 30│ 1 in 1½ │
│Strand Union │ 367│1 in 2 │1 in 14│1 in 23│ 1 in 2 │
│Kendal Union │ 186│1 in 3 │1 in 19│1 in 11│ 1 in 2 │
│County of Wilts (Unions of)│ 954│1 in 3 │1 in 21│1 in 14│ 1 in 2 │
│County of Rutland (Unions │ │ │ │ │ │
│ of) │ 293│1 in 3 │1 in 18│1 in 18│ 1 in 2¼ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ Total │12,571│1 in 2 │1 in 17│1 in 20│ 1 in 1½ │
└───────────────────────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴──────────┘
┌──────────────┬────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬──────────┐
│ CLASSES. │ │ │Proportion│
│ │ Total │ │of Deaths │
│ │ No. of │ │ from 20 │
│ │ Deaths │ │ Years to │
│ │between │ Proportion of Deaths which │ 60 to │
│ │ 20 and │ occurred at the under-mentioned │ Total │
│ │ 60. │ periods of Age. │ Deaths. │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┼──────────┤
│ │ │Between│Between│Between │ Between │ │
│ │ │ 20–30 │ 30–40 │ 40–50 │ 50–60 │ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ _Gentry and │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Professional │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Persons and │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ their │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Families._ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 13│1 in 18│1 in 14│1 in 18 │ 1 in 18 │ 1 in 4 │
│Leeds │ 28│1 in 11│1 in 10│1 in 16 │ 1 in 10 │ 1 in 3 │
│Liverpool │ 34│1 in 46│1 in 15│1 in 23 │ 1 in 9 │ 1 in 4 │
│Bath │ 29│1 in 29│1 in 24│1 in 24 │ 1 in 12 │ 1 in 5 │
│Bethnal Green │ 21│1 in 25│1 in 17│1 in 25 │ 1 in 14 │ 1 in 5 │
│Strand Union │ 37│1 in 9│1 in 9│1 in 10 │ 1 in 11 │ 1 in 2¼ │
│Kendal Union │ 18│1 in 13│1 in 13│1 in 7 │ 1 in 17 │ 1 in 3 │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 32│1 in 15│1 in 15│1 in 17 │ 1 in 13 │ 1 in 4 │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 7│1 in 14│1 in 14│1 in 14 │ 1 in 28 │ 1 in 4 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 219│1 in 17│1 in 14│1 in 16 │ 1 in 12 │ 1 in 4 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ _Tradesmen, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Farmers, &c._ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 220│1 in 14│1 in 11│1 in 13 │ 1 in 18 │ 1 in 3¼ │
│Leeds │ 238│1 in 12│1 in 14│1 in 14 │ 1 in 19 │ 1 in 3½ │
│Liverpool │ 481│1 in 22│1 in 13│1 in 14 │ 1 in 13 │ 1 in 3½ │
│Bath │ 109│1 in 11│1 in 7│1 in 9 │ 1 in 9 │ 1 in 2¼ │
│Bethnal Green │ 92│1 in 15│1 in 11│1 in 12 │ 1 in 11 │ 1 in 3 │
│Strand Union │ 71│1 in 16│1 in 22│1 in 10 │ 1 in 9 │ 1 in 3 │
│Kendal Union │ 43│1 in 8│1 in 14│1 in 17 │ 1 in 17 │ 1 in 3 │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 65│1 in 22│1 in 14│1 in 10 │ 1 in 12 │ 1 in 3½ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 108│1 in 15│1 in 16│1 in 19 │ 1 in 19 │ 1 in 4 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 1,427│1 in 15│1 in 12│1 in 13 │ 1 in 14 │ 1 in 3½ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│_Agricultural │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Labourers, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Operatives, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Servants, &c._│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 1,149│1 in 16│1 in 14│1 in 18 │ 1 in 17 │ 1 in 4 │
│Leeds │ 773│1 in 14│1 in 16│1 in 20 │ 1 in 22 │ 1 in 4½ │
│Liverpool │ 1,205│1 in 17│1 in 18│1 in 17 │ 1 in 24 │ 1 in 4¼ │
│Bath │ 258│1 in 12│1 in 14│1 in 13 │ 1 in 17 │ 1 in 3 │
│Bethnal Green │ 228│1 in 18│1 in 23│1 in 21 │ 1 in 31 │ 1 in 5½ │
│Strand Union │ 212│1 in 13│1 in 12│1 in 13 │ 1 in 13 │ 1 in 3 │
│Kendal Union │ 113│1 in 13│1 in 14│1 in 18 │ 1 in 14 │ 1 in 3¾ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 492│1 in 13│1 in 18│1 in 18 │ 1 in 19 │ 1 in 4 │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 157│1 in 12│1 in 18│1 in 18 │ 1 in 27 │ 1 in 4 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 4,587│1 in 15│1 in 17│1 in 18 │ 1 in 20 │ 1 in 4 │
└──────────────┴────────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴─────────┴──────────┘
┌──────────────┬────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬──────────┐
│ CLASSES. │ Total │ │ │
│ │ No. of │ │ │
│ │ Deaths │ │Proportion│
│ │ which │ │of Deaths │
│ │occurred│ Proportion of Deaths which │ above 60 │
│ │ above │ occurred at the under-mentioned │ to Total │
│ │ 60. │ periods of Age. │ Deaths. │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┼──────────┤
│ │ │Between│Between│Between │ 90 and │ │
│ │ │ 60–70 │ 70–80 │ 80–90 │ upwards │ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ _Gentry and │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Professional │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Persons and │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ their │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Families._ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 20│1 in 6│1 in 8│1 in 14│ │ 1 in 2¾ │
│Leeds │ 31│1 in 7│1 in 7│1 in 13│1 in 79│ 1 in 2½ │
│Liverpool │ 42│1 in 7│1 in 7│1 in 34│ │ 1 in 3¼ │
│Bath │ 85│1 in 5│1 in 6│1 in 5│1 in 146│ 1 in 1¾ │
│Bethnal Green │ 47│1 in 6│1 in 5│1 in 9│1 in 101│ 1 in 2 │
│Strand Union │ 28│1 in 7│1 in 9│1 in 22│1 in 86│ 1 in 3 │
│Kendal Union │ 19│1 in 17│1 in 7│1 in 6│1 in 52│ 1 in 2¾ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 62│1 in 5│1 in 4│1 in 12│1 in 119│ 1 in 2¼ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 17│1 in 9│1 in 4│1 in 6│1 in 28│ 1 in 1¾ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 351│1 in 6│1 in 6│1 in 10│1 in 115│ 1 in 2¼ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ _Farmers and │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Tradesmen, and│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Families._ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 61│1 in 21│1 in 38│1 in 145│1 in 242│ 1 in 12 │
│Leeds │ 161│1 in 13│1 in 12│1 in 34│1 in 824│ 1 in 5 │
│Liverpool │ 224│1 in 16│1 in 22│1 in 51│1 in 869│ 1 in 8 │
│Bath │ 57│1 in 9│1 in 12│1 in 40│1 in 122│ 1 in 4¼ │
│Bethnal Green │ 44│1 in 13│1 in 15│1 in 93│1 in 278│ 1 in 6¼ │
│Strand Union │ 51│1 in 9│1 in 13│1 in 22│ │ 1 in 4¼ │
│Kendal Union │ 48│1 in 6│1 in 10│1 in 13│ │ 1 in 3 │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 99│1 in 7│1 in 6│1 in 10│1 in 31│ 1 in 2¼ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 168│1 in 8│1 in 7│1 in 9│1 in 90│ 1 in 2¾ │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 913│1 in 12│1 in 14│1 in 29│1 in 122│ 1 in 5 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│_Agricultural │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Labourers, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Operatives, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Servants, &c._│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Manchester │ 374│1 in 20│1 in 43│1 in 149│1 in 772│ 1 in 12⅓ │
│Leeds │ 377│1 in 20│1 in 23│1 in 62│1 in 485│ 1 in 9 │
│Liverpool │ 385│1 in 27│1 in 47│1 in 102│1 in 1865│ 1 in 15 │
│Bath │ 130│1 in 16│1 in 19│1 in 45│1 in 149│ 1 in 6¾ │
│Bethnal Green │ 122│1 in 21│1 in 28│1 in 97│1 in 419│ 1 in 10¼ │
│Strand Union │ 95│1 in 12│1 in 23│1 in 84│1 in 225│ 1 in 7 │
│Kendal Union │ 114│1 in 11│1 in 9│1 in 15│1 in 207│ 1 in 3¾ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Wilts │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 615│1 in 11│1 in 9│1 in 11│1 in 108│ 1 in 3½ │
│County of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Rutland │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Unions of) │ 227│1 in 10│1 in 8│1 in 10│1 in 75│ 1 in 3 │
├──────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 2,439│1 in 18│1 in 23│1 in 43│1 in 338│ 1 in 8 │
└──────────────┴────────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴─────────┴──────────┘
On comparing the proportion of deaths amongst all classes between one
district and another, as well as between class and class, the general
influence of the locality becomes strikingly apparent. The difference of
mortality between one large district of the metropolis and another is
shown in the following tabular view, made up by Mr. Alexander Finlaison,
from the superintendent-registrar’s weekly returns of the mortality
prevalent in the chief registration districts of the metropolis during
the different seasons of the year. But the extremes of difference are
more strikingly exhibited in smaller districts:—
Table of the Comparative Mortality of the Five following Divisions of
the Metropolis:—
┌────────┬──────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐
│Seasons.│Weeks.│ West │ North │ Central │ East │ South │
│ │ │District.│District.│District.│District.│District.│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│Winter │ 13 │ 2,127│ 2,588│ 3,064│ 3,227│ 3,542│
│Spring │ 13 │ 1,611│ 2,066│ 2,264│ 2,264│ 2,682│
│Summer │ 13 │ 1,486│ 1,817│ 2,064│ 2,220│ 2,458│
│Autumn │ 13 │ 1,518│ 1,959│ 2,144│ 2,476│ 2,655│
├────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ Totals │ 52 │ 6,742│ 8,430│ 9,536│ 10,187│ 11,337│
├────────┴──────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│Population │ 300,705│ 365,660│ 373,806│ 392,496│ 438,060│
│ enumerated, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1841. │ │ │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│Deaths out of │ 224│ 231│ 255│ 260│ 259│
│ 10,000 │ │ │ │ │ │
│ inhabitants │ │ │ │ │ │
│No. of │ 44·60│ 43·38│ 39·20│ 38·53│ 38·64│
│ Inhabitants │ │ │ │ │ │
│ out of which │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1 death │ │ │ │ │ │
│ happened │ │ │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘
┌────────┬──────┬───────────┬────────┐
│Seasons.│Weeks.│ Whole │ Deaths │
│ │ │Metropolis.│ in the │
│ │ │ │ Four │
│ │ │ │Seasons │
│ │ │ │ out of │
│ │ │ │ 10,000 │
│ │ │ │Persons.│
├────────┼──────┼───────────┼────────┤
│Winter │ 13 │ 14,548│ 78│
│Spring │ 13 │ 10,887│ 58│
│Summer │ 13 │ 10,045│ 54│
│Autumn │ 13 │ 10,752│ 57│
├────────┼──────┼───────────┼────────┤
│ Totals │ 52 │ 46,232│ 247│
├────────┴──────┼───────────┼────────┤
│Population │ 1,870,727│ │
│ enumerated, │ │ │
│ 1841. │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────┼────────┤
│Deaths out of │ 247│ │
│ 10,000 │ │ │
│ inhabitants │ │ │
│No. of │ 40,464│ │
│ Inhabitants │ │ │
│ out of which │ │ │
│ 1 death │ │ │
│ happened │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────┴────────┘
The West District comprises Kensington, St. George, Hanover Square,
Westminster, St.
Martin-in-the-Fields, St. James.
The North District comprises St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, Islington
and Hackney.
The Central District comprises St. Giles and St. George, Strand,
Holborn, Clerkenwell, St. Luke, East
London, West Loudon, City of London.
The East District comprises Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel,
St. George-in-the-East, Stepney,
Poplar.
The South District comprises St. Saviour’s, St. Olave, Bermondsey,
St. George, Southwark, Newington,
Lambeth, Camberwell, Rotherhithe,
Greenwich.
The female is most in the house; she is the most regular and temperate
in her habits; the male is subject to the influence of his place of
occupation—the operative to his workshop, the clerk to the
counting-house, and the merchant to crowded places of business. In the
following returns made up by _Mr. Farr_, and in others that will
hereafter be cited, the mortality prevalent amongst the females is given
separately, as probably indicating most correctly the operation of the
noxious influences connected with the place of residence:—
Mean Annual Mortality of Females in the following Metropolitan districts
in the two Years and a half ending 31st December, 1839:—
Districts. Annual Deaths.
1 in
Hackney 57·87
St. George, Hanover Square 57·05
Camberwell 55·34
Islington 50·03
Rotherhithe 38·58
Clerkenwell 38·54
St. Luke 38·49
Greenwich 38·42
St. George, Southwark 33·77
East and West London 33·50
St. Giles and St. George 33·46
Whitechapel 28·15
Yet it is to be observed that the best and the worst districts present
striking instances of extremes of condition in the residences and the
inhabitants. In the Bethnal Green and the Whitechapel unions, in which
are found some of the worst conditioned masses of population in the
metropolis, we also find good mansions, well drained and protected,
inhabited by persons in the most favourable circumstances. Immediately
behind rows of the best-constructed houses in the fashionable districts
of London are some of the worst dwellings, into which the working
classes are crowded; and these dwellings, by the noxious influences
described, are the foci of disease. These returns are all from large
parishes, containing the mean results from all classes. If it had been
practicable to give correctly the average rate of mortality prevalent in
different classes of streets, the variation of results, it is to be
presumed, from the variations of circumstances, would have been much
greater. Since the character of the residences of many of the labouring
classes, and the condition of their places of work and their habits are
known, it is to be considered that where the occupations are duly
registered, returns, on the principle of those we have first given of
the average age of death amongst particular classes will afford the most
close approximation to accuracy, or the best indications of the extent
of the operation of the noxious circumstances under which each of those
classes is placed.[19]
A LINEAR REPRESENTATION
_of the number of Deaths in the Metropolis, from Epidemic, Endemic and
Contagious disease; Diseases of the Brain, Nerves & Senses; diseases of
Respiratory Organs and diseases of the Heart & Blood Vessels: also the
number of Deaths from Small Pox, Scarlet Fever, Measles; Typhus Fever,
Hooping Cough, and, all other Epidemic diseases, during each Four Weeks
of the Two Years, ended the 1st January, 1842._
(_Population of 1841.—1,870,727._)
[Illustration:
_Sanitary Report P.L.C._
]
The annexed linear view of the numbers of deaths from the chief diseases
during every month of two years in the metropolis will be of interest as
showing the influence of the seasons, and especially of the winter, when
there is the most cold, wet, and crowding.
In Scotland we have not the advantage of systematized registries of
mortality or of the causes of mortality, and we are therefore unable to
make the same comparisons as in England; yet so far as the records of
the dispensaries serve, they are confirmatory of the returns with
respect to the different rates of mortality in differently conditioned
districts in England. Thus, in a report from Leith, it is stated that—
“Contagious febrile diseases of all kinds are met with in Leith,
particularly typhus, which in certain seasons is prevalent to a great
extent. The parts of the town in which it seems to prevail chiefly (so
far as can be deduced from the records of the Leith Dispensary for the
last five years) are the central and most crowded districts in which
the number of cases amongst the poor during the last five years have
been in the proportion of 1 to 6 of the whole population, while in
other districts not so central in situation, but inhabited by persons
of nearly the same class, the proportion has been not above 1 to 13
within these districts. One locality containing a population of 1579,
has produced 433 cases of contagious fevers in general (of which 306
were of typhus) in dispensary practice, within five years, being in
the ratio of 1 to 3⅖ of fevers in general, and 1 to 5⅙ of typhus to
the gross population; of these 433 cases, 130 of all fevers, and 96 of
typhus, occurred in the two narrow streets (St. Andrew’s-street and
Giles’s-street) which bound the district to the north and south, the
remainder in the narrow lanes and closes communicating with them.
These may be regarded as the most unhealthy parts of the town.”
An impression is often prevalent that a heavy mortality is an
unavoidable condition of all large towns, and of a town population in
general. It has, however, been shown that, groups of cottages on a high
hill, exposed to the most, salubrious breezes when cleanliness is
neglected, are often the nests of fever and disease, as intense as the
most crowded districts. The mortuary returns of particular districts (in
the essentials of drainage, cleansing, and ventilation, to which it is
practicable to make other districts approximate, and that too with
reductions of existing charges), prove that a high degree of mortality
does not invariably belong to the population of all towns, and probably
not necessarily to any, even where the population is engaged in
manufactures. The proportion of deaths appears in some of the suburbs of
the metropolis (as at Hackney), and of Manchester and Leeds, to be lower
than amongst the highest classes in two of the agricultural counties.
It appears from the report of Dr. d’Espine, one of the members of the
Council of Health of Geneva, who has examined the records of the
mortality prevalent amongst the population _extra muros_, as well as
that in the city (which will hereafter be submitted to special notice),
that the deaths were in the rural districts 1 in 39·3; whilst in the
city they were 1 in 44·7 of the whole of the population in the year
1838. In the poorest and worst conditioned of the rural districts the
proportions of the deaths were the greatest. In the year 1837 the deaths
were in the poorest of the rural districts 1 in 38·6; in the
intermediate district, 1 in 40·8; in the richest district, 1 in 53·2.
In comparison with the very high state of the chances of life in the
county of Wilts, the city of Bath presents an example confirmatory of
this view. The _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_ has supplied the following return
of the chances of life amongst the different classes in that city. Out
of 616 cases of death in 1840, the results were as follow:—
No. of Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
146 Gentlemen, professional persons, and their families 55 years.
244 Tradesmen and their families 37
896 Mechanics, labourers, and their families 25
The very high average chances of life amongst the middle classes, which
is nearly the same as that of the farmers, &c. of the agricultural
districts, is the fact adduced as most strongly proving the salubrity of
the place.
“In making these returns,” says Mr. Elwin, “I have thrown out all
visitors and occasional residents, and my knowledge of the locality,
with the assistance of the clerk of the union, has enabled me to
attain complete accuracy with respect to the gentry, and a close
approximation to it in the remaining cases. The difference in the ages
of these several classes presents to my mind a tolerably exact scale
of the difference of their abodes. The large houses, the broad
streets, looking almost invariably on one side or other upon parks or
gardens or open country, the spacious squares, the crescents built
upon the brows of the hills without a single obstruction to the pure
air of heaven, give the gentry of Bath that superiority over other
grades and other cities which their longevity indicates. And herein,
it appears to me, consists the value of the return. It shows that the
congregation of men is not of necessity unhealthy; nay, that towns,
possessing as they do superior medical skill and readier access to
advice, may, under favourable circumstances, have an advantage over
the country. The situation of the tradesmen of Bath, inferior as it is
to that of the gentry, is better than that of their own station in
other places. The streets they chiefly inhabit, though with many
exceptions, are wide, and swept by free currents of air, with houses
large and well ventilated. The condition of the poor is worse than
would be anticipated from the other portions of the town. They are
chiefly located in low districts at the bottom of the valley, and
narrow alleys and confined courts are very numerous. Yet even here we
have an unquestionable advantage over most large towns. It was only
yesterday that I was expressing my horror to a medical gentleman at
some portions of the habitations of the poor, when he replied, that it
excited little attention, because they were so much better than what
was to be seen in other parts of the kingdom.
“Whatever influence occupation and other circumstances may have upon
mortality, no one can inspect the registers without being struck by
the deteriorated value of life in inferior localities, even where the
inhabitants were the same in condition with those who lived longer in
better situations. The average age of death among the gentlemen was as
high as 60, till I came, at the conclusion, to a small but damp
district, in which numerous cases of fever brought down the average to
54. So again with the shopkeepers, the average was reduced two by the
returns from streets which, though inhabited by respectable men, were
narrow in front and shut in at the back. The average among the
labourers was greatly diminished by the returns from some notorious
courts, and raised again in a still higher proportion by districts
which appertained rather to the country than the town. Of three cases
of centenarians, one of whom had attained the vast age of 106, two
belonged to this favoured situation. Not but that great ages were to
be found in the worst parts as in the best, or that particular streets
did not in a measure run counter to the rule. Still, wherever I
brought into opposition districts of considerable extent, I found the
law more or less to obtain. Bath is a favourable town to institute the
comparison, from presenting such marked contrasts in its houses, and
the inquiry being little complicated by the presence of noxious
trades, which in some towns would necessarily disturb every
calculation of the kind. Even here a colony of shoemakers would bring
down the average of its healthiest spot to the age of childhood. My
attention was called to this circumstance by the clerk incidentally
remarking that more shoemakers were married at his office, and were
uniformly more dirty and ill-dressed, than any other class of persons.
The proneness to marriage or concubinage in proportion to the
degradation of the parties is notorious, and I anticipated from the
fact an abundant offspring, afterwards to be carried off by premature
disease. Accordingly I went with this view through several of the
registers, and the result was, that while the average of death amongst
the families of labourers and artisans in general was 24 and 25, that
of shoemakers was only 14. Had the shoemakers been excluded from the
former average, as for the purpose of this comparison they should have
been, the disproportion would be some years greater.
“The deaths from fever and contagious diseases I found to be almost
exclusively confined to the worst parts of the town. An epidemic
small-pox raged at the end of the year 1837, and carried off upwards
of 300 persons; yet of all this number I do not think there was a
single gentleman, and not above two or three tradesmen. The residences
of the labouring classes were pretty equally visited, disease showing
here and there a predilection for particular spots, and settling with
full virulence in Avon-street and its offsets. I went through the
registers from the commencement, and observed that, whatever
contagious or epidemic diseases prevailed,—fever, small-pox,
influenza,—this was the scene of its principal ravages; and it is the
very place of which every person acquainted with Bath would have
predicted this result. Everything vile and offensive is congregated
there. All the scum of Bath—its low prostitutes, its thieves, its
beggars—are piled up in the dens rather than houses of which the
street consists. Its population is the most disproportioned to the
accommodation of any I have ever heard; and to aggravate the mischief,
the refuse is commonly thrown under the staircase; and water more
scarce than in any quarter of the town. It would hardly be an
hyperbole to say that there is less water consumed than beer; and
altogether it would be more difficult to exaggerate the description of
this dreadful spot than to convey an adequate notion to those who have
never seen it. A prominent feature in the midst of this mass of
physical and moral evils is the extraordinary number of illegitimate
children; the offspring of persons who in all respects live together
as man and wife. Without the slightest objection to the legal
obligation, the moral degradation is such that marriage is accounted a
superfluous ceremony, not worth the payment of the necessary fees; and
on one occasion, when it was given out that these would be dispensed
with, upwards of 50 persons from Avon-street, who had lived together
for years, voluntarily came forward to enter into a union. And thus it
invariably happens in crowded haunts of sin and filth, where principle
is obliterated, and where public opinion, which so often operates in
the place of principle, is never heard; where, to say truth, virtue is
treated with the scorn which in better society is accorded to vice. I
have been rendered familiar with these places by holding a curacy in
the midst of them for upwards of a year, and my duty as chaplain to
the union, in visiting the friends of paupers or discharged paupers
themselves, keep up the knowledge I then contracted.
“I think these facts supply us with important conclusions. Whether we
compare one part of Bath with another or Bath with other towns, we
find health rising in proportion to the improvement of the residences;
we find morality, in at least a great measure, following the same law,
and both these inestimable blessings within the reach of the
legislature to secure. When viewed in this light, these
investigations, so often distressing and disgusting, acquire dignity
and importance.”
The suffering and expense of life prevalent in differently situated
districts observed in this country, are consistent with the experience
of the continent.
In a report prepared by M. Villermé, as the reporter of a committee of
the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris, appointed to investigate some
statistical data on the mortality prevalent in that city, and the
department of the Seine, several tables are given to show the
proportions of deaths that occur in each of the several arrondissements.
In the table on which the most reliance appears to be placed, the
mortality in each arrondissement is exhibited as it occurs in the
private residences. In the following table the arrondissements are
arranged in the order of the proportions in which the houses are
exempted from taxation, on the ground of the poverty of the inhabitants,
beginning with the arrondissements where the exemptions are the fewest,
where the houses are the largest and most valuable, and proceeding to
those where the exemptions are most numerous, and the houses the least
in size, as indicated by the value. The average of exempted houses, with
slight exceptions, he considers a fair indication of the average
condition of each arrondissement as compared with the other
arrondissements. In this table I have included a column showing the
deaths of persons from each arrondissement who die in the public
hospitals and other places appropriated to the care of the sick. These
tables perhaps comprise the whole of the mortality that occurs in that
capital. I have added the proportions of deaths from cholera in each
arrondissement, which followed in the highest and the lowest
arrondissements the general law of mortality, with some irregularities
in the intermediate arrondissements which I have not seen accounted
for:—
┌──────────────────┬──────────┬─────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬────────┐
│ ARRONDISSEMENTS. │Proportion│ Annual │ Deaths in │ Total of │Cholera.│
│ │ of │ Average │ Private │Deaths in the│ │
│ │Tenements │Value of │ Houses. │House and at │ │
│ │ exempted │Tenement.│ │ the │ │
│ │ from │ │ │ Hospitals. │ │
│ │Taxation. │ │ │ │ │
├──────────────────┼──────────┼─────────┼──────┬──────┼──────┬──────┼────────┤
│ │ │ │Period│Period│Period│Period│ │
│ │ │ │ from │ from │ from │ from │ │
│ │ │ │ 1817 │ 1822 │ 1817 │ 1822 │ │
│ │ │ │ to │ to │ to │ to │ │
│ │ │ │1821. │1826. │1821. │1826. │ │
├──────────────────┼──────────┼─────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼────────┤
│ │ │ fr. │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 3. Montmartre │ 0·07│ 425│ 62│ 71│ 38│ 43│ 90│
│ 2. Chaussée │ 0·11│ 604│ 60│ 67│ 43│ 48│ 107│
│ d’Antin │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1. Roule, │ 0·11│ 497│ 58│ 66│ 45│ 52│ 82│
│ Tuileries │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 4. St. Honoré, │ 0·15│ 328│ 58│ 62│ 33│ 34│ 54│
│ Louvre │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│11. Luxembourg, │ 0·19│ 257│ 51│ 61│ 33│ 39│ 17│
│ &c. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 6. Porte St. │ 0·21│ 242│ 54│ 58│ 35│ 38│ 62│
│ Denis, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Temple │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 5. Faubourg St. │ 0·22│ 225│ 53│ 64│ 34│ 42│ 67│
│ Denis │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 7. St. Avoie │ 0·22│ 217│ 52│ 59│ 35│ 41│ 34│
│10. Monnaie, │ 0·23│ 285│ 50│ 49│ 36│ 36│ 34│
│ Invalides │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 9. Ile St. Louis │ 0·31│ 172│ 44│ 50│ 25│ 30│ 22│
│ 8. St. Antoine │ 0·32│ 172│ 43│ 46│ 25│ 28│ 36│
│12. Jardin du Roi │ 0·38│ 147│ 43│ 44│ 24│ 26│ 35│
│ │ ——│ ——│ │
│ In all Paris │ 32│ 36│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┴────────┘
It will be observed that in each table the mortality is the lowest in
the three richest arrondissements (1, 2, and 3), and is the highest in
the three arrondissements, which are positively the poorest, namely, the
8th, 9th, and 12th. Similar results were deduced from comparisons of the
mortality prevalent in streets inhabited by different classes; and from
comparisons of the different rates of mortality prevalent amongst
persons of the same condition as to income, but residing in houses of
favourable or unfavourable construction and situation.
If we could ascertain the rates of mortality formerly prevalent in the
separate districts of each large town, it is probable we should find
that the improvement in the average chances of life of the whole town
has been raised principally by the improved chances in the districts
where the streets have been widened, paved, and cleansed, and the houses
enlarged and drained; and that the amount of sickness and chances of
life in the inferior districts are as little altered as their general
physical condition. The present condition of those parts of London where
the average mortality is 1 in 28 annually, appears to be not dissimilar
to the general condition of the whole metropolis about a century ago,
which was said to be about 1 in 20, a rate still to be found in some of
the most neglected streets.
_Dr. Heberden_, in an able paper which he wrote at the beginning of the
present century, on the disappearance of several diseases in London,
ascribes the fact, and the advance of the public health, to the
improvements that have gradually taken place in the widening, paving,
and cleansing the streets since the great conflagration. He observes
that “the annual pestilential fever of Constantinople very much
resembles that of our gaols and crowded hospitals,” and “is only called
plague when attended with buboes and carbuncles.” He ascribes the
exemption to “our change of manners, our love of cleanliness and
ventilation, which have produced amongst us, I do not say an
incapability, but a great inaptness any longer to receive it.” The
examination of the disease prevalent, in the poorer districts, however,
raises the question whether they have not, in the “pestilential fever by
which they are ravaged,” any other than a type of the malady from which
it is supposed the country is exempted. The fever itself is almost as
severe in particular neighbourhoods and in unfavourable states of the
weather, as it is stated to be in the bad quarters of Constantinople.
The like improvement in the public health that has followed the slow
structural improvements in the best districts of the metropolis has been
displayed in Paris, where some of the worst districts which remain in a
condition not dissimilar to that in which the whole of Paris is
described to have been, in closeness and filth, and where the chances of
life have remained nearly in the same low condition. M. De Villermé, in
proof of an improvement commensurate with the improvements that have
been made in the condition of the streets and houses, and the habits of
the inhabitants, cites a curious document of the date of the fourteenth
century, namely, the register of a tax levied upon all assessable
persons of Paris, when Philip-le-Bel knighted his eldest son, who
afterwards succeeded him under the name of Louis the Xth. The persons
assessed were housekeepers, manufacturers, merchants, masters of the
different handicrafts, master jewellers, master masons, master
upholsterers, haberdashers, confectioners, butchers, brewers, wine,
corn, and cloth merchants, the heads of houses, amongst whom mortality
in the present times would be slight compared with that prevalent
amongst the lower classes. From the number of this class who are named
and registered street by street by the parish priests, as having died
between the date of the assessment and the date when the tax was levied,
it appears that 232 out of 6042 died in thirteen months and a half,
during a time which was not remarked for any extraordinary sickness.
From hence it is inferred that the general annual mortality in Paris
could not be less at the commencement of the 14th century than
one-twentieth or a twenty-second part of the whole population; whereas
in later times the general mortality has not been known to exceed one
thirty-second part. The general mortality, therefore, or rather the
mortality of a high and select class, was worse in the 14th century than
the mortality in the worst districts in the 19th, where it was 1 in 24.
“But it will be said,” observes M. Villermé, “how can so dreadful a
mortality be admitted to have taken place in a climate so salubrious
as that of Paris? I confess that if, in order to justify that
statement, I had nothing but the book of assessment of the year 1313,
I should not have allowed myself at this distance of time to have made
any use of the facts which are found recorded in the book of which I
am speaking; but the accounts of the time inform us how much public
_hygiène_ was then neglected, and that in Paris particularly, the
horrible filth of the streets was insupportable, so much were they
encumbered with dirt of every kind.
“Some idea may be formed of the dirtiness of the streets of Paris,
towards the end of the fourteenth century, from the words of an
ordinance of Charles VI. issued in 1388, ‘And whereas the pavements of
Paris are much injured and fallen into decay, so that in many places
no horse or carriage can go without very great danger and
inconvenience, and whereas this town has long been, and still is, full
of dirt, rubbish, and ordure, which each person has left at his own
door, so that it is a great horror, and a great displeasure to all
persons of respectability and honour, and a great scandal and shame to
this city, and a great grief and prejudice to the human beings
dwelling in and frequenting the said city, who by the infection of the
stinking mass of filth have fallen in times past into great illness
and infirmities of body, and great mortality.’
“It must be borne in mind (many other facts prove it),” observes M.
Villermé, “that the humble citizens of the present day, artisans for
example, are for the most part much better off, as regards air, and
those conveniencies which preserve life than persons of much greater
wealth were in former times in this capital.” From a passage in
Ulpien, it is estimated that the chances of life is in ancient Rome as
deduced from the experience of a select class was 30 years.
He states, that the first agent to improvement is changing the infected
air that they inspired in Paris for air that is pure. In the recent
progress of the same change it has been observed there, as in this
country, that parts of streets better paved and cleansed are marked by
the comparative infrequency of disease.
Yet how much remains to be done is shown by the fact that in Paris, with
a drier and more salubrious climate, the mortality is still greater than
in London; and that the advantages of which M. Villermé justly speaks so
highly, are distributed with extreme inequality, is apparent from his
tables, which show that in one district the mortality has diminished to
1 in 52; whilst in another it remains as great as 1 in 26 annually. So
we have seen that in London it ranges from 1 in 28 to 1 in 57; and it
will be seen that in the township of Manchester, a population of nearly
80,000, one twenty-eighth are swept away annually, whilst, in a favoured
suburban district, no more than one sixty-third part die.
I have been favoured by M. Ducpetiaux, the Inspector-general of prisons
in Belgium, with the copy of a report on an inquiry similar to the
present, into the condition of the labouring population in Brussels. I
have submitted an extract from it in the Appendix, descriptive of the
general condition in which their residences were found. When the
proportion which the well-conditioned houses of that city bear to the
great mass is considered, it will not excite surprise to those who have
traversed the poorer districts to find that the average mortality
amongst the whole population was, in the year 1840, 1 in 24. In 1829, it
appears to have been 1 in 21.
In illustration of the moral and social effects to be anticipated from
measures for the removal of the causes of pestilence amongst the
labouring classes, and for the increase of their duration of life,
concurrently with an increase of the population, I refer to the effects
experienced in Geneva from the like improvements effected during the
lapse of centuries. That city is, so far as I am aware, the only one in
Europe in which there is an early and complete set of registers of
marriages, births, and deaths. These registries were established in the
year 1549, and are viewed as pre-appointed evidences to civil rights,
and are kept with great care. This registration includes the name of the
disease which has caused the death, entered by a district physician who
is charged by the State with the inspection of every person who dies
within his district. A second table is made up from certificates setting
forth the nature of the disease, with a specification of the symptoms,
and observations required to be made by the private physician who may
have had the care of the deceased. These registries have been the
subject of frequent careful examinations. It appears from them that the
progress of the population _intra muros_ of that city has been as
follows:—
In the Year Inhabitants. Proportionate rate of
Increase as compared
with 1589.
1589 13,000 100
1693 16,111 124, or 24 per cent.
1698 16,934 130, or 30 per cent.
1711 18,500 142, or 42 per cent.
1721 20,781 160, or 60 per cent.
1755 21,816 168, or 68 per cent.
1781 24,810 191, or 91 per cent.
1785 25,500 196, or 96 per cent.
1789 26,140 201, or 101 per cent.
1805 22,300 171, or 71 per cent.
1812 24,158 186, or 86 per cent.
1822 24,886 191, or 91 per cent.
1828 26,121 201, or 101 per cent.
1834 27,177 209, or 109 per cent.
It is proved in a report by _M. Edward Mallet_, one of the most able
that have been made from these registries, that this increase of the
population has been followed by an increase in the probable duration of
life in that city:—
│ Proportionate rate of
│Years. Months. Days. Increase as compared
│ with the end of 16th
│ Century.
Towards the end of │
the 16th century │
the probabilities│ 8 7 26 100
of life were, to │
every individual │
born ... │
In the 17th century│ 13 3 16 153, or 53 per cent.
1701–1750 │ 27 9 13 321, or 221 per cent.
1751–1800 │ 31 3 5 361, or 261 per cent.
1801–1813 │ 40 8 0 470, or 370 per cent.
1814–1833 │ 45 0 29 521, or 421 per cent.
The progression of the population and the increased duration of life had
been attended by a progression in happiness: as prosperity advanced
marriages became fewer and later;[20] the proportion of births were
reduced, but greater numbers of the infants born were preserved;[21] and
the proportion of the population in manhood became greater. In the early
and barbarous periods, the excessive mortality was accompanied by a
prodigious fecundity. In the ten last years of the 17th century, a
marriage still produced five children and more; the probable duration of
life attained was not 20 years, and Geneva had scarcely 17,000
inhabitants. Towards the end of the 18th century there was scarcely
three children to a marriage, and the probabilities of life exceeded 32
years. At the present time a marriage only produces 2¾ children; the
probability of life is 45[22] years, and Geneva, which exceeds 27,000 in
population, has arrived at a high degree of civilization and of
“_prospérité matérielle_.” In 1836 the population appeared to have
attained its summit; the births barely replaced the deaths.
M. Mallet observes, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to
distinguish the different causes, and the different degrees of intensity
of each of the causes that have tended to produce this result. It is,
however, attributed generally to the advance in the condition of all
classes; to the medical science of the public health being better
understood and applied; to larger and better and cleaner dwellings; more
abundant and healthy food; the cessation of the great epidemics which,
from time to time, decimated the population; the precautions taken
against famine; and better regulated public and private life. As an
instance of the effects of regimen in the preservation of life, he
mentions that, in an establishment for the care of female orphans taken
from the poorest classes, out of 86 reared in 24 years, one only had
died These orphans were taken from the poor. The average mortality on
the whole population would have been six times as great.[23]
An impression of an undefined optimism is frequently entertained by
persons who are aware of the wretched condition of a large portion of
the labouring population; and this impression is more frequently
entertained than expressed, as the ground of inaction for the relief of
the prevalent misery from disease, that its ravages form the natural or
positive check, or, as Dr. Short terms it, a “terrible corrective” to
the pressure of population on the means of subsistence.
In the most crowded districts, which have been the subject of the
present inquiry, the facts do not justify this impression; they show
that the theory is inapplicable to the present circumstances of the
population. How erroneous the inferences are in their unrestrained
generality, which assume that the poverty or the privation which is
sometimes the consequence,—is always the cause, of the disease, will
have been seen from such evidence as that adduced from Glasgow and
Spitalfields, proving that the greater proportion of those attacked by
disease are in full work at the time; and the evidence from the fever
hospitals, that the greatest proportion of the patients are received in
high bodily condition. If wages be taken as the test of the means of
subsistence, it may be asked how are such facts to be reconciled as
these, that at a time when wages in Manchester were 10s. per head weekly
on all employed in the manufactories, including children or young
persons in the average, so that if three or four members of a family
were employed, the wages of a family would be 30_s._ or 40_s._ weekly,
the average chances of life to all of the labouring classes were only 17
years; whilst in the whole of Rutlandshire, where the wages were
certainly not one half that amount, we find the mean chances of life to
every individual of the lowest class were 37 years? Or, to take another
instance, that whilst in Leeds, where, according to Mr. Baker’s report,
the wages of the families of the worst-conditioned workers were upwards
of 1_l._ 1_s._ per week, and the chances of life amongst the whole
labouring population of the borough were only 19 years; whilst in the
county of Wilts, where the labourer’s family would not receive much more
than half that amount of wages in money, and perhaps not two-thirds of
money’s worth in money and produce together, we find the average chances
of life to the labouring classes 32 years?
If, in the most crowded districts, the inference is found to be
erroneous, that the extent of sickness and mortality is indicative of
the pressure of population on the means of subsistence, so is the
inference that the ravages act to the extent supposed, as a positive
check to the increase of the numbers of the population. In such
districts the fact is observable, that where the mortality is the
highest, the number of births are more than sufficient to replace the
deaths, however numerous they may be.
This fact is shown in the following returns from the eight townships
which comprehend Manchester and its suburbs, made by the Statistical
Society of that town. But I believe the results would be more strongly
manifest if the registration of the births and of the residences of the
mothers were complete. I have reason to believe that in the lower
districts many births, and especially illegitimate births, escape
registration, and that many take place in hospitals and workhouses out
of the township; whilst in the better conditioned districts the
registration is comparatively accurate. I have caused attempts to be
made in several of the worst neighbourhoods in Bath and other places, to
ascertain with greater precision the actual number of births; but from
the migratory character of the population and other circumstances, the
efforts failed to do more than to confirm the impression that many had
hitherto escaped registration.
The proportion of mortality in the several townships denotes with little
variation the state of the streets and houses, and the condition of the
inhabitants. The township of Broughton is inhabited almost exclusively
by the upper classes, who are connected with Manchester. The houses are
new, spacious, and well built; the site is elevated, and offers great
facilities for drainage. The township of Cheetham and Crumpsall is also
inhabited for the most part by the upper classes, who live in peculiarly
good houses, with a superior natural drainage. There is a proportion of
the working population resident in this district whose houses are well
built, and also favourably situated for drainage. The condition of the
habitations of a large proportion of the labouring population in
Manchester has already been described.
It will be observed also that the moral as well as the sanitary
influences have a coincidence in the larger proportion of the
illegitimate births in the worst conditioned districts. In the best
conditioned districts the great majority of illegitimate births belong
almost exclusively to the more dissipated of the labouring classes who
inhabit them.
┌───────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬────────┬───────────┬──────────┐
│Localities.│ Population. │ Deaths. │ Total │Proportion │Proportion│
│ │ │ │ Deaths │ of Births │of Illegi-│
│ │ │ │of Males│ to │ timate │
│ │ │ │ & │Population.│Births to │
│ │ │ │Females.│ │ Total │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Births. │
├───────────┼───────┬────────┼──────┬────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│ │Males. │Females.│Males.│Females.│ │ │ │
├───────────┼───────┼────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│ │ │ │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │
│Broughton │ 1,554│ 2,239│ 44·40│ 89·56│ 63·21│ 36·82│ 51·50│
│Cheetham │ 3,963│ 4,862│ 45·03│ 63·14│ 53·48│ 34·74│ 50·80│
│ and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Crumpsall│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Pendleton │ 5,109│ 5,796│ 40·22│ 49·96│ 44·87│ 25·47│ 12·58│
│Chorlton- │ 12,551│ 15,771│ 30·91│ 47·79│ 38·48│ 26·05│ 32·93│
│ upon- │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Medlock │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Hulme │ 12,850│ 13,969│ 37·24│ 38·48│ 37·87│ 23·17│ 24·10│
│Ardwick │ 4,586│ 5,320│ 35·55│ 34·54│ 35·00│ 24·27│ 34·00│
│Salford │ 24,762│ 26,760│ 27·30│ 36·60│ 31·42│ 22·83│ 21·90│
│Manchester │ 79,061│ 84,606│ 26·61│ 30·15│ 28·33│ 26·79│ 19·20│
├───────────┼───────┼────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │141,436│ 159,323│ 28·84│ 34·62│ 31·60│ 25·74│ 21·26│
└───────────┴───────┴────────┴──────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴──────────┘
In the ten registration districts of Leeds the mortality prevalent in
them varies coincidently with their physical condition, and the
recklessness and immorality as shown in the proportion of illegitimate
births, increases in a greater proportion than the mortality; and in
this instance also, as in most others, if the registration were more
accurate, the proportion of both legitimate and illegitimate births
would be still closer to the deaths in the worst conditioned districts.
┌────────────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬────────────┐
│ Registration │Population.│ Ratio of │ Ratio of │ Ratio of │
│ Districts. │ │ Deaths to │ Births to │Illegitimate│
│ │ │ the whole │ the whole │ Births to │
│ │ │Population.│Population.│ Total │
│ │ │ │ │ Births. │
├────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────┤
│ │ │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │
│Chapeltown │ 4,538│ 57·7│ 30·6│ 74·0│
│Whitkirk │ 3,194│ 56·0│ 29·0│ 36·7│
│Kirkstall │ 17,816│ 45·6│ 24·8│ 23·1│
│Rothwell │ 5,557│ 45·1│ 28·2│ 24·6│
│Wortley │ 16,185│ 44·4│ 24·9│ 26·0│
│Holbeck │ 16,668│ 41·9│ 25·4│ 24·3│
│Leeds, West │ 32,286│ 40·4│ 28·4│ 19·2│
│Hunslet │ 15,784│ 35·5│ 24·2│ 21·7│
│Leeds, North │ 30,465│ 30·9│ 23·9│ 14·3│
│East District │ 24,862│ 28·8│ 24·3│ 20·0│
│ (Kirkgate) │ │ │ │ │
├────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────┤
│Total of Leeds │ 167,355│ 37·3│ 25·5│ 20·1│
└────────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴────────────┘
We have seen that in the lowest districts of Manchester of 1000 children
born, more than 570 will have died before they attain the fifth year of
their age. In the lowest districts of Leeds the infant mortality is
similar. This proportion of mortality M. Mallet designates as the case
of a population but little advanced in civilization, ravaged by
epidemics—a population in which the “influences on the lower ages are
murderous, but where the great mortality in infancy is compensated by a
high degree of fecundity. It is the case of the population in many large
towns, especially in past ages.” But whilst in Manchester, where one
twenty-eighth of the whole population is annually swept away, the births
registered amount to 1 in 26 of the population; in the county of
Rutland, where the proportion of deaths is 1 in 52 of the population,
the proportion of births, as shown by an average of three years, (by a
registration which I apprehend is more complete than in the lower
districts of Manchester,) is only 1 to 33 of the population.
The increase of births after a pestilence has been long observed; the
coincidence of an increase of births in a proportion to the high rate of
mortality in the worst districts has frequently been noted on the
continent. M. Quetelet has observed the fact in several countries and
gives instances from which the following are selected:—
┌─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Countries. │ Inhabitant. │
├─────────────────────┼──────────────┬─────────────────┬──────────────┤
│ │For one Death.│For one Marriage.│For one Birth.│
├─────────────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼──────────────┤
│Department of Orne │ 52·4│ 147·5│ 44·8│
│Department of │ 30·4│ 113·9│ 26·0│
│ Finisterre │ │ │ │
│Namur │ 51·8│ 141·0│ 30·1│
│Province of Zealand │ 28·5│ 113·2│ 21·9│
└─────────────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────┘
He states that he had often been tempted to attribute these
discrepancies to a faulty census of the population; but more attentive
researches had induced him to believe that this state of things is
dependent on local causes.
M. Bossi, in the Statisque du Department le l’Ain, gives a striking
example of the effect of the locality. With a view to study the
influences of locality, he divided the department into four portions;
and from documents collected during the years 1812, 1813, and 1814, he
obtained the following results:—
Inhabitants.
———————————— ———————————— ————————————
To 1 Death To 1 To 1 Birth
annually. Marriage annually.
annually.
In mountain parishes 38·3 179 34·8
On the seaside 26·6 145 28·8
In corn districts 24·6 135 27·5
In stagnant and marshy districts 20·8 107 26·1
Notwithstanding the depression of many districts, and the decrease of
health amongst the classes in the manufacturing towns from which a large
proportion of conscripts are taken, the annual proportions of deaths
appear to have decreased.
In 1784, from researches taken in France under
Necker’s directions, it appeared that there was one
birth for every 25·56 inhabitants
In 1784, from researches taken in France under
Necker’s directions, it appeared that there was one
death for every 30·02 inhabitants
From 1816 to 1831 there was one birth only for every 32 inhabitants
One death 39·8 inhabitants
M. Quetelet’s returns show that so far as the present state of
information can be relied upon, the same law is observed in general
action, not only in provinces but in whole countries throughout Europe.
It is confirmed by extensive experience occurring in the new world. The
trustworthiness of the registration of births and deaths in Mexico are
attested by the examination and use of them by Humboldt, and have been
the subject of legislative proceedings. The ratios of births and deaths
in the province of Guanaxuato have been referred to by Sir F.
d’Ivernois, in illustration of the position that pestilence does not
check the progress of population. A large proportion of the inferior
Mexican population are reported to “have converted the gifts of heaven
to the sustenance of disgusting misery.” It is reported of this populace
that it is “half clothed, idle, stained all over with vices; in a word,
hideous and known under the name of _leperos_, lepers, on account of the
malady to which their filth and bad diet subjects them. Nothing can
exceed the state of brutality and superstition to which they have been
subjected.”[24]
The fecundity of this population, sunk in the lowest vice and misery
amidst the means of the highest abundance, was greater than amidst any
other whole population in Christendom;[25] they stood thus in 1825 and
1826:—
1 in
Deaths 19·70
Births 16·08
They are much mistaken who imagine that a similarly conditioned
population is not to be found in this country; it is found in parts of
the population of every large town; the description of the Mexican
populace will recall features characteristic of the wretched population
in the worst parts of Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and Bath, and the
lodging-houses throughout the country.
Seeing that the banana (with the plantain or maize) is the chief food of
the inferior Mexican populace, their degraded condition has been
ascribed to the fertility of that plant, as the degradation of a large
proportion of our population has been ascribed to the use of the
potatoe, whereas a closer examination would have shown the fact of large
classes living industriously and virtuously chiefly on simple food, and
preferring saving money to better living; and that, if a high and
various meat diet were the cause of health, industry, and morality,
those virtues should stand highest amongst the population of the
lodging-houses, for more meat and varied food is consumed in those
abodes of pestilence than amongst the industrious population of the
village. In Manchester, where we have seen that the chances of life are
only 17 years, the proportions and varieties of meat consumed by the
labouring classes, are as their greater amount of wages compared with
the meat consumed by the labouring classes in Rutlandshire, whose mean
chances of life are 38 years.[26] But I apprehend that the superior
health in Rutlandshire is as little ascribable to their simpler food as
the greater amount of disease amidst the town population is ascribable
to the greater proportion of meat which is there consumed. It is
probable indeed that the standard of vitality in Rutlandshire might be
raised still higher by improvements in the quality of their food. There
are abundant reasons to render it desirable that the food of the
population should be varied, but it is shown that banishing the potatoe
or discouraging its use, or introducing any other food, will not banish
disease.
By means of the last census and the last year’s completed registration
of deaths and births in England, I am enabled to show that there has
been an increase of the population from births alone in those parts of
the country where the proportionate mortality is the greatest.
Taking the 42 counties as I find them arranged in Mr. Porter’s paper on
the census; dividing them into three parts, viz., the 14 counties where
there has been the least proportionate mortality, the 14 counties where
the proportion of mortality has been the greatest, and the 14 counties
where the proportion of mortality has been intermediate, I find the
results as to the proportionate increase of births to the increase of
deaths to be as follows:—
┌────────────────┬──────────────┬─────────────────┬──────────┬────────┐
│ │ The annual │ │Proportion│ Excess │
│ │ average Rate │ Proportion of │of Births │in every│
│ │of Increase of│Births and Deaths│and Deaths│ 10,000 │
│ │Population has│to Population in │ to every │Persons │
│ │ been per │ the Year ended │ 10,000 │ of │
│ │10,000 persons│ June 30, 1840. │Persons in│ Births │
│ │ between 1831 │ │ same │ above │
│ │ and 1841. │ │ period. │Deaths. │
├────────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│_a._ The 14 │ │ │ │ │
│ counties where│ │deaths (1 in 54),│deaths 184│ │
│ the mortality │ 112 │deaths (1 in 34),│births 297│ 113│
│ has been _the │ │ │ │ │
│ least_ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│_b._ The 14 │ │ │ │ │
│ counties where│ 121 │deaths (1 in 48),│deaths 208│ 94│
│ it has been │ │births (1 in 33),│births 302│ │
│ _intermediate_│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│_c._ The 14 │ │ │ │ │
│ counties where│ 183 │deaths (1 in 39),│deaths 259│ 89│
│ it has been │ │births (1 in 29),│births 348│ │
│ the _greatest_│ │ │ │ │
└────────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────┴────────┘
The following are the proportions of births and deaths to the population
in 1840, and the total rate of increase of population between the years
1831 and 1841:—
Deaths per An. Births per An. Pop. Incr.
1 to 1 to per Cent.
Hereford 64 45 2·9
Dorset 61 34 9·7
Cornwall 59 30 13·4
Devon 58 36 7·8
Sussex 55 34 10·0
Southampton 55 37 12·9
Essex 53 35 8·6
Wilts 53 35 8·2
York, N. R. 53 38 7·2
Rutland 53 30 10·0
Suffolk 53 32 6·3
Bucks 52 33 6·4
Lincoln 52 31 14·2
Stafford 51 31 24·2
Norfolk 51 34 5·7
Cumberland 51 35 4·8
Gloucester 51 37 11·4
Salop 50 37 7·2
Oxford 50 32 6·1
Hertford 49 29 9·6
Kent 48 35 14·4
Somerset 48 33 7·8
Derby 47 35 14·7
Northampton 47 29 10·9
Warwick 47 31 19·4
Hunts 46 28 10·3
Cambridge 45 28 14·2
Surrey 45 33 19·7
Bedford 44 26 13·0
Northumbd. 44 29 12·2
Westmoreld. 43 35 2·5
York, E. R. 43 34 14·6
Durham 43 28 27·7
York, W. R. 43 27 18·2
Chester 43 34 18·5
Berks 42 28 10·2
Middlesex 42 35 16·0
Leicester 40 29 9·5
Monmouth 38 26 36·9
Nottingham 36 28 10·8
Worcester 33 20 10·4
Lancaster 32 26 24·7
We here find that in the 14 counties where proportionate mortality has
been the least, the 184 deaths in 10,000 persons are made up by the 297
births; hence 113, or more than 1 per cent., is added by new births to
the existing population. In the 14 intermediate counties where the
deaths on every 10,000 persons increase to 208, there the deaths are
again made up by 302 births, and 94, or close upon 1 per cent., are
again added to the population. In the 14 counties where the increase of
the population is the greatest, the deaths in every 10,000 persons are
increased to 259, but here also we find that the births are again
sufficient to make up for the deaths; they are 348, and increase the
population by 89, or less than 1 per cent.
Hence, if the number of births in each 10,000 persons of the 14 counties
where the mortality has been the greatest had taken place amongst every
10,000 persons of the counties where the mortality has been the least,
then the increase of population in these latter by births, instead of
being 113, would have been 164.[27]
I must again observe that the registration of births in the most
populous town districts, where the mortality is greatest, is the least
perfect. The excess of births over deaths may really be taken to be
greater than shown in the returns from the districts where the mortality
is the greatest.
The estimated increase of population in England in the year 1840, as
compared with 1839, is 190,460. In the same period it appears that the
births exceeded the deaths by 143,178. The difference between these two
amounts, or 47,282, may be considered as the extent of emigration to
England, together with the cases of births not registered. To whatever
extent emigration takes place from England, there must of course have
been a proportionate immigration from other places to make up the
increase of population beyond the apparent increase from births.
It is observed in some of the worst conditioned of the town districts
that the positive numbers of the natives of the aboriginal stock
continually diminishes, and that the vacancy as well as the increase is
made up by immigration from the healthier district. In a late
enumeration of the settled inhabitants of the labouring classes in the
lower parts of Westminster, it appeared that not more than one-third of
them were natives of London. If inquiry had been made as to whether
their parents were natives, it would probably have been found that still
fewer had inhabited the district for more than one generation.
Simple enumerations of the numbers of a population are of themselves but
imperfect means for judging of its progression in strength. That is best
shown in the increased proportions of the adults, who are of the age and
strength and skill for productive industry, in the extended period
during which each adult labourer occupies his post.
M. Mallet bears testimony that the experience of Geneva is confirmatory
of the important rule, that the strength of a people does not depend on
the absolute number of its population, but on the relative number of
those who are of the age and strength for labour. It is proved that the
real and productive value of the population has there increased in a
much greater proportion than the increase in the absolute number of the
population. The absolute number of the population has only doubled, in
the instance of Geneva, during three centuries; but the value of the
population has more than doubled upon the purely numerical increase of
the population. In other words, a population of 27,000, in which the
probability of life is 40 years for each individual, is more than twice
as strong for the purposes of production as a population of 27,000 in
which the probability or value of life is only 20 years for each
individual.
The important general fact of the proportion of adult physical strength
to the increased duration of life, or improved sanitary condition of the
individuals, is verified by the examinations of the individuals of
different classes. M. Villermé states that, the difference of strength
between classes such as those in which we have seen that the value of
life differs, is well known to the officers engaged in recruiting the
army, but no one had collected the facts to determine the precise
difference. The time allowed to M. Villermé only enabled him to do so at
Amiens. The result was, that the men of from 20 to 21 years of age were
found the more frequently unfit for the trade of arms from their
stature, constitution, and health, as they belonged to the poorer
classes of the manufacturing labourers. In order to obtain 100 men fit
for military service, it was necessary to have as many as 343 men of the
poorer classes; whilst 193 conscripts sufficed of the classes in better
circumstances. Analogous facts were observed in the greater part of the
towns in France in which he conducted his official investigations.[28]
In the evidence of recruiting officers, collected under the Factory
Commission of Inquiry, it was shown that fewer recruits of the proper
strength and stature for military service are obtainable now than
heretofore from Manchester. I have been informed that of those labourers
now employed in the most important manufactories, whether natives or
migrants to that town, the sons who are employed at the same work are
generally inferior in stature to their parents. Sir James M’Grigor, the
Director-general of the Army Medical Board, stated to me the fact, that
“A corps levied from the agricultural districts in Wales, or the
northern counties of England, will last longer than one recruited from
the manufacturing towns from Birmingham, Manchester, or near the
metropolis.” Indeed, so great and permanent is the deterioration, that
out of 613 men enlisted, almost all of whom came from Birmingham and
five other neighbouring towns, only 238 were approved for service.
The chances of life of the labouring classes of Spitalfields are amongst
the lowest that I have met with, and there it is observed of weavers,
though not originally a large race, that they have become still more
diminutive under the noxious influences to which they are subject. Dr.
Mitchell, in his report on the condition of the hand-loom weavers,
adduces evidence on this point. One witness well acquainted with the
class states, “They are decayed in their bodies; the whole race of them
is rapidly descending to the size of Liliputians. You could not raise a
grenadier company amongst them all. The old men have better complexions
than the young.” Another witness who says there were once men as well
made in the weaver trade as any other, “recollects the Bethnal Green and
Spitalfields regiment of volunteers during the war as good-looking
bodies of men, but doubts if such could be raised now.” Mr. Duce concurs
in the fact of the deterioration of their size and appearance within the
last 30 years, and attributes it to bad air, bad lodging, bad food,
“which causes the children to grow up an enfeebled and diminutive race
of men.” (_Vide_ Evidence of the Medical Officers of the District,
_ante_.)
This depressing effect of adverse sanitary circumstances on the
labouring strength of the population, and on its duration, is to be
viewed with the greatest concern, as it is a depressing effect on that
which most distinguishes the British people, and which it were a truism
to say constitutes the chief strength of the nation—the bodily strength
of the individuals of the labouring class. The greater portion of the
wealth of the nation is derived from the labour obtained by the
application of this strength, and it is only those who have had
practically the means of comparing it with that of the population of
other countries who are aware how far the labouring population of this
country is naturally distinguished above others. There is much practical
evidence to show that this is not a mere illusion of national vanity,
and in proof of this I might adduce the testimony of some of the most
eminent employers of large numbers of labourers, whose conclusions are
founded on experience in directing the work of labourers from the chief
countries in Europe, _e. g._, Mr. William Lindley, the civil engineer,
engaged in the superintendence of the formation of the new railway
between Hamburgh and Berlin, found it expedient to import as the
foremost labourers for the execution of that work a number of the class
of English labourers called navigators. These were recently employed in
pile-driving at wages of 5_s._ per diem, or more than double the amount
of wages paid to the German labourers. The German directors were
surprised, and remonstrated at the enormously high wages paid to the
English labourers; when the engineer directed their attention to the
quantity of work performed within a given time, and showed that the
wages produced more than amongst the native labourers. English labourers
of the same class have been imported to take the foremost labour in the
execution of the railways in progress from Havre to Paris, their work at
very high wages being found cheaper than the work even of the Norman
labourers. Skill and personal strength are combined in an unusually high
degree in this class of workmen, but the most eminent employers of
labour agree that it is strength of body, combined with strength of
will, that gives steadiness and value to the artisan and common English
labourer.
Nor is such experience confined to one branch of industry. In the
heaviest works of the manufactories on the continent the strength and
energy of the English artisan puts him in advance of all others.
_Mr. J. Thomson_, of Clitheroe, in treating of a question affecting the
branch of industry, cotton-printing, in England, observes:—
“This limited production, in proportion to the hands employed,” in
France, “has a deeper source than in styles which may be varied, and
simplified, and changed at pleasure. It is to be found in the
character and habits of the people, which cannot be changed or moulded
at the will of a task-master; nor can an English day’s work be had in
France for an English day’s wages. In 1814, I saw France before she
had time to profit by the industrial skill and improvements of
England; again in 1817, and in 1824, when I examined with anxious
care, during a prolonged stay, the grounds of the prevailing
apprehension, that our manufacturing greatness was declining, and that
the cheap labour of France would more than compensate her many
disadvantages. I returned home with the conviction, since, and now
again confirmed, that the labour of Alsace, the best and cheapest in
France, is dearer than the labour of Lancashire. I would not aver that
an English workman would perform twice the work of a workman of the
same class in France, but of this I feel assured, from frequent
personal observation of their habits, and from long and confidential
intercourse with their intelligent and enlightened manufacturers, that
the advantage is _more than twofold_ on the side of England, and that
the true result is not to be obtained by comparisons between
individuals, or even classes of workmen, but in the comparative
aggregate industry of large establishments, or a whole population.
“Of this difference the intelligent witnesses, who gave evidence in
1835, before the French Commission of Inquiry into their prohibitory
system, were fully aware, and with some allowances for that natural,
excusable, and perhaps commendable nationality on such a subject, they
did justice to the superior persevering energy of the English workman,
whose enduring, untiring, savage industry, surpasses that of every
other manufacturing country I have visited, Belgium, Germany, and
Switzerland not excepted.”
The noxious agencies not only impair the strength of the labouring
community, but, as will be further shown, they tend also to shorten the
period of its exercise. This effect will be more apparent when
considering merely the pecuniary burdens of the excess of orphanage and
premature widowhood, apart from the loss of protection and the misery
which it causes. I shall here only observe, as to the depressing effects
assumed from the admitted tendencies of an increase of population, that
the fact is, that hitherto, in England, wages, or the means of obtaining
the necessaries of life for the whole mass of the labouring community,
have advanced, and the comforts within the reach of the labouring
classes have increased with the late increase of population. This may be
verified by reference to various evidence, and amongst others to that
contained in Sir F. Eden’s examinations of the wages and modes of
subsistence of the agricultural labourers in his day, and we have
evidence of this advance even in many of the manufacturing districts now
in a state of severe depression. For example, an eminent manufacturer in
Lancashire, stated to me in November ultimo—“That the same yarn which
cost my father 12_d._ per lb. to make in 1792, all by machinery, now
costs only 2_d._ per lb.; paying _then_ only 4_s._ 4_d._ per hand wages
weekly, _now_ 8_s._ 8_d._ or more; yet those wages amounted _then_ to
5½_d._ per lb., and notwithstanding the higher wages, _now_, to only
1_d._ per lb.”
The prices of provisions were, during the first period, as high as now,
and the cost of clothing 30 or 40 per cent. higher.
V.—PECUNIARY BURDENS CREATED BY THE NEGLECT OF SANITARY MEASURES.
The more closely the subject of the evils affecting the sanitary
condition of the labouring population is investigated the more widely do
their effects appear to be ramified. The pecuniary cost of noxious
agencies is measured by data within the province of the actuary, by the
charges attendant on the reduced duration of life, and the reduction of
the periods of working ability or production by sickness; the cost would
include also much of the public charge of attendant vice and crime which
come within the province of the police, as well as the destitution which
comes within the province of the administrators of relief. Of the
pecuniary effects, including the cost of maintenance during the
preventible sickness, any estimate approximating to exactness could only
be obtained by very great labour, which does not appear to be necessary.
To whatever extent the probable duration of the life of the working-man
is diminished by noxious agencies, I repeat a truism in stating that to
some extent so much productive power is lost; and in the case of
destitute widowhood and orphanage, burdens are created and cast either
on the industrious survivors belonging to the family, or on the
contributors to the poor’s rates during the whole of the period of the
failure of such ability. With the view to judge of the extent to which
such burdens are at present cast upon the poor’s rates, I have
endeavoured to ascertain the average age at which death befell the heads
of those families of children who with the mothers have been relieved on
the ground of destitution, in eight of the unions where the average age
of the mortality prevalent amongst the several classes of the community
has been ascertained.
The workmen who belong to sick-clubs and benefit-societies generally fix
the period of their own superannuation allowances at from 60 to 65 years
of age. I see no reason to doubt that by the removal of noxious agencies
not essential to their trades; by sanitary measures affecting their
dwellings, combined with improvements in their own habits, the period of
ability for productive labour might be extended to the whole of the
labouring class.
The actual duration of the ability for labour will vary with the nature
of the work, though there can be little doubt that the variations under
proper precautions would be much less than those which now take place.
From the information received in respect to the employment of tailors in
large numbers, it is evident that the average period of the working
ability of that class might be extended at least ten years by
improvements as to the places of work alone. The experience which might
serve to indicate the extent of practicable improvement is at present
narrow and scattered. The chief English insurance tables, such as the
Northampton and Carlisle tables, are made up apparently from the
experience of a population, subject probably to a greater or less extent
to the noxious influences which are shown to be removable. By the
Carlisle table, however, the probability of life to every person who has
attained the age of twenty-one—the age for marriage—would be 40 years,
or 40·75. By the Swedish tables, which are frequently applied to the
insurance of the labouring classes, it would be 38·0. The observations
that have been made on the subject, show that marriage improves rather
than diminishes the probability of life. Where the duration of life is
reduced by the nature of the employment below the usual average, by so
much the widowhood may be considered as increased, as also the orphanage
of their children. As labouring men generally marry early in life, their
wives have ceased to bear children before they have reached fifty, so
that the great mass of orphanage may be assigned to the consequence of
premature death. The following table shows the average ages at which the
deaths occurred of the fathers of the widows’ orphan children who are in
receipt of relief in the following unions. The average includes the
cases of all who died at whatever ages, whether above or below sixty:—
┌─────────────────────┬────────┬───────┬────────┬───────┬───────┬───────┐
│ Unions. │ Number │ │ Number │ │ │ │
│ │ of │ │ of │ │ │ │
│ │Husbands│ │Husbands│ │ │ │
│ │ dying │Average│ dying │Average│ │ │
│ │ under │Age at │ above │Age at │ Total │Average│
│ │ 60. │Death. │ 60. │Death. │Deaths.│ Age. │
├─────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│Manchester │ 718│ 42│ 432│ 69│ 1150│ 52│
│Whitechapel │ 351│ 44│ 239│ 69│ 590│ 54│
│Bethnal Green │ 250│ 44│ 195│ 69│ 445│ 55│
│Strand │ 157│ 42│ 63│ 66│ 220│ 49│
│Oakham & Uppingham │ 136│ 45│ 118│ 71│ 257│ 57│
│Alston-with-Garrigill│ 69│ 45│ 20│ 66│ 89│ 50│
│Bath │ 66│ 38│ 1│ 60│ 67│ 39│
└─────────────────────┴────────┴───────┴────────┴───────┴───────┴───────┘
This premature widowhood and orphanage is the source of the most painful
descriptions of pauperism—the most difficult to deal with; it is the
source of a constant influx of the independent into the pauperised and
permanently dependent classes. The widow, where there are children,
generally remains a permanent charge; re-marriages amongst those who
have children are very rare; in some unions they do not exceed one case
in twenty or thirty. By the time the children are fit for labour and
cease to require the parents’ attention, the mothers frequently become
unfit for earning their own livelihood, or habituated to dependence, and
without care to emerge from it. Even where the children are by good
training and education fitted for productive industry, when they marry,
the early familiarity with the parochial relief makes them improvident,
and they fall back upon the poor’s rates on the lying-in of their wives,
on their sickness, and for aid on every emergency. In every district the
poor’s rolls form the pedigrees of generations of families thus
pauperized. The total number of orphan children on account of whose
destitution relief was given from the poor’s rates in the year ended
Lady-day, 1840, was 112,000.
The numbers of widows chargeable to the poor’s rates was in those unions
at that period 43,000. The following abstract of the returns from the
eight unions selected exhibit the proportions who become chargeable at
different periods of the head of the family.
_Premature Deaths: Age of Widowhood in various Unions._
┌───────────┬─────────────────╥─────────────────╥─────────────────┐
│ Ages. │Manchester Union.║ Whitechapel ║ Bethnal Green. │
│ │ ║ Union. ║ │
├───────────┼────────┬────────╫────────┬────────╫────────┬────────┤
│ │ No. of │ No. of ║ No. of │ No. of ║ No. of │ No. of │
│ │Husbands│ Orphan ║Husbands│ Orphan ║Husbands│ Orphan │
│ │ who │Children║ who │Children║ who │Children│
│ │ Died. │ ║ Died. │ ║ Died. │ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 20–25 │ 11│ 20║ 7│ 12║ 2│ 3│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 25–30 │ 56│ 126║ 17│ 40║ 9│ 19│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 30–35 │ 108│ 317║ 31│ 85║ 25│ 89│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 35–40 │ 108│ 333║ 42│ 114║ 40│ 137│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 40–45 │ 126│ 361║ 63│ 201║ 40│ 153│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 45–50 │ 112│ 302║ 61│ 178║ 44│ 105│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 50–55 │ 100│ 183║ 78│ 137║ 45│ 107│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 55–60 │ 97│ 138║ 51│ 37║ 45│ 54│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 60–65 │ 147│ 148║ 87│ 46║ 53│ 35│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 65–70 │ 96│ 60║ 48│ 18║ 52│ 17│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 70–75 │ 87│ 55║ 54│ 8║ 57│ 7│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 75–80 │ 60│ 22║ 25│ 4║ 24│ 8│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 80–85 │ 35│ 4║ 17│ 2║ 7│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 85–90 │ 5│ ║ 7│ 3║ 2│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 90–95 │ 1│ ║ 2│ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 95–100 │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 100–105 │ 1│ ║ │ ║ │ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ Totals │ 1150│ 2069║ 590│ 885║ 445│ 734│
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│No. │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ receiving│ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ Relief │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ previous │ 199│ ║ 80│ ║ │ │
│ to │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ husband’s│ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ death │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
└───────────┴────────┴────────╨────────┴────────╨────────┴────────┘
┌───────────┬─────────────────╥─────────────────╥─────────────────┐
│ Ages. │ Strand Union. ║ Oakham & ║ Alston with │
│ │ ║Uppingham Unions.║ Garrigill. │
├───────────┼────────┬────────╫────────┬────────╫────────┬────────┤
│ │ No. of │ No. of ║ No. of │ No. of ║ No. of │ No. of │
│ │Husbands│ Orphan ║Husbands│ Orphan ║Husbands│ Orphan │
│ │ who │Children║ who │Children║ who │Children│
│ │ Died. │ ║ Died. │ ║ Died. │ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 20–25 │ 1│ 4║ │ ║ 1│ 2│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 25–30 │ 11│ 19║ 12│ 25║ 5│ 12│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 30–35 │ 23│ 70║ 8│ 36║ 4│ 16│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 35–40 │ 20│ 69║ 19│ 71║ 6│ 24│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 40–45 │ 35│ 81║ 24│ 68║ 12│ 58│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 45–50 │ 23│ 58║ 19│ 50║ 18│ 84│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 50–55 │ 24│ 34║ 30│ 60║ 9│ 30│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 55–60 │ 20│ 17║ 24│ 36║ 14│ 11│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 60–65 │ 25│ 17║ 26│ 15║ 13│ 4│
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 65–70 │ 15│ 13║ 26│ 13║ 1│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 70–75 │ 13│ ║ 32│ 10║ 4│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 75–80 │ 5│ 2║ 22│ 4║ 1│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 80–85 │ 5│ ║ 11│ 6║ 1│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 85–90 │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 90–95 │ │ ║ 1│ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 95–100 │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ 100–105 │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ Totals │ 220│ 384║ 254│ 394║ 89│ 241│
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│No. │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ receiving│ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ Relief │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ previous │ 37│ ║ 11│ ║ 27│ │
│ to │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ husband’s│ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
│ death │ │ ║ │ ║ │ │
└───────────┴────────┴────────╨────────┴────────╨────────┴────────┘
┌───────────┬─────────────────╥─────────────────┐
│ Ages. │ Bath Union. ║ Total. │
│ │ ║ │
├───────────┼────────┬────────╫────────┬────────┤
│ │ No. of │ No. of ║ No. of │ No. of │
│ │Husbands│ Orphan ║Husbands│ Orphan │
│ │ who │Children║ who │Children│
│ │ Died. │ ║ Died. │ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 20–25 │ │ ║ 22│ 41│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 25–30 │ 9│ 28║ 119│ 269│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 30–35 │ 13│ 52║ 212│ 665│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 35–40 │ 12│ 52║ 247│ 800│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 40–45 │ 18│ 84║ 318│ 1006│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 45–50 │ 9│ 37║ 286│ 814│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 50–55 │ 4│ 15║ 290│ 566│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 55–60 │ 1│ 6║ 252│ 299│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 60–65 │ 1│ 4║ 352│ 269│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 65–70 │ │ ║ 238│ 121│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 70–75 │ │ ║ 247│ 80│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 75–80 │ │ ║ 137│ 40│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 80–85 │ │ ║ 76│ 12│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 85–90 │ │ ║ 14│ 3│
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 90–95 │ │ ║ 4│ │
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 95–100 │ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │ │
│ 100–105 │ │ ║ 1│ │
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│ Totals │ 67│ 278║ 2815│ 4985│
├───────────┼────────┼────────╫────────┼────────┤
│No. │ │ ║ │ │
│ receiving│ │ ║ │ │
│ Relief │ │ ║ │ │
│ previous │ │ ║ │ │
│ to │ │ ║ │ │
│ husband’s│ │ ║ │ │
│ death │ │ ║ │ │
└───────────┴────────┴────────╨────────┴────────┘
Total Deaths below 60 years of age ... 1746
Of the whole number it appears that upwards of 1764 became chargeable by
premature deaths. If the same rule obtains in the other unions, which
could only be ascertained by a very long and expensive inquiry, then
nearly 27,000 cases of premature widowhood, and more than 100,000 cases
of orphanage may be ascribed to removable causes. The chief effects or
the chief of the diseases which appear as consequents to the
circumstances under which the labouring population of the several
districts have been described as living, and under which the fathers of
the orphan children above enumerated have died, are set forth in the
following table:—
Table of the Chief Causes of Death producing Widowhood and Orphanage in
the under-mentioned Unions and Parishes.
┌──────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬───────┬───────┬─────────┐
│ │ │ │Bethnal│ │ Oakham │
│DISEASES, &c. │Manchester│Whitechapel│ Green │Strand │ and │
│ │ Union. │ Union. │Parish.│Union. │Uppingham│
│ │ │ │ │ │ Unions. │
├──────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼───────┼───────┼─────────┤
│ │ No of │ No of │ No of │ No of │ No of │
│ │ Deaths. │ Deaths. │Deaths.│Deaths.│ Deaths. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├──────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼───────┼───────┼─────────┤
│Respiratory │ 500│ 212│ 147│ 95│ 69│
│ Organs │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Epidemic, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Endemic and │ 146│ 65│ 73│ 28│ 34│
│ Contagious │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Digestive │ 60│ 16│ 10│ 10│ 14│
│ Organs │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Nervous │ 74│ 41│ 38│ 17│ 25│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Violent Deaths│ 94│ 44│ 20│ 16│ 23│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Old Age │ 84│ 104│ 46│ 13│ 47│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Other │ 129│ 68│ 104│ 32│ 36│
│ Diseases[29]│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Undescribed │ 63│ 40│ 7│ 9│ 6│
├──────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼───────┼───────┼─────────┤
│ Total │ 1150│ 590│ 445│ 220│ 254│
└──────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴───────┴───────┴─────────┘
┌──────────────┬─────────┬───────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ │ Alston │ │ │
│DISEASES, &c. │ with │ Bath │ Total. │
│ │Garrigill│Union. │ │
│ │ Parish. │ │ │
├──────────────┼─────────┼───────┼───────┬────────┬────────┤
│ │ No of │ No of │ No of │Average │ No. of │
│ │ Deaths. │Deaths.│Deaths.│ Age of │Orphans.│
│ │ │ │ │Decease.│ │
├──────────────┼─────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼────────┤
│Respiratory │ 47│ 40│ 1110│ 51│ 2218│
│ Organs │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Epidemic, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Endemic and │ 9│ 4│ 359│ 46│ 862│
│ Contagious │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Digestive │ 5│ 3│ 118│ 54│ 180│
│ Organs │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Nervous │ 3│ 5│ 203│ 55│ 296│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Violent Deaths│ 13│ 5│ 215│ 46│ 508│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Old Age │ 5│ │ 299│ 74│ 56│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Other │ 7│ 8│ 384│ 54│ 694│
│ Diseases[29]│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Undescribed │ │ 2│ 127│ 47│ 171│
├──────────────┼─────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼────────┤
│ Total │ 89│ 67│ 2815│ 53│ 4985│
└──────────────┴─────────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴────────┘
As an example of the mode in which the causes of premature deaths fall,
and of the burdens they entail in many districts, I submit a return of
the whole of the cases of widowhood on the pauper rolls of the parish of
Alston and Garrigill, Cumberland, the parish in which are situate the
lodging-houses described in the evidence collected by _Dr. Mitchell_.
ALSTON WITH GARRIGILL PARISH.
Number of Widows, and Children dependent upon them, in receipt of
Relief in the above Parish; Age of Husband at Death; and the alleged
Cause of Death.
┌───────┬─────────┬───────────────┬──────┬─────────┬──────────────────┐
│Initals│Number of│ Occupation of │Age at│ Years’ │Assigned Cause of │
│ of │Children │ deceased │Death.│ loss by │ Death. │
│Widows.│dependent│ Husband. │ │premature│ │
│ │ at the │ │ │ Death. │ │
│ │ time of │ │ │ │ │
│ │Husband’s│ │ │ │ │
│ │ Death. │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼─────────┼───────────────┼──────┼─────────┼──────────────────┤
│ R. W. │ │Miner │ 83 │ │Decay of nature. │
│ M. S. │ │Tailor │ 78 │ │Natural decay. │
│ M. B. │ │Miner │ 73 │ │Not stated. │
│ M. R. │ │Miner │ 72 │ │Decay of nature. │
│ S. M. │ │Miner │ 72 │ │Decay of nature. │
│ M. T. │ │Mason │ 72 │ │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from age. │
│ A. V. │ │Miner │ 67 │ │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ mines. │
│ M. L. │ │Miner │ 64 │ │Influenza. │
│ A. M. │ │Miner │ 63 │ │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines. │
│ M. S. │ │Miner │ 63 │ │Natural decline. │
│ J. P. │ │Labourer │ 62 │ │Consumption. │
│ H. T. │ 2 │Mason │ 62 │ │Asthma. │
│ S. H. │ 2 │Miner │ 60 │ │Rupture of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ blood-vessel. │
│ J. R. │ │Miner │ 60 │ │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the mines. │
│ H. L. │ │Miner │ 60 │ │Asthma. │
│ J. P. │ │Miner │ 60 │ │Consumption. │
│ M. T. │ 2 │Miner │ 60 │ │Bursting │
│ │ │ │ │ │ blood-vessel. │
│ A. C. │ │Joiner │ 60 │ │Jaundice. │
│ E. K. │ │Miner │ 60 │ │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the mines. │
│ E. H. │ │Miner │ 60 │ │Cholera. │
│ D. J. │ │Glazier │ 59 │ 1 │Affection of the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ liver. │
│ N. D. │ 4 │Butcher │ 59 │ 1 │Apoplexy. │
│ M. T. │ │Miner │ 59 │ 1 │Inflammation of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lungs. │
│ H. A. │ │Miner │ 59 │ 1 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ which terminated│
│ │ │ │ │ │ in consumption. │
│ J. B. │ │Miner │ 59 │ 1 │Asthma │
│ │ │ │ │ │ ditto. │
│ E. T. │ │Labourer │ 58 │ 2 │Accident by a │
│ │ │ │ │ │ coal-waggon. │
│ M. P. │ │Miner │ 58 │ 2 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ which terminated│
│ │ │ │ │ │ in consumption. │
│ H. T. │ │Miner │ 57 │ 3 │Consumption │
│ │ │ │ │ │ accelerated by │
│ │ │ │ │ │ working in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ M. P. │ 1 │Turner │ 57 │ 3 │Consumption. │
│ H. S. │ 3 │Miner │ 57 │ 3 │Influenza, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ terminating in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ dropsy. │
│ M. J. │ 3 │Blacksmith │ 55 │ 5 │Asthma. │
│ S. M. │ │Miner │ 55 │ 5 │Inflammation of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lungs from cold.│
│ R. W. │ │Miner │ 55 │ 5 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ M. R. │ │Miner │ 55 │ 5 │Asthma from │
│ │ │ │ │ │ working in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ mines │
│ J. W. │ 2 │Miner │ 51 │ 6 │Pleurisy. │
│ A. F. │ │Miner │ 54 │ 6 │Asthma and rupture│
│ │ │ │ │ │ of blood-vessel.│
│ J. L. │ 2 │Miner │ 53 │ 7 │Chronic disease of│
│ │ │ │ │ │ rheumatism. │
│ N. H. │ 2 │Miner │ 53 │ 7 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines. │
│ A. S. │ │Miner │ 52 │ 8 │Asthma and │
│ │ │ │ │ │ bursting │
│ │ │ │ │ │ blood-vessel. │
│ M. W. │ 6 │Miner │ 52 │ 8 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the mines. │
│ E. W. │ 5 │Miner │ 52 │ 8 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the mines, which│
│ │ │ │ │ │ terminated in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ consumption. │
│ J. S. │ 6 │Miner │ 51 │ 9 │Paralysis. │
│ H. P. │ 9 │Quarryman │ 49 │ 11 │Asthma by working │
│ │ │ │ │ │ in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ H. P. │ 5 │Miner │ 48 │ 12 │Typhus fever. │
│ E. H. │ 6 │Miner │ 48 │ 12 │Killed in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ M. A. │ 7 │Miner │ 48 │ 12 │Consumption by bad│
│ │ │ │ │ │ air in the pit. │
│ J. C. │ 8 │Miner │ 47 │ 13 │Asthma produced by│
│ │ │ │ │ │ working in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ S. E. │ 6 │Miner │ 47 │ 13 │Consumption │
│ │ │ │ │ │ produced from a │
│ │ │ │ │ │ continuance of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ influenza. │
│ M. T. │ 8 │Miner │ 47 │ 13 │Consumption and │
│ │ │ │ │ │ asthma. │
│ E. B. │ 3 │Miner │ 47 │ 13 │Affection of the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ head, caused │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from an accident│
│ │ │ │ │ │ received in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ mine. │
│ D. R. │ │Miner │ 46 │ 14 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines. │
│ E. B. │ 5 │Miner │ 46 │ 14 │Rheumatic fever, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ which produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ inflammation of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the brain. │
│ M. S. │ 5 │Miner │ 46 │ 14 │Killed in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mine. │
│ M. R. │ 1 │Joiner │ 46 │ 14 │Dropsy. │
│ M. F. │ 7 │Coal Miner │ 46 │ 14 │Explosion of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ fire-damp in a │
│ │ │ │ │ │ coal-mine. │
│ L. T. │ 3 │Miner │ 45 │ 15 │Asthma, which │
│ │ │ │ │ │ terminated with │
│ │ │ │ │ │ dropsy. │
│ H. P. │ 3 │Miner │ 45 │ 15 │Scarlet fever. │
│ H. Y. │ 5 │Miner │ 45 │ 15 │Consumption, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ accelerated by │
│ │ │ │ │ │ working in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ M. S. │ 2 │Miner │ 45 │ 15 │Inflammation of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ bowels. │
│ M. S. │ 5 │Joiner │ 45 │ 15 │Consumption. │
│ A. S. │ 6 │Miner │ 44 │ 16 │Dropsy. │
│ A. B. │ 6 │Miner │ 44 │ 16 │Asthma from │
│ │ │ │ │ │ working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ lead-mines. │
│ F. C. │ 5 │Miner │ 43 │ 17 │Asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines. │
│ M. D. │ 4 │Miner │ 43 │ 17 │Consumption │
│ │ │ │ │ │ produced from │
│ │ │ │ │ │ asthma, caused │
│ │ │ │ │ │ by working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the mines. │
│ H. M. │ 7 │Miner │ 43 │ 17 │Asthma, which │
│ │ │ │ │ │ terminated in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ consumption. │
│ A. P. │ 7 │Superintendent.│ 43 │ 17 │A fall from the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ “horse” in the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ engine-shaft. │
│ P. W. │ 4 │Miner │ 43 │ 17 │Pleurisy. │
│ E. W. │ 8 │Miner │ 42 │ 18 │Consumption and │
│ │ │ │ │ │ asthma produced │
│ │ │ │ │ │ from working in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ the lead-mines. │
│ J. H. │ 4 │Miner │ 42 │ 18 │Consumption. │
│ J. J. │ 5 │Miner │ 42 │ 18 │Pleurisy. │
│ A. J. │ 2 │Miller │ 42 │ 18 │Found drowned. │
│ M. R. │ │Shoemaker │ 40 │ 20 │Injury from fall │
│ │ │ │ │ │ of a cart. │
│ E. R. │ 7 │Joiner │ 38 │ 22 │Affection of the │
│ │ │ │ │ │ liver. │
│ J. B. │ 5 │Miner │ 38 │ 22 │Consumption. │
│ A. P. │ 7 │Miner │ 37 │ 21 │Asthma. │
│ E. W. │ 3 │Miner │ 36 │ 24 │Accident in mine, │
│ │ │ │ │ │ which terminated│
│ │ │ │ │ │ in consumption. │
│ E. H. │ 3 │Miner │ 35 │ 25 │Killed in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ coal-pit. │
│ M. L. │ 2 │Miner │ 35 │ 25 │Water of the head.│
│ A. S. │ 4 │Miner │ 35 │ 25 │Income on leg. │
│ S. H. │ 7 │Miner │ 34 │ 26 │Accident in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ coal-mine. │
│ J. H. │ 4 │Cordwainer │ 30 │ 30 │Typhus fever. │
│ S. H. │ 3 │Cartman │ 30 │ 30 │Accidental. │
│ E. A. │ 2 │Miner │ 30 │ 30 │Consumption. │
│ M. J. │ 3 │Teacher │ 29 │ 31 │Consumption. │
│ M. R. │ 3 │Miner │ 29 │ 31 │Affection of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ urinary organs. │
│ A. W. │ 2 │Miner │ 28 │ 32 │Cholera. │
│ M. W. │ 3 │Miner │ 27 │ 33 │Inflammation of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ bowels. │
│ A. H. │ 1 │Pitman │ 25 │ 35 │Accident at │
│ │ │ │ │ │ colliery. │
│ J. M. │ 2 │Miner │ 21 │ 39 │Small-pox. │
├───────┼─────────┼───────────────┼──────┼─────────┼──────────────────┤
│ 89 │ 242 │ │ 4418 │ │ │
├───────┼─────────┼───────────────┼──────┼─────────┼──────────────────┤
│ │ │Average age at │ 45 │ │Total No. of │
│ │ │death of each │ │ │ orphans by death│
│ │ │below 60 years │ │ │ caused below 60 │
│ │ │of age. │ │ │ years of age. } │
│ │ │ │ │ │ 236 │
└───────┴─────────┴───────────────┴──────┴─────────┴──────────────────┘
A complete analysis of the whole of the causes contributory to the
premature mortality displayed in this group of cases would be a work of
much labour, and would in nowise affect the soundness of the conclusions
derivable from other sources, that a large amount, and probably the
great mass of it, is preventible.
It would, for instance, be difficult to decide the precise term of years
of life cut short by the effects of the lodging-houses, in producing or
aggravating other tendencies to consumption; but the information
possessed by persons who have made themselves acquainted with the
effects of impure air enables them to pronounce with certainty that the
habitual exposure of a body of men to such noxious influences must be
attended by a diminution of several years of the definite standard of
life. Of the 31 deaths of miners below 60 years of age, from diseases of
the respiratory organs, enumerated in the above return, a part of the
causes may be attributable to their occupation, a part to the external
circumstances of residence and connected habits. Now we have examples of
the separate advantages attendant on the removal of both causes of
disease I adduce the following information, obtained through Sir John
Walsham, with relation to the effects of an improvement in the external
circumstances of the workmen as to residences.
_Captain Harland_, the chairman of the Reeth union, York (North Riding),
in a communication to Sir John Walsham, states, that he has been anxious
to ascertain as correctly as possible, first, the average duration of
life among the mining population of the respective parishes in that
district, and how far it appeared to be affected by their general habits
as well as by the state of their domiciles; and he gives the following
results:—
“By a careful examination of the parish registers, I find that in the
last seven years there have died in—
The parish of Marrick 15 miners; average age, 47⅗ years.
The parish of Arkendale 70 miners; average age, 45‑19/35 years.
The chapelry of Muker, in the 39 miners; average age, 45‑29/39 years.
parish of Grinton
The remainder of the parish of 40 miners; average age, 54‑39/40 years.
Grinton, _viz._ Grinton Reeth
and Meblecks
Total, 164; general average, 48‑13/164 years.
“The prevailing diseases throughout the whole district are bronchial
affections and rheumatism, which may generally be attributed to
exposure to cold and rain after leaving the close, warm atmosphere of
the mine.
“The miners’ dwellings in Marrick are small thatched cottages,
situated very near their work; they are consequently less exposed to
wet and cold on their way home, but (although dry and kept tolerably
clean) from the want of room and proper ventilation, the inmates are
more liable to contagious disorders than the more comfortably lodged
miners in the parish of Grinton. In Arkendale the houses are of a
somewhat better description, but the drainage is imperfect; the habits
of the people filthy and intemperate; cutaneous disorders very common;
and they are frequently the victims of typhus and other malignant
fevers.
“In the parish of Grinton the houses are of a decidedly superior
description. Forty years ago they were mostly thatched with ling or
heath; a thatched house is now rarely seen. The miners are all
comfortably lodged, generally well clothed, clean, and orderly in
their habits; and I have no doubt to these causes may be attributed
the great difference between the mortality in this parish and that of
Arkendale in the same period.
“In Muker the mortality, in proportion to its population, has been
nearly the same as in Arkendale; but many of the miners work
occasionally in coal-mines, are more exposed to storms, by reason of
their work being at a greater distance from their dwellings; and those
dwellings are also of a description inferior to those of the other
townships in the parish of Grinton. From these circumstances I infer
that the average duration of a lead-miner’s life, and his greater
freedom from disease, have increased in proportion to the increased
airiness and increased convenience of his dwelling.”
I have already referred to the example cited by Dr. Barham of the health
of the miners in one mine, the Dolcoath mine, in the parish of Camborne,
in Cornwall, where great attention is paid to obviate agencies injurious
to the miners. Care is there taken in respect to ventilation in the
mines. “The ventilation in Dolcoath is particularly good, and the men
are healthier than in most other mines; there are more old miners.” Care
is taken for the prevention of accidents. “Our ladders,” says one of the
witnesses examined by Dr. Barham, “are about two fathoms and a half in
length, generally with staves one foot apart. We use oak staves; old
ship oak we find the best. We formerly used the hafts of the picks and
other tools, but found these unsafe, the wood being sleepy and flawed,
and sometimes breaking off in a moment, without having shown any outward
sign of unsoundness. Iron staves, besides being at times very slippery,
are apt to be corroded, so as to cut the hand. We have had no accidents
on our footways for a long time.” They have introduced the safety fuse,
and the witness says:—“Very few accidents now arise from explosions;”
“they used to happen frequently formerly.” Care is taken of the miners
on quitting the mines; hence, instead of issuing on the bleak hill side,
and receiving beer in a shed, to prevent chill and exhaustion, they
issue from their underground labour into a warm room, where well-dried
clothes are ready for them, and warm water, and even baths are supplied
from the steam furnace, and, in the instance of this mine, a provision
of hot beef-soup instead of beer is ready for them in another room. The
honour of having made this change is stated to be due to the Right Hon.
Lady Basset, on the suggestion of Dr. Carlyon. “Hence in this mine,”
says Dr. Barham, “we may fairly attribute to the combination of
beneficial arrangements just noticed that in Dolcoath, where 451
individuals are employed underground, only two have died within the last
three years of miners’ consumption, a statement which could not, I
believe, be made with truth nor be nearly approached in respect of an
equal number of miners during the same term in any other Cornish
district.” The sick-club of the mine “is comparatively rich, having a
fund of 1500_l._”
When “care” is mentioned as taken for sanitary measures, it is to be
remembered that it is care only at the outset, and that when in habitual
action the care required is really less, and the measures should be
characterized as means for avoiding care and trouble and diminishing
pecuniary loss.
The effect of sanitary care in the mines of Camborne is, so far as it
has been carried, marked in the following table, made up by Mr. Blee, a
medical practitioner in the neighbourhood, from the mortuary registers,
showing the average age of death of the population as compared with the
average of death in two other adjacent parishes of Illogan and Gwennap,
in both of which some beneficent alterations have been made, especially
in Illogan, but the works are stated to be new, and the circumstances
not so favourable as at Camborne:—
TABLE showing the average Ages of Persons dying above 30, and
registered, in three years in the Parish of Camborne, in two years in
Gwennap, and in one year in Illogan.
┌────────┬───────────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Males. │Females.│ Proportion per cent. of Miners’ │
│ │ │ │ Deaths by Mine Accidents. │
├────────┼───────┬───────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
│ │Miners.│ Not │ │ │
│ │ │Miners.│ │ │
├────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
│Gwennap │ 45│ 60│ 64│ 16│
│Illogan │ 49│ 68│ 64│ 32│
│Camborne│ 54│ 60│ 63│ 5│
└────────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘
The improvement in Camborne had not reached the residences, where the
miners kept pigs, in sties close behind the house, and a dungheap is
carefully fostered in a catch-pit adjacent. Dr. Barham, and the medical
men practising in the vicinity, attribute to the decomposition of
vegetable matter in the “soaked soil from the receptacles near the
dwellings a form of fever which has been hanging about Camborne, and has
often passed into the typhoid condition, and has been attended with
great prostration of strength.”[30]
I have obtained through Mr. Baker, of Leeds, who, as superintendent of
factories, has had good means of making an accurate comparison, the
following contrast of the results as shown in the state of mortality
amidst the population of two contiguous manufacturing districts employed
in similar proportions in the same description of work, and differing
only in the state of the atmosphere in which they lived. The districts
are the townships of Great Bradford and Horton, in Yorkshire, both in
the parish of Bradford, and contiguous, differing only in elevation and
atmospheric influence.
“The town of Bradford lies in a hollow formed by the high land of the
surrounding country, a part of which forms the township of Horton, and
both populations, in about an equal ratio, are employed in
worsted-mills, built about the same period of time, in the same kind
of architecture, with the same appliances for ventilation and
purification in every respect, differing only in comparison as to
numbers both of population and mills.
Population. Births. Deaths.
Bradford 34,560 1 in 25·8 1 in 37·3
Horton 17,618 1 in 28·0 1 in 47·0
“The difference between the two localities will at once be seen, and
can only be accounted for by the difference in atmospheric influences,
the former population being resident in ill-conditioned dwellings,
without sufficient ventilation; the latter residing in localities
which, though undrained in many instances, are yet open to pure air
and breezes which never reach the town without the most perfect
contamination.”
Dr. Barham mentions, as an example of the benevolent foresight which
economizes the strength and life of workmen, and perceives that there is
a profit as well as humanity in so doing, that at Tresavean, a great
copper mine in Gwennap, as a substitute for the ladders, before
universal, machinery has been erected for the raising and lowering of
the miners. This, he states, will be effected at the cost of 2000_l._ at
the least, but this sum, it is calculated, will soon be repaid by the
saving of the time and fatigue of the men.
Such evidence as that above given, and as will be submitted in other
instances, will leave little doubt that, by a combination of practicable
sanitary regulations comprehending the economy of the residence as well
as the place of work, the enormous suffering and waste of life which at
present depresses large masses of the working population may be rendered
comparatively inconsiderable. The amount of such depression on the
mining population, in making it consist of young persons and more
transient, is marked in a return prepared by Mr. R. Lanyon, the medical
practitioner acquainted with the locality, and which was read at the
Polytechnic Society in Cornwall.
On examining the ages of 2145 _men_ engaged in mining, it was found that
their average age was 30 years, and that the average period they had
been engaged in work was 15 years. On examining the condition of 1033
_men_, artisans, agricultural labourers, living and working in the
vicinity, it was found that their average age was 40 years, and that
their average period of work then completed was 25 years. Of the mining
population one-third only had reached 50 years of age, whilst of the
non-mining population one-third had attained 70 years of age.
I might submit these two examples, the one as a young and comparatively
weak population, the other as a comparatively mature and strong
population. The adult mining population of 30 years of age is not, I
apprehend, a population advancing to a further stage of maturity, but
one kept down by noxious agencies and premature mortality to that limit
of age, with no chance for them or for other generations to pass beyond
it whilst in this employment, except through the operation of sanitary
measures in removing the causes of depression.
The difference in the proportions of ages between a depressed and
unhealthy and a comparatively long-lived and strong population, is shown
in the following comparative view of the ages of the miners and of the
1033 non-mining labourers who were living and working:—
┌──────────────┬───────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬─────┬────────┐
│ │ 30 │ 40 │ 45 │ 50 │ 55 │ 60 │ 70 │80 Years│
│ │ Years │Years│Years │Years│Years │Years│Years│ and │
│ │of Age │ and │ and │ and │ and │ and │ and │upwards.│
│ │ and │under│under │under│under │under│under│ │
│ │ under │ 45. │ 50. │ 55. │ 60. │ 70. │ 80. │ │
│ │ 40. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├──────────────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼────────┤
│Miners 1651│ 772│ 377│ 239│ 125│ 56│ 29│ 1│ │
│Labourers 1033│ 695│ 422│ Not │ 284│ Not │ 144│ 48│ 7│
│ │ │ │given.│ │given.│ │ │ │
│ │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │
│ │ cent. │cent.│cent. │cent.│cent. │cent.│cent.│ cent. │
│Miners │ 47│ 23│ 14│ 7½│ 3½│ 1½│ │ │
│Labourers │ 67│ 41│ │ 27│ │ 14│ 4½│ ½│
└──────────────┴───────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴─────┴────────┘
So that whilst in every 100 men of the younger population of workpeople
there would not be 2 men of the experience beyond sixty years of age,
not 8 above fifty, or not a fourth passed forty; in the older population
there would be 14 beyond sixty, 27 beyond fifty, or a clear majority of
mature age, and, it may be presumed, of the comparatively staid habits
given by age. Dr. Scott Allison found that the average age of the living
male heads of families of the _collier_ population at Tranent whose
condition he has contrasted with that of the agricultural population,
and whose ages he could ascertain, was 34 years; whilst the average age
of the living male heads of the agricultural families was 51 years and
10 months. He considers that the like proportions would be found to be
more extensively prevalent, and would serve as fair indications of the
relative condition of the different populations.
Whenever the adult population of a physically depressed district, such
as Manchester, is brought out on any public occasion, the preponderance
of youth in the crowd and the small proportion of aged, or even of the
middle aged, amongst them is apt to strike those who have seen
assemblages of the working population of other districts more favourably
situated.
In the course of some inquiries under the Constabulary Force Commission
as to the proportions of a paid force that would apparently be requisite
for the protection of the peace in the manufacturing districts,
reference was made to the meetings held by torchlight in the
neighbourhood of Manchester. It was reported to us, on close observation
by peace-officers, that the bulk of the assemblages consisted of mere
boys, and that there were scarcely any men of mature age to be seen
amongst them. Those of mature age and experience, it was stated,
generally disapproved of the proceedings of the meetings as injurious to
the working classes themselves. These older men, we were assured by
their employers, were intelligent, and perceived that capital, and large
capital, was not the means of their depression, but of their steady and
abundant support. They were generally described as being above the
influence of the anarchical fallacies which appeared to sway those wild
and really dangerous assemblages. The inquiry which arose upon such
statements was how it happened that the men of mature age, feeling their
own best interests injured by the proceedings of the younger portion of
the working classes, how they, the elders, did not exercise a
restraining influence upon their less experienced fellow-workmen? On
inquiring of the owner of some extensive manufacturing property, on
which between 1000 and 2000 persons were maintained at wages yielding
40_s._ per week per family, whether he could rely on the aid of the men
of mature age for the protection of the capital which furnished them the
means of subsistence? he stated he could rely on them confidently. But
on ascertaining the numbers qualified for service as special constables,
the gloomy fact became apparent, that the proportion of men of strength
and of mature age for such service were but as a small group against a
large crowd, and that for any social influence they were equally weak.
The disappearance by premature deaths of the heads of families and the
older workmen at such ages as those recorded in the returns of dependent
widowhood and orphanage, must to some extent practically involve the
necessity of supplying the lapse of staid influence amidst a young
population by one description or other of precautionary force.
On expostulating on other occasions with middle-aged and experienced
workmen on the folly as well as the injustice of their trade unions, by
which the public peace was compromised by the violences of strike after
strike, without regard to the experiences of the suffering from the
continued failures of their exertions for objects the attainment of
which would have been most injurious to themselves, the workmen of the
class remonstrated with, invariably disclaimed connexion with the
proceedings, and showed that they abstained from attendance at the
meetings. The common expression was, they would not attend to be borne
down by “mere boys,” who were furious, and knew not what they were
about. The predominance of a young and violent majority was general.
In the metropolis the experience is similar. The mobs against which the
police have to guard come from the most depressed districts; and the
constant report of the superintendents is, that scarcely any old men are
to be seen amongst them. In general they appear to consist of persons
between 16 to 25 years of age. The mobs from such districts as Bethnal
Green are proportionately conspicuous for a deficiency of bodily
strength, without, however, being from that cause proportionately the
less dangerously mischievous. I was informed by peace officers that the
great havoc at Bristol was committed by mere boys.
The experience of the metropolitan police is also similar as to the
comparatively small proportion of force available for public service
from such depressed districts. It is corroborative also of the evidence
as to the physical deterioration of their population, as well as the
disproportion in respect to age. Two out of every three of the
candidates for admission to the police force itself are found defective
in the physical qualifications. It is rare that any one of the
candidates from Spitalfields, Whitechapel, or the districts where the
mean duration of life is low, is found to possess the requisite physical
qualifications for the force, which is chiefly recruited from the open
districts at the outskirts of the town, or from Norfolk and Suffolk, and
other agricultural counties.
In general the juvenile delinquents, who come from the inferior
districts of the towns, are conspicuously under size. In a recent
examination of juvenile delinquents at Parkhurst by Mr. Kay
Shuttleworth, the great majority were found to be deficient in physical
organization. An impression is often prevalent that the criminal
population consists of persons of the greatest physical strength.
Instances of criminals of great strength certainly do occur; but
speaking from observation of the adult prisoners from the towns and the
convicts in the hulks, they are in general below the average standard of
height.
Reverting to the observations as to the influence of adverse physical
circumstances on the morals of the population, I must here include in
the observation the younger portion of the population.
I might adduce the evidence of the teachers of the pauper children at
Norwood to show that a deteriorated physical condition does in fact
greatly increase the difficulty of moral and intellectual cultivation.
The intellects of the children of such inferior physical organization
are torpid; it is comparatively difficult to gain their attention or to
sustain it; it requires much labour to irradiate the countenance with
intelligence, and the irradiation is apt to be transient. As a class
they are comparatively irritable and bad tempered. The most experienced
and zealous teachers are gladdened by the sight of well-grown healthy
children, which presents to them better promise that their labours will
be less difficult and more lasting and successful. On one occasion a
comparison was made between the progress of two sets of children in
Glasgow, the one set taken from the wynds and placed under the care of
one of the most skilful and successful infant schoolmasters, the other a
set of children from a more healthy town district and of a better
physical condition, placed under the care of a pupil of the master who
had charge of the children from the wynds. After a trial for a
sufficient time, the more experienced master acknowledged the
comparative inferiority of his pupils, and his inability to keep them up
to the pace of the better bodily conditioned children.
The facts indicated will suffice to show the importance of the moral and
political considerations, viz., that the noxious physical agencies
depress the health and bodily condition of the population, and act as
obstacles to education and to moral culture; that in abridging the
duration of the adult life of the working classes they check the growth
of productive skill, and abridge the amount of social experience and
steady moral habits in the community: that they substitute for a
population that accumulates and preserves instruction and is steadily
progressive, a population that is young, inexperienced, ignorant,
credulous, irritable, passionate, and dangerous, having a perpetual
tendency to moral as well as physical deterioration.
The group of cases of the mining population from Alston and Garrigill,
it appears to me, will, when considered, afford an example of the
powerful nature of the physical elements of deterioration. In that
district the employers and persons of the higher classes have paid great
attention to maintain the means of moral improvement. They have only not
been made aware of the practicability or of the importance of sustaining
the physical condition of the workpeople, as exemplified in respect to
the same description of labourers at Camborne.
The duration of life amongst the mining population of the lead-miners at
Alston and Garrigill, and the adjacent district, is about 14 years less
than that given by the Swedish tables. Their physical condition was
depressed. “The young men appeared very healthy, but exceedingly few of
them,” says Dr. Mitchell, “were of a large size; and in general it may
be said they are of a small size.” He states that in moral condition
they are most exemplary:—
“The means of education in Alston parish are extensive: there is the
grammar-school, the master of which must be acquainted with Latin, but
he gives a general education; there is a charity-school, and a school
kept by a master on his own account; there is the school of the London
Lead Company at Nenthead, at which other children besides those of
their own workpeople are allowed to attend. There is a school at
Garrigill Gate, and one at Tynehead, and another at Leadgate; there
are also many dame schools and 10 Sunday schools. * * * I procured the
catalogues of several libraries, and the books are such as to convey
valuable information, and are far superior to most of the works which
are found in the catalogues of the institutions called literary and
scientific in and about the metropolis. * * * As to the intellectual
condition of the people, it is decidedly superior to that of any
district of England of which I have any knowledge. The witnesses
uniformly manifested a clearness of comprehension of the inquiries
made of them, and gave distinct replies, and added of themselves other
information hearing on the subject. Almost all of them could sign
their evidence, and most of them wrote exceedingly well. * * * The
evidence of the employers and the parochial authorities, as well as of
the men themselves, fully proves that there is a very general
sobriety, and that the contrary practice is exceedingly rare. * * *
Offences against property are very rare. It may be doubted whether we
may consider it a proof of the honesty of the people, that pigs of
lead may be seen lying by the road sides and in the fells as much
exposed as so many stones. There is no magistrate nearer to Alston
than a distance of 14 miles. Offences against the law are very rare.”
Instances have been frequently presented in the course of this inquiry
of the moral degradation of the children of workpeople, and of the
workpeople themselves, who have once been what those miners now are in
moral condition; but the cases taken from the pauper roll of the union
will serve to show that even a good education will not, of itself,
sustain such a body of workmen against the physical causes of
depression. The group of cases of widowhood, when considered, will serve
to show that the causes in question create the evils of which they are
supposed to be natural correctives.
With such an educated class of workmen, the obtainment of a place and
the wages of an adult must be the necessary preliminary to a marriage,
and unless such place or wages were obtained, the young workman would
either remain single or seek employment further a-field. But we will
suppose, for illustration, that a casualty occurs, such as the last
death on the list, J. M., where a young miner who has married and has a
wife and two children is prematurely swept away by an epidemic at 21
years of age, leaving a widow and two destitute orphan children
dependent on poor relations, or on the ratepayers. The first mentioned,
say S. H., then takes the vacant place of work, marries, and is killed
at 34 years of age by “an accident in the mine,” leaving a widow and
seven orphan children. This third vacancy in the place of work is
occupied by another miner H. Y., who marries and works until he is 45,
when he is killed by “consumption,” leaving a widow and five children.
Such casualties do not of course actually so fall on any one place of
work, but the vacancies so created in different places at the younger
periods of life must be and are supplied by new hands coming into the
employment, and marrying as a consequence of that employment, and the
succession will fairly represent 1 he mode in which the vacancies
created by the various causes of death displayed in the last table and
in the other tables of the causes of premature widowhood and orphanage
occur.
In works where the average period of working ability is extended to the
natural period of superannuation, which the evidence shows that a
combination of internal and external sanitary measures maybe expected to
give, namely an average of full 60 years, the account for one place
would be one superannuated workman and one widow, and a family of four
or five well-grown children, who, having received parental care during
that period, will probably all have obtained, before its termination,
the means of independent self-support. Whereas with a population of only
15 or 20 years of working ability, the same place of work may during the
same period have been filled by two generations and one-fourth of
workpeople, not one of which has brought all the children dependent on
it to maturity or a condition for self-support; and the account of
widowhood and orphanage will frequently for the same place of work stand
thus:—
Workmen prematurely Dead. Orphan Children. Years’ loss of Support.
J. M. 1 widow 2 39
S. H. 1 widow 7 26
H. Y. 1 widow 5 15
That is to say, three widows instead of one, and three sets of stunted
and unhealthy children dependent for such various periods, as those
above specified, and competing for employment at the same place, instead
of one set of healthy children arrived at the age of working ability for
self-support. The occupation of the places of work by a comparatively
young and procreative population, brought forward by the premature
removal of the middle aged and the aged workers, by the various causes
of premature deaths—the acceleration of births by premature deaths in
infancy as stated in a preceding note—will, I apprehend, sufficiently
clearly account for the generally increased proportions of births in
those districts where the rate of mortality is high; and it will
scarcely be necessary to give further illustrations of the dreadful
fallacy which tends to an acquiescence in the continuance of the causes
of pestilence and premature mortality as correctives of the pressure of
population.”
Though the deaths from accidents bear only a small proportion to the
deaths from disease, yet registries show that the scattered deaths from
various descriptions of violence amount to an average of about 12,000
yearly, in England and Wales alone, or more than aroused the national
attention in the late massacre of the troops of the empire during the
war in India. The position which this class of causes occupy, in the
production of destitute orphanage and widowhood, is shown in the
previous tables; but these do not comprehend the whole of the effects;
another class of which appear on examining the causes of pauperism:
namely, the injuries which occasion permanent disablement. In an
analysis of the causes of pauperism, by _Mr. Simkiss_, the auditor of
the Wolverhampton union, the cases of which the subjoined is a list were
apparent on the pauper-roll.
┌──────┬──────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│No. of│ Previous │ Nature of │ Respective Ages. │
│Cases.│Occupations of│ Accident. │ │
│ │ the Paupers. │ │ │
├──────┼──────────────┼──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
│ 18│Miners │Hurt in mines │21, 23, 27, 30, 34, 34, 40, │
│ │ │ │ 40, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, │
│ │ │ │ 50, 51, 53, 60, 60. │
│ 2│Ditto │Burnt in mines │40, 60. │
│ 1│Locksmith │Lamed by accident │30. │
│ 1│Wheelwright │Accident by waggon│69. │
│ 1│Single woman │Lost her arm by │23. │
│ │ │ accident. │ │
└──────┴──────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
On examining the individual cases of deaths that are classed as incident
to the pursuit of the chief branches of mining or manufacturing
industry, or in transport whether by land or water, it has always been
satisfactory to find that for the future, by care, the greater
proportion of them are preventible. In the case of the mining accidents,
one part of them appear preventible by care of the superior managers of
the mines—in arrangements over which the individual workman has no
control; the other portion, by intelligence and care on the part of the
workmen; and this last class of cases again reverts back to the power,
and therefore to the means of imposing responsibility on the employers
in the selection of educated and intelligent workmen—of habits of
sobriety, and care to qualify them for works of danger. But at present
they are, in a great measure, relieved from responsibility by the charge
incurred by the want of care being thrown on other funds raised from
persons who have as yet no practicable means of protection or
prevention. When continued and dreadful losses of life take place, in
the face of examples of successful prevention such as might be collected
from every part of the country, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that if the branch of industry were charged with the pecuniary
consequences of the losses assumed to be necessarily incident to it,
generations would not be allowed to pass away in fear, recklessness, and
misery without the early adoption of those means of prevention which
self-interest would then stimulate. A frequent suggestion made upon the
view of such casualties is that government inspectors should be
appointed to inspect and direct and regulate machinery.
This subject was brought under consideration in the course of the
proceedings of the Factory Commission of Inquiry, and it was then agreed
that such a measure as that of inspection would only give an imperfect
security, and would occasion vexatious interruptions, and that the least
objectionable mode of interference, as well as the most efficient and
just as a means of prevention, would be to charge a portion at least of
the cost of such casualties upon the branch of industry. Subsequent
observation, especially of the causes of pauperism, have strengthened my
convictions of the soundness of the principle of prevention as stated in
our Report, a passage from which I have submitted in the Appendix.[31]
In illustration of the pecuniary cost of disease, as shown in the cost
of remedies in Scotland, there are several documents. The late _Dr.
Cowan_, the professor of Forensic medicine at Glasgow, gives one in
which he states—
“If any arguments were wanting to arouse the community to the
investigation of this important subject, they might be drawn from the
heavy pecuniary tax which fever entails on the benevolent of our city,
from the poverty, misery, and crime which this disease engenders. It
is not possible, from the data before me, to give anything like an
accurate calculation of the sums spent for the treatment of fever in
Glasgow during the last twenty years. The following calculation
intentionally falls considerably under the amount, to prevent every
suspicion of exaggeration:—
£. _s._ _d._
1. Cost of the fever hospital 8,566 7 9
2. Temporary hospitals, and maintenance of patients 5,000 0 0
in them
3. 21,691 patients at 1_l._ 10_s._ treated at the 32,536 10 0
expense of the infirmary
——————— —— —
£46,102 17 9
======= == =
To this amount fall to be added the expense of treating the poor in
their own houses under the district surgeons of the burgh, and any
sums expended by the heritors or the gorbals and barony parishes for
similar purposes. But this sum must have been greatly increased by the
demands of pauperism produced by fever, on our poor’s-rates, and on
the private benevolence of our citizens; for the duration of the
disease, and the period of convalescence which must elapse before an
individual can resume his work will average rather more than six
weeks, and when to this is added the difficulty of again finding
immediate employment, we may safely assume that the 12,895 individuals
treated in the fever hospitals during the last seven years, all, with
few exceptions, depending on their daily labour and extending the
benefit of that labour to others, were out of employment for a period
of at least six weeks.”
The _Rev. G. Lewis_, the minister of St. David’s parish, Dundee, who has
answered the queries issued by the Board, and very powerfully addressed
the inhabitants on this subject, in the course of one of his addresses,
observes that—
“Apart altogether from the waste of human life, and the indescribable
suffering and sorrow which annually fall upon the working classes of
Dundee from this periodical scourge, and viewed only as a mere matter
of profit and loss to the mercantile and monied interest of Dundee, it
were easy to demonstrate, that the expenditure of several thousand
pounds per annum, in providing the means of cleanliness to this town,
in the better cleansing of its streets, but, above all, of its back
closes, courts, and lanes, and the clearing away of those pestilential
masses of building which lie concealed from view behind the front
lines of some of our principal streets, would have been rewarded by a
saving to the community of a vast sum, which the ravages of disease
and death have been, for the last few years, compelling Dundee to pay
in a way its inhabitants think not of. That this may appear, I have
brought into one table the number of cases of fever during the last
seven years.
“CASES of Fever in
Dundee during the
last seven years,
from 1833 to 1839,
inclusive,
calculated from the
Bills of Mortality
according to the
proportion of nine
cases to each
death:—
Year. Cases. Deaths.
1833 1,188 132
1834 1,521 169
1835 1,179 131
1836 2,673 297
1837 1,881 209
1838 1,773 197
1839 1,593 177
—————— —————
11,808 1,312
—————— —————
“Thus, in seven years, fever has fallen on much more than a tithe of
the inhabitants,—choosing its victims here, as elsewhere, in the
manhood of life, and compelling the citizens of Dundee to pay a tax
frightful in the amount of personal sufferings and family
bereavements.
“But it were a mistake to imagine that the sufferings and death of so
many citizens are the only _tithes_ which fever has compelled us to
pay during the last seven years. Put wholly aside the details of
domestic woe and personal suffering which 11,808 cases of fever have
introduced into the families of Dundee in these seven years—omit all
reckoning of the watching, want, and wretchedness, wrapped up in so
many cases of acute disease, and the family bereavements implied in
these 1,312 death—and let us view for a moment our fellow-creatures
but as so many machines suspended from work by the derangement or
destruction of the human machinery, that we may learn something of the
probable money loss incurred by fever in these seven years.
“From Dr. Southwood Smith, the highest authority on these subjects, we
learn that fully one-half of the cases of fever occur in the prime of
life, when men are most useful either to their families or to society.
Deducting then the 1,312 deaths from the whole number of cases, there
will remain 10,496 cases of fever, the one-half of whom, at least,
were adults,—that is, 5,248 persons in the prime of life, very many of
them heads of families, had fever in these seven years. Now, the
average period fever detains a patient from work, according to the
same authority, is six weeks. Let us take the earnings in health of
these adults at the average of 8_s._ weekly; and the loss of wages to
these 5,248 adults, by six weeks’ fever, amounts to 12,595_l._; and
this, after excluding all under age, and all the deaths. But these
cases, whether treated at home or at the infirmary, must be also
loaded with the expense of medical treatment, which is estimated in
our infirmary reports at 1_l._ to each case, that is, 5,248_l._ must
he added to the loss by wages. But 5,248 cases of those under age
remain to be accounted for; and, as fever rarely attacks mere
children, but chiefly those either in manhood or approaching manhood,
we may estimate the loss of their labour at the one-half of the
adults, or 6,297_l._ 12_s._, and the expense of attendance and
recovery at one-half also, or 2,624_l._
“But how shall we estimate the pecuniary loss of 1,312 deaths? It
seems a strange thing to go about estimating the money value of that
which money did not give, and cannot restore when taken away; yet as
there are those who understand better a profit and loss account than
the arguments of religion and humanity, we shall attempt to estimate
the money loss of these 1,312 deaths by fever.
“At least one-half, or 656 of these deaths, were deaths of adults, and
very many of them heads of families, of which the 337 widows in St.
David’s parish afford melancholy evidence.”
He then refers to an estimate made by _Mr. M’Culloch_, who, viewing a
human being as a productive machine, reared to last a certain time, and
to return so much more than he costs, estimates a full-grown workman
just, arrived at maturity as having 300_l._ of capital invested in him.
At the actual cost of maintaining and training a pauper child in England
at the school in Norwood, 4_s._ 6_d._ per week, he will have had
expended upon him at 21 years of age, 245_l._, or at 30 years, 350_l._;
but he supposes—
“The money value of these male and female adults to be just the
one-half of this, or 150_l._, which makes the loss, by the premature
death of these 656 adults, to be 98,400_l._; and, if the remaining 656
under the age of maturity, yet approaching it, be taken at the half of
the adults, or 75_l._ each, we have a loss of 49,200_l._ more; to
which, if we add 1_l._ a-piece, or 1,312_l._ in all, for attendance
and medical expenses, the Fever Bill of Dundee, during the last seven
years, will stand as follows:—
Fever Bill of Dundee from 1833 to 1839.
£. _s._ _d._
Loss of labour for six weeks of 5,248 adults at 12,595 0 0
8_s._ a-week
Attendance, medicine at home or infirmary, at 1_l._ 5,248 0 0
each
Loss of labour for six weeks of 5,248 under age, at 6,297 12 0
4_s._ a-week
Expense of treatment of the above at infirmary or 2,624 0 0
home, at 10_s._ a-piece
Loss by death of 656 adults, at 150_l._ each. 98,400 0 0
Loss by 656 deaths under age, at 75_l._ a-piece 49,200 0 0
Treatment of 1,312 cases, at 1_l._ each 1,312 0 0
———————— —— —
£175,676 12 0
Or 25,096_l._ 13_s._ per annum.
“The poor, we are told, we shall always have with us, and so with
disease and death. Yet the evils, both of poverty and disease, come in
very different measures to different communities. As there is a
poverty that is self-inflicted, and may be self-removed, so there is a
certain amount of disease and annual mortality in every city that is
self-inflicted; and the community that does not strive, by every
available means, to reduce its disease and mortality bills to the
lowest sum of human suffering, and the lowest rate of annual
mortality, is as guilty of suicide as the individual who, Judas like,
takes with his own hands the life God has given, and hurries unbidden
into the presence of his Judge. The fever bills of the Scottish towns,
contrasted with those of the English commercial towns, declare too
plainly that man has not yet done his part in Dundee to avert this
scourge of society; and, while fever is undoubtedly to be regarded as
the visitation of God, it is also to be regarded as the visitation of
God for the sin of neglecting a population fallen in character and
habits.
In the following table are given the deaths in Dundee in seven years,
and the rate to the population,—supposing the inhabitants in 1831 to
have been 45,355 souls, and to have increased about 2000 annually,
until 1839, when from bad trade the increase was checked:—
Years. Deaths. Population. Proportion of Deaths to the Population.
1833 1,482 49,355 1 in 33·3
1834 1,650 51,355 1 in 31·1
1835 1,673 53,355 1 in 31·9
1836 1,923 55,355 1 in 28·8
1837 1,963 57,355 1 in 29·2
1839 1,511 59,355 1 in 39·3
1839 1,763 59,355 1 in 33·7
—————— ——————— —————————
11,965 385,485 1 in 32·2
—————— ——————— —————————
Thus, the average mortality in Dundee, during the last seven years,
was 1 in 32 annually. * * * Here, then, in Dundee, the deaths annually
are at least one-fourth more than over the rest of Scotland, Glasgow
excepted, which seems to surpass Dundee in the waste of human life. If
the deaths are a fourth greater, those diseases which are its
harbingers must be many times greater than the deaths; and to this
extent, at least, it was in the power of human means to have provided
a remedy,—to have abated by one-fourth the physical suffering and
mortality of Dundee, saved 2,952 persons from fever, and 328 persons
from premature death, and reduced by a fourth part the pecuniary loss
incurred during the last seven years,—in other words, to have saved
43,919_l._, or 6,274_l._ annually, to the profit and loss account of
this city in the single item of fever.
“The statistics of small-pox in Dundee might be added to this bill of
charges. It is sufficient, however, to allude to it. Last year, the
deaths by small-pox were 77. In 1838, they were also 77; and in 1837,
they amounted to 126. The number of cases, of course, must have been
many times the deaths; by far the greater number under age and
unvaccinated,—a neglect no longer confined to the Irish population.
* * * * *
“Though I am no medical authority, yet I am sure that I have every
medical authority with me when I connect, as foremost amongst the
causes of the enormous Fever Bill of Dundee that monstrous Tavern
Bill, which last lecture I showed you was the worm in the bud of the
happiness and well-being of its working classes. That Tavern Bill,
according to the mean of three different estimates, amounts to
21,234_l._ a-year in my parish alone, and to 180,000_l._ a-year to all
Dundee. In vain we cry out against the taxation of Government. While
the words of complaint are on our lips, here is a vice of continual
tasting and tippling in strong drink,—a private self-imposed tax, but
heavier far than any public tax. It is this besetting sin that has
been not only devouring the substance of the poor, but every year
sowing the seeds of that enormous Fever Bill which for the last seven
years has been taxing us, not only in purse but in person,—compelling
every tenth man in Dundee during that period to pay the wages of six
weeks’ labour, and to suffer all the langour, sickness, and oppression
of six weeks’ fever, besides the bereaved widows and orphans, and the
fatherless and motherless children it has left in Dundee.”
I now proceed to submit the reasons for believing that the immediate
expenditure of so much money as would be incurred by the adoption of
such of the remedial measures as appear to be available by the agency of
any public administration would be sound measures of immediate economy,
and of ultimate public gain: and also the grounds for believing that the
same conclusion is applicable to the cost of those measures of
prevention which, though directly or indirectly controllable by
legislative authority, are within the province of private individuals to
execute, such as the construction of the dwellings of the labouring
classes.
VI.—EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECTS OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN RAISING THE
STANDARD OF HEALTH AND THE CHANCES OF LIFE.
On viewing the evidence, which shows that, in most situations higher
chances of life belong to the middle and higher classes of the
population, an impression may be created that the higher standards of
health are essentially connected with expensive modes of living. The
highest medical authorities agree, however, that the more important
means for the protection and advance of the health of those classes must
be in still further reductions than those which it is the present
tendency in the higher classes of society to make of the use of highly
stimulating food. The evidence already adduced with respect to the
labouring classes in the rural districts and those living on high wages
in towns, will have gone some way to remove the erroneous impression
with respect to them, and it admits of proof that a higher standard of
health and comfort is attainable for them even at a less expense than
that in which they now live in disease and misery. The experience of the
effect of sanitary measures in the royal navy may be adduced as evidence
of the practicable standards of health consistent with great labour and
exposure to weather obtained at a cost not higher than that within the
wages of ordinary labourers. The experience of the effects of sanitary
measures in banishing spontaneous disease from crowded prisons, offers
further evidence of the health obtainable by simple means, under
circumstances still more unfavourable.
The prisons were formerly distinguished for their filth, and their bad
ventilation; but the descriptions given by Howard of the worst prisons
he visited in England (which he states were amongst the worst he had
seen in Europe) were exceeded in every wynd in Edinburgh and Glasgow,
inspected by Dr. Arnott and myself, in company with the municipal
officers of those cities. More filth, worse physical suffering and moral
disorder than Howard describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be
found amongst the cellar population of the working people of Liverpool,
Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions of the metropolis. As a
standard of the progress made in ameliorating the condition of
prisoners, I refer to his general statement of the condition in which he
found the prisons when he inspected them in England.
“_Water._—Many prisons have _no water_. This defect is frequent in
bridewells and town gaols. In the felons’ courts of some county gaols
there is no water: in some places where there is water, prisoners are
always locked up within doors, and have no more than the keeper or his
servants think fit to bring them.
“_Air._—And as to air, which is no less necessary than the two
preceding articles, and given us by Providence quite gratis, without
any care or labour of our own; yet, as if the bounteous goodness of
heaven excited our envy, methods are contrived to rob prisoners of
this genuine cordial of life, as Dr. Hales very properly calls it; I
mean by preventing that circulation and change of the fluid without
which animals cannot live and thrive. It is well known that air which
has performed its office in the lungs is feculent and noxious. Writers
upon this subject show that a hogshead of air will last a man only an
hour: but those who do not choose to consult philosophers may judge
from a notorious fact. In 1756, at Calcutta, in Bengal, out of 170
persons who were confined in a hole there one night, 154 were taken
out dead. The few survivors ascribed the mortality to their want of
fresh air; and called the place, Hell in Miniature.
“From hence any one may judge of the probability there is against
health and life of prisoners crowded in their rooms, cells, and
subterraneous dungeons, for 14 or 15 hours out of the 24. In some of
those caverns the floor is very damp; in some there is sometimes an
inch or two of water; and the straw or bedding is laid on such floors,
seldom on barrack bedsteads. Where prisoners are not kept in
underground cells, they are often confined in their rooms, because
there is no court belonging to the prisons; which is the case in many
city and town gaols; because the walls round the yard are ruinous, or
are too low[32] for safety; or because the gaoler has the ground for
his own use. Prisoners confined in this manner are generally
unhealthy.
“In Baker’s Chronicle, p. 353, that historian, mentioning the assize
held in Oxford Castle, 1577 (called, from its fatal consequences, the
Black Assize), informs us, ‘that all who were present died within
forty hours; the lord chief baron, the sheriff, and about 300 more.’
Lord Chancellor Bacon ascribes this to a disease brought into court by
the prisoners; and Dr. Mead is of the same opinion.
“The first of these two authors, Lord Bacon, observes, that ‘the most
pernicious infection, next the plague, is the smell of a jail, when
the prisoners have been long close and nastily kept; whereof we have
had, in our time, experience twice or thrice; when both the judges
that sat upon the jail, and numbers of those who attended the
business, or were present, sickened and died.’
“Sir John Pringle observes that ‘gaols have often been the cause of
malignant fevers;’ and he informs us that in the late Rebellion in
Scotland, above 200 men of one regiment were infected with the gaol
fever by some deserters brought from prisons in England.
“Dr. Lind, physician to the royal hospital at Haslar, near Portsmouth,
showed me, in one of the wards, a number of sailors ill of the gaol
fever, brought on board their ship by a man who had been discharged
from a prison in London. The ship was laid up on the occasion. That
gentleman, in his ‘Essay on the Health of Seamen,’ asserts that ‘the
source of infection to our armies and fleets are undoubtedly the
gaols; we can often trace the importers of it directly from them. It
often proves fatal in impressing men on the hasty equipment of a
fleet. The first English fleet sent last war to America lost by it
above 2000 men. In another place he assures us that the seeds of
infection were carried from the guard-ships into our squadrons; and
the mortality thus occasioned was greater than by all other diseases
or means of death put together.’
“It were easy to multiply instances of this mischief; but those I have
mentioned are, I presume, sufficient to show, even if no mercy were
due to prisoners, that the gaol distemper is a ‘national concern’ of
no small importance.”
“_Sewers._—Some gaols have no sewers or vaults; and in those that
have, if they be not properly attended to, they are, even to a
visitant, offensive beyond description; how noxious, then, to people
confined constantly in those prisons!
“One cause why the rooms in some prisons are so close is the
window-tax, which the gaolers have to pay; this tempts them to stop
the windows and stifle their prisoners.
“_Bedding._—In many gaols, and in most bridewells, there is no
allowance of _bedding_ or straw for prisoners to sleep on; and if by
any means they get a little, it is not changed for months together, so
that it is offensive and almost worn to dust. Some lie upon rags,
others upon bare floors. When I have complained of this to the
keepers, their justification has been: ‘the county allows no straw;
the prisoners have none but at my cost.’”
Since Howard succeeded in gaining national attention to the condition of
prisoners, the evils of prison management have been removed. A large
proportion of the prison population is taken from the worst regulated
and most confined neighbourhoods, which have been the subject of
examination; and, with the view to judge what might be effected by
sanitary regulations, I have made frequent inquiries as to the effects
of sanitary measures on the worst class of persons, the larger
proportion of whom are taken from the worst neighbourhoods, that is, as
to the effects of living in the same atmosphere, on a less expensive
diet than that of the general labouring population, but provided with
clean and tolerably well-ventilated places of work and sleeping-rooms,
and where they are required to be cleanly in their persons.
I have obtained through Mr. Hill, the prison inspector of Scotland, an
accurate return of the number of days which the prisoners had been
absent from labour on the ground of ill health in the celebrated prison
at Glasgow, where the separate system of confinement has been tried
(Return No. 1); a similar return from the Edinburgh prison, (No. 2). I
also obtained a careful examination of the amount of sickness prevalent
amongst the prisoners at Salford prison, (No. 3). The average cost of
the diets, (principally vegetable,) at Salford, varied from 1_s._ 4_d._
to 1_s._ 6_d._ per week; at Edinburgh, 1_s._ 9_d._ per week; and at
Glasgow, 1_s._ 7_d._ per week. _Vide_ Appendix.
The medical practitioners, who are well acquainted with the general
state of health of the population surrounding the prisons concur in
vouching to the fact, upon their own knowledge, that the health of the
prisoners is in general much higher than the health almost of any part
of the surrounding population; that the prisoners, as a class, are below
the average of health when they enter the prisons; that they come from
the worst neighbourhoods; that many of them come from the
lodging-houses, which, in those towns, as will be shown, are the
constant seats of disease; that they are mostly persons of intemperate
habits; that many of them come in in a state of disease from
intemperance and bad habits; and notwithstanding the depressing
influence of imprisonment, the effect of cleanliness, dryness, better
ventilation, temperance, and simple food, is almost sufficient to
prevent disease arising within the prison, and to put the prisoners in a
better working condition at the termination than at the commencement of
their imprisonment. At the Glasgow bridewell, the prisoners are weighed
on their entrance and at their discharge, and it is found that, on the
average, they gained in weight by their imprisonment.[33] At Edinburgh,
there were instances of poor persons in a state of disease committed
from motives of humanity to the prison, that they might be taken care of
and cured. The tables are to be taken as showing imperfectly the
comparative effects of the different circumstances; because, when a
labourer is obliged to leave work he loses wages; and it is known of
large classes of them, that they often work improvidently and
injuriously to their chances of recovery by continuing at work in
impaired health too long; the prisoner, on the contrary, by absence on
the sick list, gains ease and exemption from slave labour; and the
officers have constantly to contend against feigned sickness to avoid
task-work and punishment. It should also be noted that a large
proportion of the sickness of the prisoners is of a character that is
excluded from all tables of insurance, from the benefit societies as
being specially excluded from their benefits. The numbers imprisoned at
the lower ages, or above 36 years of age, were too few to form any
comparison:—
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Average Annual Sickness of │ │
│ │ Male Prisoners in the │ Labourers and Operatives. │
├────────┼─────────┬─────────┬─────────┼───────────┬───────────┬──────────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ No. 5. │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Average │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │duration of│ │
│ │ │ │ │ No. 4. │ Sickness │ No. 6. │
│ │ No. 1. │ No. 2. │ No. 3. │Employed in│ per annum │ Males of │
│ │ Glasgow │Edinburgh│ Salford │East-India │ of every │ Families │
│ │ Prison. │ Prison. │ Prison. │ Company’s │ person │ in Wynds │
│ │ │ │ │Warehouses.│employed in│ of │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Cotton │Edinburgh.│
│ │ │ │ │ │ Factories │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ of │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │Lancashire.│ │
├────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│ AGE. │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │
│ │Decimals.│Decimals.│Decimals.│ Decimals. │ Decimals. │Decimals. │
│Under 16│ │ │ │ │ │ 3·5│
│ Years │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 3·05│ 4·01│ 3·10│ 4·02│ 4·42│ 2·3│
│21 to 26│ 1·83│ 2·04│ 1·64│ 5·40│ 4·91│ 5·1│
│26 to 31│ 2·65│ 2·33│ 2·72│ 4·49│ 6·88│ 11·0│
│31 to 36│ 2·83│ 3·10│ 2·63│ 4·55│ 3·85│ 8·3│
│36 to 41│ 9·00│ 5·10│ ·85│ 5·57│ 4·13│ 4·1│
│41 to 46│ ·49│ 2·75│ ·51│ 5·18│ 5·69│ 15·1│
│46 to 51│ │ │ │ 5·43│ 7·18│ 30·0│
│51 to 56│ │ │ │ 6·80│ 3·47│ 16·2│
│56 to 61│ │ │ │ 7·21│ 12·68│ 30·4│
│61 to 66│ │ │ │ 10·24│ │ 42·7│
│66 to 71│ │ │ │ 9·93│ │ 64·2│
│71 to 76│ │ │ │ 10·60│ │ 41·0│
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ 12·67│ │ 83·6│
└────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────┴──────────┘
┌────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┐
│ │ │ │ No. 8. │
│ │ │ │ Average │
│ │ │ │ Annual │
│ │ │ No. 7. │ Sickness │
│ │ │ Average │ of │
│ │ │ Annual │provident │
│ │ │Sickness │portion of│
│ │ │ of │ Working │
│ │ │ Members │ Classes │
│ │ │ of │throughout│
│ │ │ Benefit │ Great │
│ │ │Societies│ Britain, │
│ │ │ in │according │
│ │ │Scotland.│ to the │
│ │ │ │experience│
│ │ │ │ of Mr. │
│ │ │ │Finlaison.│
├────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ AGE. │Years of │ Days & │ Days & │
│ │ Age. │Decimals.│Decimals. │
│Under 16│ │ │ │
│ Years │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 18│ 2·5│ 5·18│
│21 to 26│ 23│ 3·8│ 6·75│
│26 to 31│ 28│ 4·6│ 6·78│
│31 to 36│ 33│ 5·6│ 6·33│
│36 to 41│ 38│ 6·2│ 7·86│
│41 to 46│ 43│ 8·8│ 9·02│
│46 to 51│ 48│ 9·1│ 11·76│
│51 to 56│ 53│ 14·8│ 16·77│
│56 to 61│ 58│ 17·8│ 23·57│
│61 to 66│ 63│ 20·0│ 33·22│
│66 to 71│ 68│ 36·0│ 61·22│
│71 to 76│ 73│ 38·6│ 101·44│
│76 to 81│ 78│ 70·9│ 164·72│
└────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┘
The total number of male prisoners in the three prisons from which the
returns were compiled was 7,328; of which number, in the Glasgow prison
there were 1,796, in the Edinburgh prison 1,256, and in the Salford
prison 4,276 prisoners. The columns inserted in the above table from the
prisons give only the amount of sickness prevalent amongst the males.
The returns which are given in full in the Appendix contain the amount
of sickness prevalent among the female prisoners also.
The information as to the actual amount of sickness prevalent amongst
the labouring classes is at present extremely defective for the purposes
of insurance. One of the most authentic tables is that compiled by Dr.
Mitchell, from returns we obtained under the Factory Commission of
Inquiry, of the experience of sickness amongst the labourers employed by
the East India Company in their warehouses in London. The experience was
from 2461 workmen employed during ten years. (Return No. 4.)
This is a highly favourable table, inasmuch as the men were, in the
first instance, select, nearly as much so as recruits in the army; care
was also taken to give men who became infirm such labour as they could
perform without exertion; but, above all, they had the benefit of
medical advice without any expense, and being thereby induced to make
early application, disease was cut short at once on its first
appearance. Moreover, they were not allowed to return to work until they
had a medical certificate of their cure.
Another table (No. 5) given is one of the amount of sickness experienced
by the male operatives in the cotton mills in England, also deduced from
the returns directed to be made under the Factory Commission of Inquiry.
But these returns do not include the experience of the mills in
Manchester, which was not collected by the district commissioners.
The table (No. 6) is that made up by Mr. Tait, surgeon, from his
inquiries of the experience of sickness in the wynds of Edinburgh.
The next table (No. 7) is made up from the experience of benefit
societies in Scotland, subsequent to the experience tables which were
compiled by the Highland Society; but this is the experience of a select
class, which appears to me to be too favourable for general use in
Scotland.
The next table (No. 8) is one in use by Mr. Finlaison, the actuary at
the National Debt Office, prepared from various sources of information.
It has been tried by the experience of a large benefit society in
Bethnal Green, and the allowance for sickness was found to be low as
compared with the sickness occurring amongst the labouring classes in
that district.
The account given by Mr. Tait, of his investigation of the sickness
which had prevailed amongst 335 persons in 180 families, exhibited in
column No. 5, is as follows:—
“The parts visited may be considered a fair specimen of the Edinburgh
wynds and closes. They consist of Gillon’s and Gibb’s Closes,
Canongate, Blackfriars’ Wynd, Bremot’s and Skinner’s Closes, High
Street, and Meal-market Stairs, Cowgate. The drainage of all these
places is bad; the sewers are without exception open, and those in
Gillon’s and Gibb’s Closes being nearly on a dead level, keep these
places constantly in a filthy condition. The poverty of the
inhabitants who reside in Gibb’s Close, especially, is also extreme,
five out of seven families living in apartments without furniture. The
ventilation in general is also bad: several apartments are so close
that it is difficult for a person when he first enters them to
breathe. In several instances I had to retreat to the door to write
down my notes, as I found the stench and close atmosphere produce a
sickening sensation which, on one occasion, terminated in vomiting.
Although some of the apartments visited were tidy and clean, in
general they were the reverse. It is impossible to conceive or
describe the filthy condition of some of them. Many of them were very
small, and others rather capacious, considering the quantity of
furniture they contained. The diseases mentioned were such as to throw
the persons affected out of employment. There were many cases of
slight and continued ailment of which no notice was taken. No case of
rheumatism was taken down unless so severe as to lay the person
entirely off work.
“About 180 families were visited, but only 117 of them had been one
year and upwards in their present dwelling: all the cases of sickness
occurred between Martinmas, 1840, and Martinmas, 1841, and none of the
patients,” _i. e._ of whom any account was taken, “were under ten
years of age,” those under that age being intentionally excluded.
Mr. Hill states, that he has no doubt the results, which will be
apparent from the examination of the several tables which are placed in
juxta-position, would be corroborated by similar returns obtained from
other well-regulated prisons in Scotland. The returns from the prisons
in England up to the year 1834–5 (which do not, however, give the days
of sickness, but only the number of prisoners attacked with sickness
during the period for which the return was made) further corroborate
these results. Even in the Milbank Penitentiary, the situation of which
is insalubrious, the average annual amount of sickness to the prisoners
who are confined two years and a half is only about eight days to each
person, which, for the average ages, is little above the standard
obtained from the experience of the East India Company’s labourers. The
sickness amongst the metropolitan police is about 10½ days per annum for
each of the force, 2¾ per cent. being constantly on the sick-list. The
sickness in the army is on the average 14½ days each soldier. Mr.
Finlaison informs me he can venture to state, that were any benefit
society to use scales of premiums founded on the prison experience, they
would inevitably be insolvent in less than three years.
M. Villermé has shown the diminution of mortality that has taken place
in the prisons of France, chiefly from stricter attention to
cleanliness, ventilation, and diet, to be equally striking. At Lyons,
from 1800 to 1806, the annual mortality in the prisons was 1 in 19; from
1806 to 1812, it was 1 in 31; from 1812 to 1819, it was 1 in 34; and
from 1820 to 1826, 1 in 43: a similar amelioration has also been
remarked in the prisons of Rouen, and some other large towns in that
kingdom.
The following is a summary return of the diseases of the duration of
each, amongst the population of the wynds, examined by Mr. Tait:—
┌───────────────────────────┬──────┬────────┬───────┬────────┬────────┐
│ NATURE OF DISEASE. │No. of│Average │No. of │ No. of │ No. of │
│ │Cases.│duration│Deaths.│Families│Persons │
│ │ │ of │ │visited.│visited.│
│ │ │Disease.│ │ │ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼────────┼───────┼────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ Weeks. │ │ │ │
│Disease of Lungs │ 23│ 5½│ 1│ 117│ 335│
│Rheumatism │ 9│ 9│ │ │ │
│Accidents │ 9│ 4½│ │ │ │
│Erysipelas │ 3│ 8│ │ │ │
│Inflammation of Throat │ 3│ 5│ │ │ │
│Fever │ 15│ 5¼│ 1│ │ │
│Palsy │ 4│ │ 1│ │ │
│Dropsy │ 1│ 7│ │ │ │
│Disease of Liver │ 1│ │ │ │ │
│Jaundice │ 1│ 4│ │ │ │
│Carbuncle │ 1│ 5│ │ │ │
│Affection of Urinary Organs│ 1│ 17│ │ │ │
│Acute affection of Brain │ 2│ 3│ 1│ │ │
│Small-pox │ 2│ 5│ 1│ │ │
│Opthalmia │ 1│ 6│ │ │ │
│Whitlow │ 1│ 3│ │ │ │
│Lumbago │ 2│ 7│ │ │ │
│Eruptive disease │ 1│ 9│ │ │ │
│Inflammation of Stomach │ 1│ │ │ │ │
│Ague │ 1│ 4│ │ │ │
│Abscess of Loins │ 1│ 5│ │ │ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼────────┼───────┼────────┼────────┤
│ Total │ 83│ │ 5│ 117│ 335│
└───────────────────────────┴──────┴────────┴───────┴────────┴────────┘
It may be safely pronounced that if such an amount of sickness were
known to prevail in a prison containing between 300 and 400 prisoners,
the circumstance would excite public alarm and attention.
Any of the preceding tables of the lower amounts of sickness may be
taken as practicable standards of the extent to which it were possible,
by the removal of the causes of disease, to bring the health of the
labouring population.
I may here observe, that the tables of sickness above referred to
exhibit the very unsatisfactory footing on which the means of insurance
against sickness and mortality within the reach of the labouring classes
are now placed. An artisan of the condition of the East India Company’s
labourers who insures for an allowance for sickness between the age of
61 and 66 years, which, according to the experience of his own class,
would be a period of 10 days, would have to pay for 20 days, or 10 days
in excess if he insured on the tables of the experience of benefit
societies in Scotland, or 23 days in excess if he insured on tables
founded on the experience collected by Mr. Finlaison. On the other hand,
were a benefit society composed of members living under depressed
circumstances, as in close courts or ill-drained districts, to adopt the
table of the experience of the East India Company’s labourers, and to
take members, living under the circumstances indicated by the Highland
societies or Mr. Finlaison’s tables, the allowance on such a rate of
insurance would be fraught with certain and speedy loss of the funds of
the contributors. Having received contributions for an allowance on the
chances of 10 days’ sickness, they would, upon insurances from the wynds
of Edinburgh, have to pay for 40 days. The range of variation in the
chances of life in different districts, such as have been shown in the
returns from the different towns, exhibiting the mortality amongst the
different classes, all present instances of the ruin to which benefit
societies are exposed in acting upon tables calculated only for select
classes, or on the mean experience of large classes, or of many classes
differing widely in their circumstances. The probabilities of life at
infancy for the whole population of Liverpool, as deduced from the
actual ages of deaths of the whole population, would be 17 years; but on
the Northampton tables of probability, payment would be required for the
insurance of 25 years at infancy; for 38 years according to the Carlisle
table; and if a male, for 37 years, according to the Swedish table. Yet
such are the data and their applications on which large masses of
savings and property are frequently invested and made dependent in
various forms of insurance in benefit societies. The ruin of such
societies is, I lament to say, by no means an unfrequent occurrence. The
most painful spectacle that is presented in a painful and difficult
service is that of a hardworking, industrious labourer, who has lived
frugally and saved rigidly, who in his old age is stripped of his
savings and reduced to destitution. One such example is enough to
destroy the frugality of a whole village, and of all the labourers to
whom it is presented. The necessity of a revision of all the tables
which govern the subscriptions to friendly societies and the allowances
from them, is strongly suggested by the evidence. It is to be lamented
that, before giving tables of sickness or mortality to the members of
benefit societies, many of the actuaries who have advised them have made
no inquiries as to the condition of the neighbourhoods where the members
reside or as to their general circumstances. The best advice to the
labourers for the future will, however, be proved to be, that the most
safe, economical, and efficient outlay as an insurance, will be in their
own contributions, in rates or extra rent where needful for the
execution of sanitary measures.
The further example adverted to as to the efficiency of preventive
measures, is furnished by the naval medical service.
So dreadful was once the condition of the navy that, in the year 1726,
when Admiral Hosier sailed with seven ships of the line to the West
Indies, he buried his ships’ companies twice, and died himself of a
broken heart. Amongst the pictures then presented, as in Anson’s
Voyages, 1740–44, were those of deaths to the amount of eight or ten
a-day in a moderate ship’s company; bodies sewn up in hammocks and
washing about the decks, for want of strength and spirit on the part of
the miserable survivors to cast them overboard. Dr. Johnson, in the year
1778, thus describes a sea life:—“As to the sailor, when you look down
from the quarter-deck to the space below, you see the utmost extremity
of human misery; such crowding, such filth, such stench!” “A ship is a
prison, with the chance of being drowned,—it is worse, worse in every
respect; worse air, worse food, worse company.”
_Dr. Wilson_, in his preface to the Medical Returns, observes that,
within the limits of the South American command, the Centurion, exactly
a century ago, lost in a few weeks 200 out of 400 men by scurvy. During
the years from 1830 to 1836, the British _squadron_ employed in South
America, lost by diseases of every description only 115 out of 17,254
men. He observes—
“There is no reason to doubt that instead of every second man
perishing miserably within a few weeks, the rate of mortality might
have been as low as that exhibited in the South American Report, viz.,
one death annually by disease out of 150 men. Now there was nothing
new nor mysterious in the pestilence either as to its origin or its
essence: it was not a sudden climatorial influence which could not be
resisted nor understood; it was a well-known affection presenting all
the signs of utter prostration and pointing to pure debility as its
source, the effects principally of scanty, unwholesome, unvarying diet
and bad water—partly of inadequate attention to cleanliness, order,
and ventilation, and the nearly total neglect of systematic attention
to measures for amusing, cheering, and improving the mind with which
resulting despondency often cooperated. The remedy therefore would
appear to have been self-evident and at hand, not to the commanders of
ships and fleets, but to the administration. Information on many
points in the animal economy was certainly less exact than it is now,
and vague unfounded notions prevailed of necessary relations existing
between a sea-life and scurvy. Hence it may be concluded that
ignorance rather than inhumanity was the reason why effectual measures
were not long before adopted for the prevention of such terrible
calamities.”
He observes further that—
In 1779 the proportion dying was 1 in 8 of the employed.
In 1811 the proportion dying was 1 in 32 of the employed.
From 1830 to 1836 the average number dying annually was 1 in 72 of the
employed.
But—
“In this calculation, the deaths from all sources are included from
wounds, drowning, and all other external causes as well as from
disease. From the latter source the deaths were in the proportion of 1
to 85 of the number employed annually. When it is considered that the
ratio applies to the whole service, and therefore includes the most
unhealthy sections, the Coast of Africa and the West Indies, it will
be admitted, even without reference to former periods, to be very
low.”[34]
The scurvy, once so fatal in the navy, is now almost unknown in
men-of-war, whilst it still prevails often to a most serious extent in
the mercantile navy where the same care is not taken. It was a popular
opinion in the navy, that the use of lemon juice in the grog was a
specific against scurvy; but it is stated that the health of seamen has
in some instances been advanced by the discontinuance of the grog
itself, and the substitution of coffee. _Dr. Nisbett_ says, “I may state
generally, that this substance (lemon juice) in the quantities usually
issued (one ounce per diem) does not prevent the appearance of scurvy
under circumstances favourable to its production; that in increased
quantities it appears to have some power of arresting, at least for a
time, this disease in its earlier stages, and is thus of great value;
but that it is not to be considered an antidote, and that the only cure
for this disease is a full diet of fresh meat and vegetables;” the
preventives being, general and personal cleanliness, ventilation, and
liberal supplies of good water, in addition to supplies of wholesome
food.
The mortality of the home force ships employed chiefly in harbour duty,
&c. (where of course they were not cut off from communication or means
of infection from the shore,) in Great Britain and Ireland, gives the
rate of mortality obtainable by sanitary means, even now confessedly
imperfect especially in ventilation, amongst a male population ranging
from 15 to 50 years of age, and may be taken as illustrative of the
amount of health attainable on shore.
In 1830 the deaths in the navy from disease independently of external
causes were—
Disease, per 1000. All Causes, per 1000.
1830 6·0 8·7
1831 11·5 3·4
1832 11·9 14·0
1833 6·3 7·9
1834 4·9 6·7
1835 5·9 7·2
1836 7·5 9·5
Mr. Finlaison has lately calculated that the deaths _on shore_ out of
1000 of the population of 29 years of age may be estimated at about 12
per annum. Mr. Rickman calculated that the deaths at that age in Essex
and Rutland would be about 12½ persons per 1000 per annum: for the
metropolis it would be about 15½ deaths. Out of 1000 workmen in the
Government dock-yards, the number of deaths were 15; and hitherto in the
metropolitan police force, which is more select than the navy, the
number of deaths appear to be about 9 per annum; but about the same
number of men is annually invalided from the force. The proportion of
deaths amongst the troops appears to be, amongst the household cavalry,
14·5, amongst the dragoons 15·3, amongst the infantry in depôt, 18·5,
and amongst the foot guards 21·6. Since the Guards have been in Canada
the rate of mortality has been reduced to that of other regiments.
The health of the foot guards is believed to be affected by peculiar
circumstances.
I may add, as respects soldiers, that by proper care such epidemics as
typhus, scarlet fever, are now scarcely known as affecting large groups
in the army, and that such an occurrence would denote to the chiefs of
the army medical board the existence of some great neglect into which it
would be necessary to make inquiry.
_Cost to tenants and owners of the public measures for drainage,
cleansing, and the supplies of water, as compared with the cost of
sickness._
Persons well acquainted with the inferior descriptions of tenements in
Manchester state that a large proportion of them change owners in ten
years, and that few remain in the same hands more than twenty years; and
it is observed in other populous districts that this description of
property most frequently changes hands. The chief obstacle to the
execution of legislative measures for public improvements of tenements
of the class in question in such districts has been, that large
immediate outlays of capital have been required to be made in an
inconvenient manner for permanent improvements, by persons possessing
only short or transient interests, to whom no means are given for
spreading the charge over longer periods of years to make it coincident
with the benefits.
In reference to the structural arrangements which come within the public
authority, the majority of professional persons the best acquainted with
the description of tenements occupied by the poorer classes, and the
importance of getting the work done, agree that it would, on the whole,
be the most advantageous course to execute them, by loans paying
interest on the security of the rates, and spread the charge over 30
years during which the original outlay should be repaid. This would
allow of the annual instalment being charged in fair proportions to the
tenant, and to the holders of short interests.
The outlay for the execution of measures which come within the public
authority are those, 1, for bringing water on the premises; 2, for
applying it to remove refuse by a cheap apparatus; 3, a drain for
conveyance of the refuse to the (4) main drains or common sewer.
In the rural districts all these purposes of cleansing may, it is
considered, be accomplished by means of a proper use of the rain-water;
and that which is here given may be considered as a maximum estimate for
_towns_, if the work be properly done by public contract on a large
scale.
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────┐
│ │ │ │ Weekly │
│ │ │ │Charge to │
│ │ │ │ the │
│ │ │ Annual │Tenant, or│
│ │ Annual │ interest, │increased │
│ │Instalment│commuted at │ Rent, │
│First Outlay per Tenement. │ for │5 per cent. │being the │
│ │Repayment │ on Outlay │ 1/54th │
│ │in Thirty │ charged as │ part of │
│ │ Years. │ Rent on │the sum of│
│ │ │ Tenant. │the annual│
│ │ │ │instalment│
│ │ │ │and annual│
│ │ │ │interest. │
├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
│ │£. _s._ _d._│_s._ _d._│£. _s._ _d._│ _d._ │
│Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │
│ and │10 8 6│ 6 11│ 0 6 8│ 3 │
│ apparatus │ │ │ │ │
│Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 3 9│ 0 3 6│ 1½ │
│Water │ │ │ 0 5 0│ 1 │
├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
│ Total │ 10 8│ 0 15 2│ 5½ │
└───────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────┘
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Total Outlay on One-third │
│First Outlay per Tenement. │ (1,148,282 inhabited houses) │
│ │ of the existing Tenements in │
│ │ England, Wales and Scotland. │
├───────────────────────────┼──────────┬──────────┬────────┤
│ │ │ │ Annual │
│ │ │ │Interest│
│ │ │ Annual │commuted│
│ │ │Instalment│at 5 per│
│ │ First │ for │cent. on│
│ │ Outlay. │Repayment │ Outlay │
│ │ │in Thirty │charged │
│ │ │ Years. │as Rent │
│ │ │ │ on │
│ │ │ │Tenant. │
├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ │£. _s._ _d._│ £. │ £. │ £. │
│Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │
│ and │10 8 6│11,970,840│ 399,028│ 379,687│
│ apparatus │ │ │ │ │
│Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 6,430,379│ 214,346│ 203,957│
│Water │ │ │ │ │
├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤
│ Total │18,401,219│ 613,374│ 583,644│
└───────────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┘
The above is a maximum estimate, and if the work be executed
systematically by contract for districts, the charge may be so far
reduced that it may be taken to include repairs, but if it were executed
by each occupier or each owner separately, 15 per cent. must be added to
the charge; and if, in addition to the separate charge incurred by
neglect of legislative or administrative arrangements there be also
incurred the ordinary fees of new surveyors of sewers, and new surveyors
of buildings, paid by the ordinary fees, the charge for these structural
improvements will be still further increased.
But the supplies of water for all the household purposes at the highest
water company’s charges, which is 138 pailsful for less than 1¼_d._, is,
in fact, to be considered a reduction of an existing expenditure of
labour of fetching water.
The cost of cleansing privies is estimated as an existing charge in the
metropolis and many towns of not less than 10_s._ per tenement annually.
If the duty were duly performed the cost would perhaps be double that
amount, and be equivalent to the whole of the proposed new expenditure;
and taking the new expenditure as being less that charge, there only
remains the cost of the new sewerage,—1½_d._ weekly, or 6_s._ 6_d._
annually. Supposing this charge of 1½_d._ weekly imposed upon the
landlord, he will have to set against it the preservation of the
tenement from dilapidation by drainage, which of itself would frequently
repay the whole outlay. He has also the circumstance to consider that he
may get better tenants by the improvement of his houses, and that with
such tenants he will have more regular payments of rent. Protracted
sickness and protracted losses of employment, and the frequent mortality
caused by neglect of cleansing, occasion heavy losses to the owners, and
occasion a greater diminution of the returns for such tenements than is
commonly apparent.
One obstruction to any amendment by cleansing is occasioned by the
circumstance that the laying on the water is considered a tenant’s
charge, and the lower the class the more fluctuating the tenantry and
the greater the reluctance of the tenant, and the less indeed are the
means to make any immediate outlay for permanent purposes. To cast any
immediate outlay on occupiers of this class, who have scarcely
self-control to make reserves of the weekly rents, practically amounts
to a prohibition of the work being done. That which will in extensive
districts really be a new charge, _i. e._, sewerage, will fall only at
the rate of the 1½_d._ per week per tenement, and as most tenements are
now occupied in the more crowded districts, this will be a charge to be
divided between two families. If it were properly distributed, it is an
amount not to be spoken of as serious in the weekly charge.[36]
New charges, for improved house accommodation, as well as for sewerage
and house cleansing, may all be submitted as means for the reduction of
the existing heavy charges of sickness, and of the loss of work and loss
of wages consequent upon sickness. To judge of the extent of the
immediate charge of sickness in money and _time_, which is independent
of the charge of insurance against premature death, we may select the
case of an ordinary family, say of a man at 40, a wife at 30, and two
children, who may be represented as equivalent to one child aged 15, the
lowest age estimated in the insurance tables, which for an average
family is an under estimate. Now to insure these a payment of 10_s._ per
week each during sickness, the charges would be as follows, according to
the insurance tables computed by Mr. Finlaison for the guidance of
benefit societies.
┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
│ Age │ For an allowance of 10_s._ per │
│ │week, during sickness, according to│
│ │ the Table constructed by Mr. │
│ │ Finlaison, the Actuary of the │
│ │ National Debt Office. │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│ │Monthly Payment. │ Single Payment. │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ │ £. _s._ _d._│ £. _s._ _d._│
│Man, 40 │ 0 2 11│ 27 5 2│
│Woman, 30 │ 0 1 11½│ 21 0 6│
│Child, 15 │ 0 1 3¼│ 14 18 1│
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total per family │ 0 6 1¾│ 63 3 9│
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total annual charge │ 3 13 9│ │
├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Total weekly charge per family │ 0 1 5│ │
└───────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
In the course of the Factory Commission of Inquiry in 1834, we
ascertained that the wages of upwards of 40,000 employed in the cotton
mills, of whom two-thirds were below the adolescent stage, amounted, on
the average, to 10_s._ 5_d._ per week. Up to the beginning of the
present year the wages of those in work were not lower. Mr. Finlaison’s
table, therefore, will best represent the existing pecuniary charge of
sickness from the loss of wages to a family in such a district in
ordinary seasons of employment. The actual charge of sickness in _time_
lost every year, as represented by the experience of the sickness tables
before cited, would be as follows:—
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│ Age. │Experience of│Experience of│ Mr. │ Experience │
│ │the Wynds of │ Benefit │ Finlaison. │ under │
│ │ Edinburgh. │Societies in │ │ Sanitary │
│ │ │ Scotland. │ │ Measures. │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│ │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │
│Man, 40 │ 15·1│ 6·9│ 9·2│ 2·75│
│Woman, 30 │ 11·0│ 4·2│ 6·33│ 2·10│
│Child, 15 │ 3·5│ 0·2│ 5·18│ 0·17│
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│Total per │ 29·6│ 11·3│ 20·71│ 5·02│
│ family │ │ │ │ │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
The experience of the effect of sanitary measures proves the possibility
of the reduction of sickness in the worst districts to at least
one-third of the existing amount. Amidst classes somewhat better
situated, it were possible to reduce the sickness to less than
one-third; it were an under estimate to take the probable reduction at
one-half. Taking it, however, at one-half, by the new payment of 1½_d._,
or say 2_d._, weekly for drainage, the occupants of the tenements will
save 7½_d._ of the weekly contribution for an allowance of 10_s._ per
week each during sickness. But the allowance insured to be paid during
sickness only replaces the earnings: the sickness, besides its own
misery, entails the expense of medical attendance, which, at the usual
rate of insurance in medical clubs, would be 5_s._ or 6_s._ per annum
for such a family. This would also be reduced one-half, making the total
family saving at the least 9_d._ weekly. But the single payment for
structural alterations is to be regarded as general, and as a means of
affecting the whole of the objects for the whole of the population. For
this 2_d._ each tenement, or 1_d._ each family, then, they will not only
save double the weekly amount, but they will save, in the wear and tear
of shoes and clothes, from having a well-drained and well-cleansed
instead of a wet and miry district to traverse; they will also save the
sickness itself, and each individual will gain a proportionate extension
of a more healthy life. In a district where the wages are not one-half
the amount above stated, the expenditure for efficient means of
prevention would still leave a surplus of gain to the labourer.
These are the chief gains on the side of the labourer; but in general
every labourer over and above what he consumes himself, produces enough
to repay the interest on capital and cost of superintendence or the
profits of the employer. The loss of this extra production is the loss
of the community during the whole time the services of the labourer are
abridged by sickness or death. To this loss is to be added, where the
labourer has made no reserve, the loss of the cost of his unproductive
maintenance as a pauper, and of medical attendance during sickness.
The existing insurance charge, then, represents the existing charge on
the labouring classes from the loss of wages consequent on sickness; to
which charge might be added the existing additional charge denoted by
the insurance on account of the abridged duration of life and more
frequent deaths. The aggregate charge for structural improvements,
though amounting to so many millions as a first outlay, is still, for
the reasons above stated, only a means of obtaining an incalculably
greater gain. But it will be shown that the attainment of that gain is
dependent on securities for the application of science to the efficient
execution of the combined structural means of prevention. If these were
to be no better than those in use in the greater part of the metropolis
and the towns throughout the country, and the outlay for drainage were
to be an outlay for receptacles to serve as the means of accumulating
decomposing deposits, and as latent magazines of pestilential gases, to
be themselves cleansed from time to time of the accumulations at a great
expense, or to be discharged to pollute the natural streams of the
country, then the aggregate expenditure would, to the amount of the
inefficiency, be an aggregate of so many millions of money spent in
waste.
The _immediate_ cost of sickness and loss of employment falls
differently in different parts of the country, but on whatsoever fund it
does fall, it will be a gain to apply to the means of prevention that
fund which is and must needs otherwise continue to be more largely
applied to meet the charge of maintenance and remedies. Admitting,
however, as a fact the misconception intended to be obviated, that the
necessary expense of structural arrangements will be an immediate charge
instead of an immediate means of relief to the labouring classes;—in
proof that they have, in ordinary times, not only the means of defraying
increased public rates but increased rents, I refer to the fact that the
amount expended in ardent spirits (exclusive of wines), tobacco, snuff,
beer, &c., consumed chiefly by them, cannot be much less than from
45,000,000_l._ to 50,000,000_l._ per annum in the United Kingdom. By an
estimate which I obtained from an eminent spirit merchant, of the cost
to the consumer of the British spirits on which duty is paid, the annual
expenditure on them alone, chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be
less than 24,000,000_l._ per annum. If visible evidence of the means of
payment were needed I would point to every gin-palace in the metropolis,
or to similar places throughout the country, which are chiefly supported
from the expenditure of the class of persons who are overcrowded and
lodge most wretchedly, and its duty-paying building materials represents
a portion of the money available as rent for abodes of comparative
comfort. The cost of one dram per week would nearly defray the expense
of the structural arrangements of drainage, &c., by which some of the
strongest provocatives to the habit of drunkenness would be removed. In
illustration of the extent of the means of defraying such expenses, even
in some of the poorer districts, I would cite the following statement of
the minister of the parish of Stevenston, in Ayrshire, given in the last
statistical account from that parish:—
“When the survey by the present incumbent was completed in 1836, the
population stood as follows:—
Number of families 833
Number of population 3681.”
The report further states—
“There are in the parish no less than 33 inns, and public-houses, and
whisky-shops. A few inns are needed for the accommodation of
travellers, and for the transaction of business; but the rest serve as
so many decoys to lure and destroy the thoughtless in their
neighbourhood. The sale of spirits in grocers’ shops has had a most
pernicious influence, especially on the female part of the community,
who, when there is no danger of detection, are tempted to add a dram
to the other commodities purchased. But the most pernicious practice
is that of several families clubbing that they may drink together
cheaply in one of their own houses; for in this way husbands, wives,
and children all share in the debauch, and drunken habits are
perpetuated from generation to generation.
“We are grieved and ashamed to mention the sum annually expended in
this parish for ardent spirits. We have learned from the
excise-officer of the district the quantity sold in it last year; and
without taking into account what is bought at a distance for the use
of private families, and exclusive also of all that is expended for
wine, and ale, and porter, and beer, and calculating at a rate greatly
below the retail price the quantity of ardent spirits sold in the
parish, it amounts to the enormous sum of 4125_l._”
This is nearly at the rate of 5_l._ a-year per family for ardent spirits
alone. To give another example:—
In the town of Bury, with an estimated population of 25,000, the
expenditure in beer and spirits is estimated at 54,190_l._, annually, or
2_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ for each man, woman, and child, a sum that would pay
the rent and taxes for upwards of 6770 new cottages at 8_l._ per annum
each. But on an inquiry made from house to house by the agency of the
Manchester Statistical Society into the condition of the labouring
population of this town, with such an expenditure on one source of
dissipation and ill-health, it appeared that of 2755 of their dwellings
examined, only 1668 were decidedly comfortable; that a smaller number
were well furnished; that the number of families in which there were
less than two persons sleeping in one bed were only 413; that the number
in which on the average there were more than two persons to a bed was
1512; that the number of families who had not less than _three_ persons
in a bed and less than four, was 773; that the number of families in
which there were “at least four persons, but less than five persons to
one bed,” was 207. There were 63 families where there were at least five
persons to one bed; and there were some in which even six were packed in
one bed, lying at the top and bottom—children and adults. Similar
results as to misapplied means and numbers crowded together would be
ascertained from similar inquiries into the state of the population in
other districts.
Any measures must commend themselves to public support that would effect
in the application of the immense fund expended in ardent spirits alone,
a change for assured physical comforts and undoubted moral advantages of
the highest order. Admitting the validity of statements often made and
seldom proved in ordinary times, but which nevertheless may occur, of
classes of labourers reduced to the minimum of subsistence, that their
wages will not admit of any change of application, then another set of
considerations would arise, namely, whether the increased charges for
new tenements, or for improvement of the existing tenements, will not
compel an advance of wages, and thence be charged in the cost of the
commodity produced? And whether if the trade will not allow such
advanced wages, the amount of misery of the labouring classes is not
really increased by exemptions or legislative facilities, which allow
the trade to be carried on only at the expense of the health, the
morality and the comfort of the labourers engaged in it, and also at the
expense of the ratepayers in providing against the casualties of
sickness and mortality?
These, however, are questions that appear to be less likely to occur
practically to any important extent than may be supposed. The general
difficulty would apparently be with the habits of the adults, who will,
to use the illustration presented in a portion of evidence previously
cited, “prefer the gin” to the best accommodation that can be offered to
them.[37]
Whilst there is such evidence as that above cited to show that there is
in ordinary times no real need, there is much evidence to show the
impolicy of any exemptions from the payment of properly distributed
charges for the requisite public improvement. In general labourers have
been losers by exemptions from charges on their tenements, and scarcely
in any instance have gained even by exemptions from the payment of their
contributions to the poor’s rates.
The effect of administrative proceedings on the condition of the
dwellings of large portions of the labouring classes, and thence on the
condition of the labourers, is, under varied circumstances, adverted to
in the local reports on their sanitary condition, and it is shown that
the former parochial administration has operated mischievously in
degrading the habitations of the labouring classes, or in checking
tendencies to improvement.
The mode by which the condition of the dwellings of the labouring
classes has been most extensively deteriorated in England, has been by
the facility afforded to owners of cottage tenements, usually when
acting as administrators of the Poor Law, to get their own tenants
excused from the payment of rates. The legal ground for exemption was,
not the value of the tenement, but the destitution or inability of the
tenant to pay; but inasmuch as the occupation of a well-conditioned
tenement, or of a tenement in advance of others, would be popularly
considered _primâ facie_ evidence of ability to pay rates, the cottage
speculator would not be at the expense to present evidence against the
exemption by which he would gain. The general tenor of the evidence is,
that the exempted tenements are of a very inferior order, and that the
rents collected for them are exorbitant, and such as ought to ensure
tenements of a higher quality.
Such residences appear to come in competition very rarely, and, viewed
with reference to the place of work, the habitations of the labouring
classes in the manufacturing towns extensively partake of the nature of
monopolies, and hence the landlord is enabled to exact a price for
position, independently of the character or quality of the building, or
of the extent of outlay upon it. Where there is any choice, the
labouring classes are generally attracted to these tenements by the
promise of exemption from the payment of poor’s rates, and are deluded
into the payment of a proportionately higher rent. (See the evidence on
this subject taken before the House of Commons’ Committee on the Rating
of Cottage Tenements in 1838; Questions 1103; 1106; 1222; 1377; 1403;
1504–7; 1637–8; 1594; 2269; 2271; 3124; 2234–5; 2240; 2279; 3106;
3723–4; 3920; 4054; 4071.)
The depressing effect of such exemptions is illustrated by the effect of
their withdrawal, in cases where the inmates were not only excused from
the payment of rates, but from the payment of rents, as in the instance
of the parish cottages. The sales of cottage tenements held by the
parish have formed a part of the business of this Commission since its
commencement. The effects of the removal of the exemption from the
payment of rent consequent upon the sale are generally described as
beneficial. The tenor of the evidence on this subject is conveyed in a
communication from the _Rev. Charles Turner_, the chairman of the
Tenbury union, quoted in Sir Edmund Head’s report:—
“Mr. Turner also says, ‘When the parish property has been sold, a vast
improvement in the external appearance of the cottages has taken
place, and consequently a higher rent is demanded, and frequently
obtained.’ We thus see one proof, among many, that the sales of parish
property which have taken place under the orders of the Commissioners
have been beneficial to the public at large; a vast mass of small
buildings (amounting, for instance, in the Bromyard union only, to no
less than the net worth of 3643_l._) has been withdrawn from a state
of dilapidation and decay and thrown into the market. Money has been
expended on it; it has been put into tenantable and proper repair, and
all parties have found their interest in the change. To the parish it
formerly yielded nothing. The pauper lived on in filth and
wretchedness, in a hovel of which he did not dare to complain, because
he held it by sufferance; and the community at large were deprived of
an opportunity for a profitable outlay of capital on tenements thus
kept in mortmain of the worst kind. Such an outlay would not have
taken place unless it promised a return, that is to say, unless the
class for whose reception the cottages are fitted could in all
probability pay for the improved accommodation. With regard to parties
living in their own houses, Mr. Turner says, ‘There are many poor
persons living in their own cottages, which are of a very inferior
description, wretchedly comfortless, and have only one floor. They are
decidedly worse than those which are rented, both as to accommodation
and state of repairs; but these, for the most part, have been built on
the waste and unenclosed land.’”
The mischievous effect of exemptions from rating on the ground of
poverty, in bringing down buildings to the exempted scale, and in
preventing advances beyond it, is strikingly displayed in Ireland, where
all houses not exceeding the value of 5_l._ are exempted from
contribution to the county cess. The general consequence is that, the
farmers’ residences throughout the country are kept down to the level of
mere cottages or inconvenient hovels, to avoid passing the line of
contribution, and only pass it by indulgent or evasive valuations. But
the supposed exemption (which, if it be not often made up by increased
rent, is a circumstance peculiar to the smaller holdings in that
country)—an exemption which no doubt was procured as a boon, was
productive of further ill effects to the parties intended to be
benefited.[38] Being kept by the immediate expense and the fear of their
share of the tax to thatched roofs, these thatched roofs afforded
facilities to incendiarism, since any one might put a cinder in the
thatch, and run away without detection; hence it has placed the inmates
so far under continued terror in disturbed times, that it would
frequently have been worth the expense of putting on a slate roof as a
measure of preventive police. The depression of the tenement is
practically a depression of the habits and condition of the inhabitants.
I may assume that it has been proved that the labouring classes do
possess the means of purchasing the comforts of superior dwellings, and
also that they are not benefited by exemptions from the immediate
charges wherever requisite to defray the expense of those superior
comforts.
I shall now show how little it is in the power of these classes
voluntarily to obtain these improvements,—setting aside entirely the
consideration of the obstacles arising from depraved habits already
formed.
The workman’s “location,” as it is termed, is generally governed by his
work, near which he must reside. The sort of house, and often the
particular house, may be said to be, and usually is, a monopoly. On
arriving at manhood in a crowded neighbourhood, if he wishes to have a
house, he must avail himself of the first vacancy that presents itself;
if there happen to be more houses vacant than one, the houses being
usually of the same class, little range of choice is thereby presented
to him. In particular neighbourhoods near Manchester, and in other parts
of the county of Lancaster, in some other manufacturing and in some
rural districts, instances occur of the erection of improved ranges of
larger and better constructed houses for the labouring classes; and,
making deduction for the occasional misuse of the increased space by
subdividing them and overcrowding them with lodgers, the extent to which
these improved tenements are sought, and the manner in which an improved
rent is paid, afford gratifying evidence of an increasing disposition
prevalent amongst artisans to avail themselves of such improvements.
These opportunities, however, are comparatively few, and occur in
districts where multitudes continue in the most depressed condition,
apparently without any power of emerging from it.
The individual labourer has little or no power over the internal
structure and economy of the dwelling which has fallen to his lot. If
the water be not laid on in the other houses in the street, or if it be
unprovided with proper receptacles for refuse, it is not in the power of
any individual workman who may perceive the advantages of such
accommodations to procure them. He has as little control over the
external economy of his residence as of the structure of the street
before it, whether it shall be paved or unpaved, drained, or undrained.
It may be said that he might cleanse the street before his own door. By
some local acts the obligation to do so is imposed on the individual
inhabitants. By those inhabitants who have servants this duty may be and
is performed, but the labourer has no servant; all of his family who are
capable of labour are out a-field, or in the manufactory or the
workshop, at daybreak, and return only at nightfall, and this regulation
therefore is unavoidably neglected.
Under the slavery of the existing habits of labourers, it is found that
the faculty of perceiving the advantage of a change is so obliterated as
to render them incapable of using, or indifferent to the use of, the
means of improvement which may happen to come within their reach. The
sense of smell, for instance, which generally gives certain warning of
the presence of malaria or gases noxious to the health, appears often to
be obliterated in the labourer by his employment. He appears to be
insensible to anything but changes of temperature, and there is scarcely
any stench which is not endured to avoid slight cold.
It would have been matter of sincere congratulation to have met with
more extensive evidence of spontaneous improvement amongst the classes
in receipt, of high wages, but nearly all the beneficial changes found
in progress throughout the country are changes that have arisen from the
efforts of persons of the superior classes. Inquiries have been made for
plans of improved tenements, but none have been found which can be
presented as improvements originating with the class intended to be
accommodated. In the rural districts, the worst of the new cottages are
those erected on the borders of commons by the labourers themselves. In
the manufacturing districts, the tenements erected by building clubs and
by speculating builders of the class of workmen, are frequently the
subject of complaint, as being the least substantial and the most
destitute of proper accommodation. The only conspicuous instances of
improved residences of the labouring classes found in the rural
districts are those which have been erected by opulent and benevolent
landlords for the accommodation of the labourers on their own estates;
and in the manufacturing districts, those erected by wealthy
manufacturers for the accommodation of their own workpeople.
As in England so in Scotland, the most important improvements have been
effected through enlightened landlords. The members of the Highland
Society, who have made the best exertions for improving the condition of
the labouring population in the rural districts, and have offered prizes
for the best-constructed cottages and the best plans, competition being
open to all parties, got nothing from the lower classes, and only
succeeded in exciting the interest of the most intelligent proprietors,
and getting improvements effected through their exertions. Mr. Loudon,
in an appeal on behalf of the agricultural labourers, lays it down as a
primary position that, “In general, proprietors ought not to entrust the
erection of labourers’ cottages on their estates to the farmers, as it
is chiefly owing to this practice that so many wretched hovels exist in
the best cultivated districts of Scotland and Northumberland.”
_Employers’ influence on the Health of Workpeople by means of improved
Habitations._
Preparatory to the exposition of the means of protection of the public
health provided by the existing law, and of the modifications that
appear to be requisite for the attainment of the object in question, I
would submit for consideration practical examples of its partial
attainment by means of improved dwellings; combined with examples of
other improvements effected in the moral condition of the labouring
classes, by the judicious exercise of the influence possessed by their
superiors in condition.
Throughout the country examples are found of a desire, on the part of
persons of the higher class, to improve the condition of the poorer
classes by the erection of dwellings of a superior order for their
accommodation. These, however, are generally at a cost beyond any return
to be expected in the present state of the habits of the people in the
shape of rent, or any return in money for an outlay on an ordinary
investment of capital. But the instances about to be noticed, though
generally originating in benevolence, and without the expectation of a
return, do, in the results, prove that in money and money’s worth, the
erection of good tenements affords the inducement of a fair remuneration
to the employers of labour to provide improved accommodation for their
own labourers.
Wherever it has been brought under observation, the connexion of the
labourer’s residence with his employment as part of the farm, or of the
estate, or of the manufactory on which he is employed, and as part of
the inducement to service, appears to be mutually advantageous to the
employer and the employed. The first advantages are to the person
employed.
We everywhere find (in contradiction to statements frequently made in
popular declamations) that the labourer gains by his connexion with
large capital: in the instances presented in the course of this inquiry,
of residences held from the employer, we find that the labourer gains by
the expenditure for the external appearance of that which is known to be
part of the property,—an expenditure that is generally accompanied by
corresponding internal comforts; he gains by all the surrounding
advantages of good roads and drainage, and by more sustained and
powerful care to maintain them; he gains by the closer proximity to his
work attendant on such an arrangement, and he thus avoids all the
attacks of disease, occasioned by exposure to wet and cold, and the
additional fatigue in traversing long distances to and from his home to
the place of work, in the damp of early morning or of nightfall. The
exposure to weather, after leaving the place of work, is one prolific
cause of disease, especially to the young. When the home is near to the
place of work, the labourer is enabled to take his dinner with his
family instead of at the beer-shop.
The wife and family generally gain, by proximity to the employer or the
employer’s family, in motives to neatness and cleanliness by their being
known and being under observation; as a general rule, the whole economy
of the cottages in bye-lanes and out-of-the-way places appears to be
below those exposed to observation. In connexion with property or large
capital, the labourer gains in the stability of employment, and the
regularity of income incidental to operations on a large scale; there is
a mutual benefit also in the wages for service being given in the shape
of buildings or permanent and assured comforts; that is, in what would
be the best application of wages, rather than wholly in money wages.
In the manufacturing districts there is a mutual and large gain by the
diminution of the labour of the collection of rents, the avoidance of
the risks of non-payment, and also in the power of control for the
prevention of disturbances, and the removal of tenants of bad character
and conduct.
Surprise is frequently expressed at the enormous rents ranging up to and
beyond 20 per cent. on the outlay, exacted by the building speculators
in the towns. But when the experience of these descriptions of tenements
is examined, it is found that the labour of collecting the rents, and
the labour of protecting the property itself against waste from
unprincipled tenants, is such as to prove that accommodation given to
the disorderly and vicious is scarcely remunerative at any price. The
tenants are loosely attached, and large numbers migratory, partly from
the nature of their work; and having little or no goods or furniture,
they have no obstacles to removal; they frequently, before absconding,
commit every description of waste; they often burn shelves and
cupboard-doors, and the door itself, and all timber that can be got at
for the purpose.[39] An objection frequently made against laying on the
water in houses inhabited by a population addicted to drinking is, that
they would sell the receptacles and destroy the pipe, and let the water
run to waste, for the sake of the lead. The expense and delay of legal
remedies precludes redress for such injuries.
In some of the worst neighbourhoods in Manchester, the whole population
of a street have risen to resist the service of legal process by the
civil officers. In the course of the Constabulary Inquiry I was informed
by the superintendent of the old police of that town, that one of the
most dangerous services for a small force was attending to enforce
ejectments. This they had often to do, cutlass in hand, and were
frequently driven off by showers of bricks from the mobs. The collection
of the rents weekly in such neighbourhoods is always a disagreeable
service, requiring high payment. This, and the frequent running away of
the tenant, and the waste, greatly reduce the apparently enormous rent
obtainable from this poorer class of tenants. For all these vices,
risks, and defaults of others, the frugal and well-conducted workman who
has no choice of habitation, is compelled to pay in the shape of an
increased rent; he is most largely taxed in the increased rent,
necessary as an insurance for the risks and losses occasioned by the
defective state of legal remedies.
All these risks the employer is enabled to diminish or avoid, by
selecting his own tenants, and he has the best means of doing so; by
reservations of rent on the payment of wages, he saves the labour and
risks of collection; nor will the vicious workman so readily commit
waste in the house belonging to his employer as in one belonging to a
poorer and unconnected owner. The employer has, moreover, the most
direct interest in the health and strength of his workpeople.
It is not supposed that these are arrangements which can be universal,
or readily made the subject of legislation. At the commencement of some
manufactures, the additional outlay may not be practicable. But those
manufactures have generally had the greatest success where good
accommodation for the workpeople was comprehended in the first
arrangements. When, however, a manufactory has been once established and
brought into systematic operation, when the first uncertainties have
been overcome and the employer has time to look about him, there appears
to be no position from which so extensive and certain a beneficial
influence may be exercised as that of the capitalist who stands in the
double relation of landlord and employer. He will find that whilst an
unhealthy and vicious population is an expensive as well as a dangerous
one, all improvements in the condition of the population have their
compensation. In one instance, of a large outlay on improved tenements,
and in provision for the moral improvement of the rising generation of
workpeople, by an expensive provision for schools, the proprietor
acknowledged to me that although he made the improvements from motives
of a desire to improve the condition of his workpeople, or what might be
termed the satisfaction derived from the improvements as a “hobby,” he
was surprised by a pecuniary gain found in the superior order and
efficiency of his establishment, in the regularity and trustworthiness
of his workpeople, which gave even pecuniary compensation for the outlay
of capital and labour bestowed upon them. He stated that he would not,
for 7000_l._, change the entire set of workpeople on whom care had been
bestowed for the promiscuous assemblage of workpeople engaged in the
same description of manufactures.
I would now submit for consideration, with the view to promulgation for
voluntary adoption, instances of the arrangements which have been found
most beneficial in their operation on the condition of the manufacturing
population.
The most prominent of these instances was pointed out to our attention
in the course of the Factory Inquiry, in the habitations connected with
the mills superintended by the late Mr. Archibald Buchanan, at Catrine,
in Ayrshire. Nearly 1000 persons are employed in these mills, the places
of work are well ventilated and carefully kept; the village where the
workpeople live is advantageously situated, and the houses are well
built. They are thus described by his son in answer to my inquiries:—
“The system that has been pursued here, and which was adopted by my
father for the purpose of giving the workers a greater interest in the
place, at the same time that it gave them an object to be careful and
saving, while it raised them in point of standing and respectability,
has been different from that generally acted upon at country works.
Instead of our company continuing the proprietors of the
dwelling-houses and letting them to the workpeople, my father gave the
workers every encouragement to save money, so that they might
themselves become the proprietors of a house and small garden, either
by making a purchase from the company or fencing ground and building a
house for themselves. This plan has been very successful, and many of
our people are proprietors of excellent houses with gardens attached,
which afford them employment and amusement in their spare hours; and
among themselves they have a horticultural society and an annual
competition. Though many houses have been sold in this way, a
considerable part of the village is still the property of our company,
and those that have been built by other parties are in accordance with
a plan of streets laid down; and I should say are about equal to the
others in comfort and conveniences, it being the interest of the
person investing his money to get the best return he can for it; and
that he may get his house let and a fair rent for it, he must build as
good a house as the tenant can get for the same rent from another. The
houses are substantially built of stone and lime, and slated, and are
generally of two stories, containing four families, occupying two
rooms each. They have generally small plots of garden-ground behind,
in which are dungsteads and necessaries, with a space between them and
the houses. The village is well supplied with water by spring-wells
and pumps in various parts of it; and some of the streets have water
conveyed to them in pipes from the aqueduct to the water-wheels that
give motion to the works. I cannot, however, very well give any
distinct plan or drawing of the dwellings of the workpeople, our
houses being a good deal mixed with those belonging to others.
“The population of the village, per census taken 30th December last,
is 2699, and the number of families 566, so that the proportion of
individuals to each family is 4‑435/566, and the number employed in
the works is 936. The proprietors of houses appoint annually a
committee of their number to attend to the repairs of the streets, and
the keeping of them clean; and they have a man constantly in their
employment for this purpose, the expense being defrayed by the feuers
assessing themselves according to the rental of their properties.”
These mills were pointed out to our attention during the Factory
Inquiry, by Mr. Stuart, the commissioner, who observed that the
workpeople, “more especially the females, are not only apparently in the
possession of good health, but many of them (quite as large a proportion
as we have seen in any of the extensive well-regulated similar
establishments in country districts) are blooming—as unlike as possible
to the pale, languid-looking females too frequently to be found in
similar works in great cities.”
_Mr. Hill_, the prison inspector for Scotland, stated that the
procurator fiscal, or public prosecutor, reported to him that he had
nothing to do in that village; and in his Third Report he thus mentions
it:—
“There is little crime here, and very few offences of any kind, and it
is reported that there is not a single person in the village who is of
a bad character. Indeed no person of bad character, or who is in the
habit of drunkenness, is allowed to remain in the mills, on which
nearly the whole population of the village is directly or indirectly
dependent. The few offences which are committed are almost all by
vagrants. The inhabitants of Catrine appear to be in the enjoyment of
an unusual amount of comfort; they are well clad, live in neat houses,
many of them their own property, and look healthy and cheerful; indeed
the only person in the village who has reason to be downcast is the
medical man, who complains that he has nothing to do.”
Similar effects are manifested in the mills at New Lanark, at the
flax-mills near Cupar. These instances would suffice to establish the
fact of the very little sickness that is _essential_ to the occupation
itself. _Mr. Hill_ who, by his office, is led to appreciate highly
instances of exemption from crime and disorder, exclaims, upon the sight
of such establishments,—“Notwithstanding what has been said on the
subject of factories, I have no hesitation in declaring that I believe
that the workpeople at Catrine, New Lanark, and other similar
establishments, form some of the healthiest, happiest, and most moral
communities in the world.”
From other examples it appears to be by no means essential to such
improvements that the labourers should become proprietors of their
occupations. _Mr. Buchanan, jun._, expresses his concurrence in the
general conclusions to which I have arrived of the advantages derived by
the labourer from his connexion with his place of work, and says,—
“I perfectly agree that a labouring man will generally be found in a
state of greater comfort, holding a tenement from his employer, than
when left to provide a dwelling of whatever kind he chooses for
himself. In our case the proprietors, in the first place, furnished
the house, in which the workmen formed habits of cleanliness and
comfort, and when by care and economy he had saved as much as enabled
him to purchase it, he was advanced a step higher by becoming himself
the proprietor, continuing to occupy part of the house himself, and
letting the other parts to his fellow-workmen.
“I believe that our people enjoy as good health, and have as many
comforts as any of the same class either in the same or any other
employment, as their appearance will testify; and the generally
different appearance of the manufacturing population in towns is to be
attributed to the habits of the people themselves, and the way in
which they are crowded together, and not to anything in the nature of
the employment.”[40]
The following account which I have received in answer to inquiries from
_Mr. Henry Ashworth_, of Turton, near Bolton, with relation to the
manufacturing population of that place, is so far characteristic of the
progress of a population of more extensive districts, and of the means
of their improvement, that I submit it at full length:—
“On the early introduction of the cotton manufacture, the parties who
entered into it were men of limited capital, and anxious to invest the
whole of it in mills and machinery, and therefore too much absorbed
with the doubtful success of their own affairs to look after the
necessities of their workpeople.
“Families were attracted from all parts for the benefit of employment,
and obliged, as a temporary resort, to crowd together into such
dwellings as the neighbourhood afforded: often two families into one
house; others into cellars or very small dwellings: eventually, as the
works became established, either the proprietor or some neighbour
would probably see it advantageous to build a few cottages; these were
often of the worst description; in such case the prevailing
consideration was not how to promote the health and comfort of the
occupants, but how many cottages could be built upon the smallest
space of ground and at the least possible cost. We find many built
back to back, a most objectionable form, as precluding the possibility
of any outlet behind.
“People brought together as these were for a living, had no
alternative but to occupy such dwellings. Whatever the weekly income,
the wife could never make such a house comfortable; she had only one
room in which to do all her work; it may be readily supposed the
husband would not always find the comfort he wished in such a home.
The public-house would then be his only resort. But here the evil does
not end; the children brought up in such dwellings knew no better
accommodation than such afforded, nor had they any opportunities of
seeing better domestic management. Few of the parents in these parts
have ever lived as domestic servants, so that it becomes no matter of
surprise that the major part should have so little knowledge of
improving their social condition even when the pecuniary means are
within their reach. It must be allowed that the introduction of
manufactures is not justly chargeable with producing the whole of this
evil. About this time the old Poor Law was exercising a very
pernicious influence upon the labouring classes, by means of inducing
both the landowners and farmers to discourage cottage property for
fear the inmates should gain parish settlements.
“Cottages were forbidden to be built; some pulled down when empty, and
others fell to decay for want of repair; poor people were banished as
much as possible from the agricultural districts on account of the
burden of parish settlements; even in this county I saw the ruins of
two cottages, which I was informed were the two last cottages in the
parish.
“Under such depressing causes it is not to be wondered at that we
frequently received families into our employ who did not know how to
conduct (with propriety) a decent cottage in such a manner as to
conduce either to the health or comfort of the inmates.
“About twelve years ago we had occasion to introduce a considerable
number of families into some new houses; in the course of a few months
a most malignant fever broke out amongst them, and went from house to
house, till we became seriously alarmed for the safety of the whole
establishment. We instituted an inquiry into the state of the houses
where the fever first appeared, and found that from the low habits of
the occupants, and the ignorance of the proper decencies of life, the
cottages were in so filthy a state that it was apparent we should not
long be free from a recurrence of the same evil unless we took some
active means to effect a change in the habits of these people.
“Although we felt very unwilling to do anything which appeared to
interfere with the domestic management of our workpeople, still the
urgency of the case at the time seemed to warrant such a step. We
therefore ordered an examination of every cottage in our possession,
both as regarded cleanliness and ventilation, as well as bedding and
furniture.
“The striking difference exhibited in the state of these cottages, the
neatness and cleanness of some, the gross neglect of others, appearing
to have no relation to the amount of income, convinced us that an
occasional repetition of these visits would be essential in order to
effect any permanent improvement amongst them.
“These periodical visits have now been continued through a series of
years; and as no invidious distinction or selection was ever made, do
not appear to have been viewed in the light of an intrusion; a week or
two of notice being mostly given, a laudable degree of emulation has
been excited as to whose house bedding and furniture should be found
in the best order; my brother or myself have occasionally joined in
these visits. By these means we were made acquainted with the wants
and necessities of the various families in our employ. Having had such
opportunity of observing the great inconvenience arising from small
dwellings where the families were large, both as regards bed-rooms and
living-rooms, few cottages having more than two bed-rooms; and where
there were children or young persons of both sexes, the indelicacy of
this arrangement was apparent; we therefore concluded to build larger
cottages, and make them with three bed-rooms in each. These houses
were sought after with the greatest avidity, and families allowed to
remove to them as an especial favour; the increase rent of 1_s._ to
1_s._ 6_d._ per week was a small consideration in regard to the
additional comfort afforded to a family where the income was from
24_s._ to 50_s._ or 60_s._ per week, as is frequently the case with
families employed in manufactories.”
But I am enabled to adduce evidence showing that by structural
improvements of the places of work as well as of abode which present the
bounty on and security for future adoption, constituted by experience of
pecuniary saving, the health of the manufacturing workpeople, now
amongst the lowest, may be advanced to the average of health enjoyed by
any other class.
On my return from Glasgow, I proceeded to visit and examine the cotton
manufactory and machine-making works erected and carried on under the
directions of Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, near Stirling, the inventor
of the subsoil plough, to whose valuable opinion on the subject of
drainage I have already made reference.
The principle of the improvement of places of work, which constituted
the chief object of attention at Deanston, was the erection of
manufactories in one large flat or ground floor, instead of story piled
upon story as in the old mode.
Mr. Smith had constructed a new department of the cottonmill in one room
or flat, which covered about half an acre of ground. The roof was
composed of groined arches in divisional squares of 33 feet 6 inches,
supported on cast-iron columns, which were hollow, and through which the
drainage of the roof was effected. In order to render the roof of the
building water-tight, the outer superficies of the arches were covered
with a coat of common plaster, over which, when dried, was laid a
coating of coal-tar, boiled to a pitchy consistence, and mixed with
sand, laid on to a thickness of three-quarters of an inch. Over this was
laid a surface of from 12 to 16 inches of garden-soil, which prevents
the injurious effects on the pitch of the frost in winter, and the sun
in summer.
The height of this large room was 12 feet from the floor to the spring
of the arches, and six feet rise, giving a height to the room in which
the operatives were engaged of 18 feet. The height of the ordinary rooms
in which the workpeople in manufactories are engaged is not more than
from 9 to 11 feet. This restricted space arises from various points of
economy (now considered to be mistaken) in the old modes of constructing
manufactories, which were first erected in towns where land was dear,
and in times when the immediate economy of capital was of more pressing
importance. The adverse consequences to the operatives are the
restriction of space for air; that the heat and effluvia of the lower
rooms are communicated to the rooms above; and that the difficulty of
ventilating them is exceedingly great, especially in the wide rooms,
where it is found to be practically extremely difficult to get a current
of fresh air to pass through the centre. The like difficulties have been
heretofore experienced in respect to the ventilation of large ships.
There is also in the mills of the old construction the additional
fatigue of ascending and descending to the higher rooms, and carrying
material. To avoid this, in some instances, machinery is resorted to.
The ventilation through the side windows of large rooms is generally
found to be imperfect and inconvenient in many of the processes, and
annoying to the workpeople from the influx of the air in strong
currents. The arrangements for ventilation through the roof of this room
appeared to be highly advantageous. The light was brought in from above,
through openings eight feet in diameter at the top of each groin,
surmounted by domes or cones of glass, at the apex of which there were
openings of about 16 inches in diameter, with covers that could be
opened or shut at pleasure, to admit of ventilation. The better
distribution of the light for the work from these openings was one
advantage they appeared to possess over the ordinary mode of getting
light from side windows.
The chief arrangements from below for ventilation were made by tunnels
10 feet distance from each other, carried across and underneath the
floor of the building, and terminating in the open air on either side.
The covers of these tunnels were perforated with holes of about an inch
in diameter and 12 inches apart, disposed through the floor so as to
occasion a wide and uniform distribution of fresh air throughout the
whole building, on the same principle as that adopted for the admission
of fresh air through the floor of the House of Commons. In winter time
the fresh air admitted was warmed on the same principle, by pipes of hot
water, to prevent the inconvenience of the admission of currents of cold
air. The whole building was, from its size and arrangements, kept at a
steady temperature, and appeared to be less susceptible than other
buildings to atmospheric influence. The shaftings for the conveyance of
the power were carried through the tunnels, and straps or belts from the
shafts rise through the cover of the tunnels, and, by their motion, aid
in promoting the circulation of the air. The possibility of fatal
accidents from the persons being caught by the straps and wound round
the shafts, was by this arrangement entirely prevented. The tunnelling
under this arrangement constituted a boxing off of the whole of the
shafting. Another advantage from the removal of the driving-straps from
above was that the view over the whole room was entirely unimpeded.
Another structural improvement was in the use of a thin flooring of wood
over the solid base of stone floors. The floor so arranged affords the
solidity of the stone floor, and inconsiderable danger of combustion,
whilst the advantages of the wooden surface to the workers were a
diminution of swelled ancles and rheumatic affections of the joints,
often produced by working bare-footed on stone floors.
There were no entries made from which I could obtain for comparison an
account of the amount of sickness experienced by the workpeople in this
new room, but it was obvious that the improvement must be considerable,
and it was attested by the rosy and fresh countenances of the females
and of the workpeople generally. A considerable improvement was manifest
in the health of those workpeople who had previously worked in the older
and less spacious rooms.
The improvement of the place of work was combined with improvements in
the residences of the workpeople. About one-half of the hands employed
in the mills resided in houses near the works, which were well drained;
the ashes and other refuse was cleared away from the village every
morning between six and seven o’clock, and carried to a general
dungstead at a distance, for use on their gardens. On inquiry as to the
state of the health of the workpeople living in these improved
tenements, it appeared that they had not one-half the amount of sickness
experienced by the rest of the workpeople who lived in the common
ill-regulated houses about a mile distance. The whole population had
fewer diseases than any other class of the population in the surrounding
country; they presented fewer cases of rheumatism, and there were
scarcely any lung diseases amongst them: their general health was
decidedly better than that of the adjacent agricultural population.
The chief advantages of the improved arrangements of the places of work
were, on the side of the workpeople, improved health; security for
females and for the young against the dangers of fatal accidents, and
less fatigue in the execution of the same amount of work. But beyond
these the arrangement of the work in one room had moral advantages of
high value. The bad manners and immoralities complained of as attendant
on assemblages of workpeople of both sexes in manufactories, generally
occur, as may be expected, in small rooms and places where few are
employed, and that are secluded from superior inspection and from common
observation. But whilst employed in this one large room, the young are
under the inspection of the old; the children are in many instances
under the inspection of parents, and all under the observation of the
whole body of workers, and under the inspection of the employer. It was
observed that the moral condition of the females in this room stood
comparatively high. It would scarcely be practicable to discriminate the
moral effects arising from one cause where several are in operation; but
it was stated by ministers that there were fewer cases of illegitimacy
and less vice observable among the population engaged in this
manufactory than amongst the surrounding population of the labouring
class. The comparative circumstances of that population were such as,
when examined, would establish the conclusion that it must be so.
The first expense of such a building is higher than a manufactory of the
old construction; but it appeared to possess countervailing economical
advantages to the capitalist, the chief of which are,—this same facility
of constant general supervision, the increase of the certainty of
superintendence, and the reduction of the numbers of subordinate
managers, the increase of efficiency of management, and a diminution of
its expense. Another advantage arose to the manufacturer in the superior
action of the machinery. In mills of the ordinary construction the
machinery is frequently deranged in its structure, and put out of order
by the yielding and unsteadiness of the upper floors. The machinery
erected on the ground floor has a firm basis, and a steady and more
durable action. The other advantages presented were, the saving of
labour in transporting the material from one process to another, a
labour which is often considerable in expense, as well as in
inconvenience, in lifting it into the higher rooms; the reduction of the
hazard of fire, and consequently in expense of insurance against it, as
fire could scarcely take place, and certainly could not rapidly extend
in a manufactory so constructed. These several sources of economy Mr.
Smith calculated would more than compensate for any increase of
ground-rent, even if the building were erected on land costing 1000_l._
per acre. Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, on consulting with Mr. Smith, has
constructed a new manufactory (on the principle of that in Deanston) in
Leeds, where ground is valuable. This manufactory covers more than two
acres of ground, and is reported to be eminently successful. Power looms
are frequently arranged in buildings of one story, and I was informed of
another manufactory in Lancashire, nearly as large as that of Messrs.
Marshalls, built on one floor, but it did not appear to possess the
arrangements for ventilation and warming, and the other arrangements
necessary to the complete action of a place of work on the plan of that
at Deanston.
Mr. Smith considered that the principle of arrangement for superior
inspection and management of a manufactory was equally applicable to
agricultural operations, and that it would be proportionately
advantageous in the superior ventilation and equality of temperature for
cattle, in the avoidance of labour and wet and cold, in removing from
one small separate building to another, and in the transport of produce,
to have all under one large roof, where the whole direction and
inspection of the homestead farming operations are brought under one
view.
Of the manufacturing advantages of such arrangements I have had strong
testimony: of the advantages of such arrangements to the health and
moral and social condition of the workpeople, I could not entertain the
slightest doubt. I feel confident that the more closely it is examined,
the more clearly will the coincidence which I have endeavoured to trace,
of pecuniary interest with the health and the highest physical and moral
improvement of the lowest of the labouring classes, be established. Mr.
Smith avowed his confidence in this coincidence from his own experience
and observation as a practical principle. The improved health of the
workpeople was attended by more energy and better labour; by less of
lassitude and waste from relaxed attention; by fewer interruptions from
sickness, and fewer spare hands to ensure the completion of work. Under
the persuasion of the coincidence of interest, he had endeavoured to
direct the structural alterations to the promotion of the health of the
workpeople; he believed they might be advantageously carried further,
and had it in contemplation to make arrangements to promote habitual
bathing amongst them. He had, moreover, retained the services of a
medical gentleman to inspect the workpeople from time to time, and give
them timely advice, and, as far as possible, to prevent disease. He
agreed, and had long considered, that it was in the power of the masters
of Britain “entirely to extirpate excessive and habitual drinking. We
never,” said he, “permit a man to come near the works who is in the
slightest degree intoxicated, and never permit any one to be absent one
day drinking. You never can be well or cheaply served by a dissipated
workman. The most skilful workman, the man whose services I can the
least spare, must, if he takes to drinking, leave the place. It may
occasion immediate inconvenience and even immediate loss, but if the
rule be steadily applied, it will contribute to the comfort and the
profit of the master as well as of the man.”
The importance of such beneficent influence on the health, the moral
condition and respectability of the labouring classes, is so little
understood, that I beg leave to submit further illustrations of the
value of—
_The Employers’ Influence on the Sobriety and Health of Workpeople by
modes of Payment which do not lead to Temptations to Intemperance._
The power possessed by extensive employers of labour to influence
beneficially their labourers, is not however confined to those who stand
in the combined relation of employer and landlord. In the course of
another inquiry as to the means of preventing crime, it appeared that a
large class of crimes and disorders arose from drunkenness. On carrying
the inquiry back into the causes out of which the drunkenness arose,
they appeared to be extensively removable, and that by the employers of
labour. The important influences that belong to this position will be
displayed in the effects of alterations in detail in one point of
management, namely, the mode of paying wages. The direct sanitary
effects may be best displayed in the following evidence of _Mr. Lomax_,
an army pensioner, which has been corroborated by superior officers:—
“When I was in the Life Guards, 14 or 16 years ago, there was a good
deal of ill health prevalent amongst them. Before that time the men
received part of their pay weekly, namely, 7_s._ at the end of the
week. With this 7_s._ they had to provide the food which they
required, except their dinner. The ration for dinner was
three-quarters of a pound of uncooked meat, a pound of potatoes or
vegetables, and a pound of bread. It was found, however, that many of
the men spent the whole of the 7_s._ in a single day in drink or
dissipation. During the remainder of the week the men would be on what
was called the _crib-bite_, that is, living only on their dinner
rations. I knew many of the men who drooped under this system, partly
from the excess of drinking or dissipation, and partly from the
privation of the necessaries of life and the work they had to undergo.
This, again, led them to much temptation. If anything was lost it was
amongst this class of men that we looked for it. The crime-book would
speak as to the further bad consequences of these habits.
“The plan was then tried of paying the men 1_s._ each day. Over and
above that the men were provided with coffee. It was universally felt
that this change was highly beneficial to their health, and it stopped
the dissipation, and the consequences of the dissipation.”
The incapacity to apportion their means for temperate consumption (which
is not however confined to the working classes) is extensively shown in
the mismanagement of the means for procuring food. It is a subject of
complaint which frequently appears in the reports, that the ignorance of
domestic economy leads to ill health, by the purchase of unsuitable, and
at the same time, expensive food. We have been frequently besought to
obtain and promulgate, for popular information, instructions in frugal
cookery, and the management of supplies. It is observed by _Mr.
Brebner_, the governor of the Glasgow bridewell, where the cost of
maintaining the prisoners in health and increased strength is on average
only 2¾_d._ per diem, that
“The regularity of diet in the prisons here is of vast importance,
both as to the quantity and the time of serving it up. If the same
persons were to get the same amount of food for a whole week, or for a
less time, at their own discretion, they would suffer from surfeit at
one time, and from long fasting at another. Irregularity of diet is
one of the most fruitful sources of disease that occur in civilized
life.”
In further illustration of the beneficial influence which employers may
often exercise to assail such vices by regulations in detail, I cite the
following instances from a communication I have received from _Mr. Edwin
Hill_, the inspector of stamping machinery for the Government:—
“During a period of nine years (from 1818 to 1827) I was engaged in
the superintendence of one of the largest works in the town of
Birmingham, consisting of two distinct mills, one employed in rolling
copper for the use of braziers and shipwrights, and the other in
rolling silver, brass, and other metals. In each mill there was a set
of skilled workmen, who undertook the work at fixed prices, and who
themselves employed numerous assistants at weekly wages.
“Owing to difficulties in the way of making up the accounts at short
intervals, it was the custom for the master to advance weekly to each
workman in the silver mill a fixed sum of money (besides advancing a
sum to pay the assistants with). The accounts were made up annually,
and the balances due to the several workmen then paid. The payments,
both weekly and annually, were almost always made not to the men but
to their wives. The earnings of the men were considerable, varying
from 80_l._ to 180_l._ a-year. The men were, almost without exception,
highly respectable in their stations, their families were well
provided for, their homes cleanly and not without pretensions to some
degree of elegance, and their children sent to school at the sole
expense of the parents. Some of them had made considerable
accumulations of money, and even become proprietors of houses and
land. The workmen employed in the copper mill, on the contrary, had
been accustomed to receive the full amount of their earnings at the
end of each week, and, after paying their assistants, to divide the
surplus. These men were much addicted to drinking and feasting at the
alehouse; and, although their earnings were nearly as great as those
of the other men, their families were in wretchedness, and their wives
obliged to eke out a slender pittance by washing and other laborious
occupations. There were also several men employed as millwrights and
engineers, at regular and good weekly wages. These men were, almost
without exception, steady and respectable, and their families well
provided for. About the year 1822 the inconvenience and annoyance, and
loss, which arose from the unsteady habits of the second set of men,
led me to inquire into the causes of their inferiority to the others,
and I was soon led to attribute much of the evil to the great
irregularity in the amount of their weekly incomes, which varied from
about 10_s._ to 4_l._ 4_s._ per man.
“The effects were as follows:—The men were reckless, trusting to their
luck to get ‘good work,’ _i. e._, that which bears a high price in
proportion to the required labour. They were enabled to deceive their
wives as to the amount of money obtained. They learned the minimum
with which their wives could contrive to keep house, and, having
learned it, they endeavoured to retain all above this minimum for
their own gratifications. Their wives, under the pressure of
necessity, picked their pockets, opened their drawers, &c., in search
of money believed to be hidden. Their wives actually desired that
their husbands might get drunk on Saturday night, because they could
the more easily abstract the money from their persons.
“Upon the termination of my inquiries I induced the men, with little
difficulty, to receive their money in the way the other men did, viz.,
by regular weekly advances, rather under their average earnings, with
a quarterly or annual settlement; and I took care that the wives
should know exactly what their husbands would receive; and from the
day the plan commenced, a most decided and permanent improvement took
place in the habits of the men, and in the appearance and general
comforts of their families. One of the men commenced saving money
immediately. This man’s savings, as I have lately been informed, now
in January, 1841, considerably exceed 1000_l._; whereas, during the
five or six years which he passed in the same occupation before the
change of plan, he made no saving whatever.”
Another valuable example of the easy means possessed by employers of
preventing the formation of habits destructive to the health and
prosperity of workmen, is set forth in the evidence of Mr. Peter
Fairbairn, the extensive mechanist of Leeds.
_Mr. Fairbairn_ examined.
“You are a mechanist at Leeds?—I am.
“What number of men do you employ?—Between 500 and 600.
“Have you ever observed any effects produced in the habits of the
labouring classes in respect to drinking intoxicating liquors by the
mode in which they are paid their wages?—Yes, there are two modes in
which wages are most frequently paid, and both these modes are
prejudicial in their effects. The first effect is connected with the
place of payment. Some masters pay at the public-house, others pay the
men at the counting-house after the work is completed. The effects
produced by payment at the public-house are to oblige the workman to
drink. He is kept waiting in the public-house during a long time,
varying from two to three hours, sometimes as much as five hours. The
workman cannot remain in the house without drinking, even if he were
alone, as he must make some return to the landlord for the use of the
room. But the payment of a number of men occupies time in proportion
to their numbers. We find that to pay our own men in the most rapid
way requires from two to three hours. The assembled workmen, of
course, stimulate each other to drink. Out of 100 men, all of whom
will, probably, have taken their quart of porter or ale, above a third
will go home in a state of drunkenness—of drunkenness to the extent of
imbecility. The evil is not confined to the men; the destructive habit
is propagated in their families. At each public-house a proportion of
the poor women, their wives, attend. According to my own observation,
full 10 per cent. of the men have their wives and children in
attendance at the public-house. The poor women have no other mode of
getting money to market with on the Saturday night than attending at
the public-house to get it from their husbands. They may have children
whom they cannot leave at home, and these they bring with them. The
wives are thus led to drink, and they and their children are made
partakers at the scenes of drunkenness and riot; for there are not
unfrequently quarrels leading to fights between the workmen when
intoxicated.
“Do not these late hours, consequent on such a mode of payment, also
lead them to the inferior markets, and prejudice the domestic economy
of the labourer’s household?—Yes, they have the less money to purchase
with, and must purchase an inferior quality of provisions. I have
observed that they do so. They are driven to the inferior shopkeepers
who keep open late; and they are also driven to make purchases on the
Sunday morning. It is only the inferior shopkeepers or hucksters who
will sell on the Sunday morning, and they sell an inferior commodity
at a higher price. Then the Sunday morning is thus occupied; the
husband, and sometimes the wife, is kept in a state of feverish
excitement by the previous night’s debauch: they are kept in a state
of filth and disorder; even the face is unwashed; no clean clothes are
put on, and there is no church attendance, and no decency. Indeed, by
the pressure of the wants created by habits of drinking, there is soon
no means to purchase clean or respectable clothes, and lastly, no
desire to purchase them. The man, instead of cleaning himself, and
appearing at church on the Sunday, or walking out with his family on
the Sunday afternoon in a respectable condition, remains at home in
filth, and in a filthy hovel. Of course there are no contributions to
sick-clubs under such circumstances; and if the workman has been
previously led to join a club, he is almost always in arrear with his
contributions, and is ultimately expelled. On the occurrence of the
disease to which such habits predispose him, there is nothing but the
most abject and complete destitution and pauperism. I have served the
office of churchwarden and overseer in Leeds three years, and, having
attended the weekly Board where applications for relief are made, I
have seen the end of this train of circumstances in the applications
for relief from parties who had previously been in the receipt of good
and sufficient wages (and even high wages) to have prevented such
applications. I have observed the whole train of these consequences in
several large works in London as well as in this town.
“Are there not consequences too to the employers themselves, as well
as to the ratepayers, in connexion with the habits of labourers thus
created?—One consequence of these habits is the loss of time at the
commencement of the week, and the comparative inefficiency of the
workmen when they do come. The workman who has been absent from
drunkenness comes to his work pale, emaciated, shattered, and
unnerved. From my own observation in my own branch of manufacture, I
should say that the quantity and quality of the work executed during
the first day or so would be about one-fifth less than that obtainable
from a steady and attentive workman.
“This deterioration, then, in a large number of workmen engaged in a
manufactory, may be noted as an important item of saving for the
consideration of a provident manufacturer?—Undoubtedly. Another
consideration for the master is the fact that such workmen, the most
idle and dissolute, are the most discontented, and are always the
foremost in mischievous strikes and combinations.
“You have spoken of the consequences of making the public-house a
place of payment; what are the comparative effects of making the
payments at the counting-house?—A considerable reduction of the evil.
Payments to large numbers at the counting-house is still, however,
attended with much inconvenience and evil. The payment of the number
of men employed at our works (between five and six hundred) would, as
I have stated, occupy between two and three hours. This mode of
payment, therefore, implies the keeping of a large crowd together
during that time. During that time appointments are made of meetings
at public-houses to drink that would not otherwise take place. It also
generates discontent: it gives an opportunity, by assembling a crowd,
for any discontented or mischievous person to operate upon a large
mass of people. Formerly the business of my manufactory, and the
welfare of the working people, were very seriously interrupted by
strikes; and I could not help observing the facilities which such
meetings gave to such mischievous persons.
“What is the mode of payment which you have adopted?—I send the pay
clerk into each room in the manufactory immediately after the dinner
hour, and he pays each man individually. Each man is scarcely taken
from his work half a minute. I may observe, that some masters, to save
themselves trouble, so as to avoid the inconvenience of getting small
change, will pay several men together. This again leads to the
public-house, where the men commonly go to get change to divide the
money amongst them; I therefore avoid paying any two men together, and
subjecting them to temptation as well as inconvenience and cost. Each
of my workmen being paid in the shop, without the loss of a minute,
may go at once directly home at the time when the work closes. He is
thus afforded an opportunity of going at once to the market at an
early hour, and is subjected to no factitious inducements to drink,
disorder, improvidence, and destitution.
“What is the average time thus saved to each of the 550 workmen in
your manufactory, as compared with the more ordinary mode of
payment?—About an hour and a half, or half the three hours of payment.
“Then, by this means, instead of bringing 550 persons to the one
person, the pay clerk, sending that one person to the 550 persons, you
save to them upwards of 800 hours of inconvenient waiting?—Just so.
“How many persons, on the average, have you absent from work on the
Monday morning?—Not more than from four to five, until eight o’clock
in the morning; and on the return to work after dinner from one to two
persons.
“That is from one to two persons the entire day during the Monday, out
of between five and six hundred workpeople?—Yes.
“What number would have been absent on the Monday under the ordinary
circumstances?—About 30 per cent., or one-third, would be drunk on the
Saturday night; and full 10 per cent. would not make their appearance
until the Tuesday morning. Instead of only two absent during the whole
of the day, I should have more than 50; or, in other words, more than
50 families not only distressed by what is spent in drink, but losing
one-sixth of their earnings, and I as a master losing from their
deteriorated work on the days when they do return. I beg leave further
to observe, that mere education in reading or writing, precepts or
preaching, are of very little avail against the temptations to drink
held out to working men; and I am confident that if employers could be
made to see and attend to their mutual interests, by a little care in
the removal of temptations, they might generally prevent the most
fruitful cause of disorder, destitution, and pauperism, at least as
extensively as I have prevented those consequences to my workmen and
their families by the adoption of the means I have described.”
In the course of a report on the sanitary condition of the labouring
classes in the town of Lancaster, received from _Dr. De Vitrie_, the
effects of an amended practice are thus noticed:—
“An excellent example is shown in this neighbourhood by the wealthy
manufacturers and tradesmen almost universally paying their men’s
weekly wages on a Friday evening (or, what is still better, early on
Saturday morning) instead of Saturday, thus putting it into the power
of all to spend their money to the best advantage at Saturday’s
market, and obviating the great temptation which formerly existed of
spending their earnings, or a large proportion of them, in the
public-houses and beer-shops after the termination of the week’s
labour. It may be said that such parties are as likely to dissipate on
a Friday as on a Saturday evening. The propensity I grant may be the
same, but there is no intervening day of rest to shake off the effects
of intemperance and indulgence, and as workmen must resume their
labours on the Saturday, hence it is that such a regulation exercises
not only a salutary but a provident influence.”
The _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_ observes—
“Where gain was dependant on the growth of better habits, I have seen,
with the agency of judicious individuals, encouraging cases of
complete reformation: an intelligent engineer in this neighbourhood
was about paying off a man whose profligacy had left him without a
decent covering, and who often depended for his victuals upon the
generosity of his fellow-workmen. He begged hard to be retained, and
his master at last consented, on condition that he himself should lay
out his wages for the next three months. He provided the man with good
lodgings, allowed him tea, sugar, and bread and butter night and
morning; meat, and either bread or potatoes, with a pint of beer every
day for his dinner; and before the appointed time was up, bought him
with the surplus a new suit of clothes. The man was so sensible of the
advantage of the change, that he became one of the most thrifty and
valuable workmen; and his master has often since tried the same
experiment with the same success. If we could collect all the
philanthropy and much of the self-interest of the country into wise
and profitable channels, we might, I believe in a twelvemonth, do much
towards regenerating the most wretched classes.”
One employer of numerous labourers in a well-conducted establishment
stated to me that after long experience he found it necessary, for the
protection of the workpeople, as well as the efficiency of the
establishment, invariably to discharge every workman who was guilty of
drunkenness; and that the first visible sign to excite suspicion of the
habits of intoxication was the absence of personal cleanliness, then a
pallid countenance, on which inquiry was made. Another employer of
numerous labourers, _Mr. William Fairbairn_, of Manchester (the brother
of Mr. Fairbairn, of Leeds), who has had between one and two thousand
workpeople engaged in the manufactories of machinery in the firm of
which he is the first partner, stated, in answer to the question,—
“What are their habits in respect to sobriety?—I may mention that I
strictly prohibit on my works the use of beer or fermented liquors of
any sort, or of tobacco. I enforce the prohibition of fermented
liquors so strongly that, if I found any man transgressing the rule in
that respect, I would instantly discharge him without allowing him
time to put on his coat.
“Have you any peculiar grounds for adopting this course?—No; but as
respects myself I wish to have an orderly set of workmen; and in the
next place I am decidedly of opinion that it is better for the men
themselves and for their families.
“Are you aware that it is a prevalent opinion that strong drink is
necessary as a stimulus for the performance of labour?—I am aware that
that was a prevalent opinion amongst employers of labour, but it is
now very generally abandoned; there are nevertheless some foundries in
which there is drinking throughout the works all day long. It is
observable, however, of the men employed as workmen, that they do not
work so well; their perceptions are clouded, and they are stupified
and heavy. I have provided water for the use of the men in every
department of the works. In summer time the men engaged in the
strongest work, such as the strikers to the heavy forges, drink water
very copiously. In general the men who drink water are really more
active, and do more work, and are more healthy than the workmen who
drink fermented liquors. I observed on a late journey to
Constantinople that the boatmen or rowers to the caiques, who are
perhaps the first rowers in the world, drink nothing but water; and
they drink that profusely during the hot months of the summer. The
boatmen and water-carriers of Constantinople are decidedly in my
opinion the finest men in Europe as regards their physical
development, and they are all water drinkers: they may take a little
sherbet, but in other respects are what we should call in this
country, tee-totallers.
“What is their diet?—Chiefly bread; now and then a cucumber, with
cherries, figs, dates, mulberries, or other fruits which are abundant
there; now and then a little fish.
“Do they ever use animal food?—Occasionally I believe the flesh of
goats, but I never saw them eating any other than the diet I have
described.
“Did they appear to eat more than the European workmen?—About the
same; if anything, more moderate as respects the quantity.”
I have collected much other information to the same effect. In the
Appendix, I have given, as a contrast, an instance of arrangements which
tend to promote the habit of drinking, and the consequences, a part of
which are met and dealt with by the administrators of relief from the
poor’s rates, in the shape of claims to relief on the ground of sickness
and consequent destitution; and another part of which fall as disorders
and crimes to be encountered by the police.
I submit here one important instance of the exercise of a wise influence
on the habits of the agricultural population:—
In a form of lease used in leasing the Highland property of the Duke of
Sutherland, which appears to be ably devised to ensure progressive
improvement, care for the moral welfare of the population is not
omitted. The poverty, disorder, and crime engendered by the destructive
habit of whisky drinking, fostered by the practice of illicit
distillation, is encountered by a clause which provides that if the
tenant “distill whiskey, or shall permit any one to distill whisky, or
shall sell or permit the same to be sold on the said premises hereby
set, or on any part of the said estate, or shall contravene any of the
regulations the said proprietors have established for the management
thereof, and that if he or they shall be convicted of any of the said
offences before the sheriff, depute, or substitute, or any two of his
Majesty’s justices of the peace for the said county; then, in either of
these events or cases, this agreement shall be, _ipso facto_, void and
null, and the said tenant shall be forthwith removable by summary
process before the judge ordinary, whereupon decree shall be pronounced
upon relevant proof of the fact.”
The lease ensures the improvement of the tenements, and provides that
“no earthen houses or huts are permitted to be built on any
consideration.” The one provision is the proper complement of the other;
and Mr. Hill gives his testimony to the excellent effect which the
support given to the law, and the prevention of whisky drinking, produce
on the habits of the population.
_Employers’ Influence on the Health of Workpeople by the Promotion of
Personal Cleanliness._
I proceed to another instance of the power of the employers to protect
the health, as well as the morals of their workpeople, by influencing
their habits of personal cleanliness.
But I shall first submit a few instances of the extent and prevalence of
personal uncleanliness amongst whole classes of workpeople.
_Mr. John Kennedy_, in the course of the examinations of some colliers
in Lancashire, asked one of them—
“How often do the drawers (those employed in drawing coals) wash their
bodies?—None of the drawers ever wash their bodies. I never wash my
body; I let my shirt rub the dirt off; my shirt will show that. I wash
my neck and ears, and face, of course.
“Do you think it usual for the young women (engaged in the colliery)
to do the same as you do?—I do not think it is usual for the lasses to
wash their bodies; my sisters never wash themselves, and seeing is
believing; they wash their faces, necks, and ears.
“When a collier is in full dress, he has white stockings, and very
tall shirt necks, very stiffly starched, and ruffles?—That is very
sure, sir; but they never wash their bodies underneath; I know that;
and their legs and bodies are as black as your hat.”
One labourer remembered that a particular event took place at Easter,
“because it was then he washed his feet.” The effects of these habits
are seen at the workhouse on almost every one of the paupers admitted.
When it is necessary to wash them on their admission, they usually
manifest an extreme repugnance to the process. Their common feeling was
expressed by one of them when he declared that he considered it “equal
to robbing him of a great coat which he had had for some years.” The
filthy condition in which they are found on admission into the hospitals
is frequently sufficient to account for the state of disease in which
they appear, and the act of cleansing them is itself the most efficient
cure. The out-door service of the union medical officers amidst such a
population is often most painful and disgusting: _e. g._—
_Mr. J. F. Handley_, medical officer of the Chipping Norton union,
states in his report—
“When the small pox was prevalent in this district, I attended a man,
woman, and five children, all lying ill with the confluent species of
that disorder, in one bed-room, and having only two beds amongst them.
The walls of the cottage were black, the sheets were black, and the
patients themselves were blacker still; two of the children were
absolutely sticking together. It was indeed a gloomy scene. I have
relished many a biscuit and glass of wine in Mr. Grainger’s
dissecting-room when ten dead bodies were lying on the tables under
dissection, but was entirely deprived of appetite during my attendance
upon these cases. The smell on entering the apartments was exceedingly
nauseous, and the room would not admit of free ventilation.”
Such conditions of the population, of habitual personal and domestic
filth, are not necessary to any occupation; they are not the necessary
consequence of poverty, and are the type of neglect and indolence; this
is proved by the example of men engaged in the same occupations with
improved habits. The medical officers of the Merthyr Tydvill union, in
their returns, represent the health of the colliery population to be
very good, a circumstance which is ascribed to their habitual
cleanliness.
_Mr. J. L. Roberts_, surgeon, states—
“The colliers in our district invariably, on their return from the
pits in the evening to their houses, strip to the skin, and wash
themselves perfectly clean in a tub of lukewarm water, and wipe with
towels until the cuticle is dry. The miners are not so particular. I
firmly believe that the health of other workmen employed generally
about the ironworks is not so permanently good as the colliers; they,
generally speaking, not undergoing complete ablution as the colliers
do. Generally, the colliers are quite free from any cutaneous disease,
or at least not so much affected with psora, &c., as the generality of
their fellow-workmen. Cutaneous diseases are frequent amongst children
from want of cleanliness.”
In the places of work where there is the greatest need for cleanliness,
in every place where there is a steam-engine, hot water, which is
commonly allowed to run waste, is already provided in abundance for warm
or tepid baths, not only for the workpeople, but, where there are
numerous engines, for the whole population. If the same hot water arose
at the same heat and abundance from any natural spring, baths would be
erected, and medical treatises would be written in commendation of its
medicinal virtues, which, the better opinion appears now to be, are
ascribable, in the majority of instances, simply to the hot water, and
to its application in cases where it had not before been used. Hot or
tepid baths are deemed of more importance for the labouring classes in
winter than are cold baths in summer, and they might be generally
provided for the working classes in the manufacturing districts at a
cost utterly inconsiderable.
A few years since a gentleman, observing some ditches in London, in the
neighbourhood of the City-road, smoking with clean hot water running
away from the steam-engine of a manufactory, directed attention to the
waste, and suggested the expediency of using that water to supply public
warm or tepid baths. After a time the suggestion was acted upon as a
private speculation, and large swimming-baths were constructed; one,
with superior accommodation and decorations at 1_s._; another, with less
costly fittings-up, at 6_d._ the bath. These were luxurious tepid baths,
kept at a heat of 84°. The example appears to have been followed in
Westminster by the establishment of similar tepid swimming-baths, where
only 3_d._ is charged to persons of the working-class. As many as 2000
and 3000 of this class have resorted to these baths in one day, and the
bath at the lowest charge is stated to make the best return for the
capital invested in it. Similar establishments are, we believe, in
progress in other parts of the metropolis. _Mr. Samuel Greg_, at
Bollington, has formed baths for the use of his workpeople, which he
thus describes:—
“The bathing-room is a small building, close behind the mill, about 25
feet by 15. The baths, to the number of seven, are ranged along the
walls, and a screen about six feet high, with benches on each side of
it, is fixed down the middle of the room. The cold water is supplied
from a cistern above the engine-house, and the hot water from a large
tub which receives the waste steam from the dressing-room, and is kept
constantly at boiling temperature. A pipe from each of these cisterns
opens into every bath, so that they are ready for instant use. The men
and women bathe on alternate days; and a bath-keeper for each attends
for an hour and a half in the evening. This person has the entire care
of the room, and is answerable for everything that goes on in it. When
any one wishes to bathe he comes to the counting-house for a ticket,
for which he pays a penny, and without which he cannot be admitted to
the bathing-room. Some families, however, subscribe a shilling
a-month, which entitles them to five baths weekly; and these hold a
general subscriber’s ticket, which always gives him admittance to the
room. I think the number of baths taken weekly varies from about 25 to
70 or 80. We pay the bath-keepers 2_s._ 6_d._ and 2_s._ a-week, and I
believe this amount has been more than covered by the receipts. The
first cost of erecting the baths was about 80_l._”
The feet of the female as well of the male workers in such
establishments, who work in the mills without their stockings, are seen
coated with the filth of years, for which there is no other necessity
than their own habitual indolence. These habits mere admonitions will
not always remove from the adult population. A manufacturer in London,
who did not care to take this trouble with them, began with his
apprentices, and took them several times to the new tepid baths, as a
holiday and a reward, until they had experienced the comfort, and had
formed a habit, when he left them to themselves, and they paid out of
their own pocket-money the small amount necessary to defray the
expenses. Where the use of hot or warm water has been given to the
workpeople, and baths have been provided, they have frequently been
defective in some important point. _Dr. Barham_ states that the miners,
on their ascent to the ground, have commonly only the means of using the
hot water from a rivulet on a bleak and exposed situation; in other
places, as where bath-rooms are provided, the accommodation for dressing
was defective, in being cold and chilling instead of being made warm, as
it might be at a very trifling expense. It was only at Camborne, the
mine already noticed, that anything deserving the name of proper baths
had been erected. _Dr. Barham_ observes, in a communication on this
subject—
“The security from chill during the ablution, and the abundance and
comfortable temperature of the water in the cases mentioned as
examples of superior accommodation, have no doubt contributed to a
comparative immunity from pulmonary disease and catarrhal affections,
which the managers and the men themselves have noticed since this
provision has been made.
“The cost of the practice is so inconsiderable as to be unworthy
notice. Timber and iron for such purposes are always to be found in
our mines among what is no longer fit for its original destination. No
charge of any kind is made for the use of these accommodations.
“The owners of steam-engines might always supply hot water, in
proportion to the amount of condensation effected, without any extra
cost to themselves, when they do not employ the heated water to some
purpose of their own. In some mines the warm water is husbanded for
the cleansing of the ores, but this is an exceptional case. Generally
speaking, there is a great quantity of iron cylinder and other
materials convertible to the conveyance of the water, which maybe
supplied at a very low rate, as unserviceable for engine-work.
“I have thought that steam-engines are not the only sources for the
supply of hot water to the public at an insignificant cost. All works
in which great heat is employed, or almost all such works, might
supply heat to large bodies of water after the fuel has been most
economically applied to their own purposes. Smelting-houses,
foundries, glass-houses, for instances, have always heat enough to
spare for the warming of extensive thermæ. By the use of brick pipes,
surrounded by wood or some bad conductor, such heat, first applied to
the bottom of large reservoirs, might be distributed over extensive
districts, and buildings might be warmed and workshops supplied with
warm water for the thorough purification of the labourers, at a very
trifling expense. My own opinion is, that a system of _washing_ is
more desirable as a national habit than a system of _bathing_. The
latter is doubtless excellent for bodies of men who are under
effectual control, and for the young.”
_Employers’ Influence on the Health of Workpeople by the Ventilation of
Places of Work, and the Prevention of Noxious Fumes, Dust, &c._
In some of the “dusty trades,” the excessive amount of premature
mortality is so great as to justify interference, defensively, as
against the charges which, from the neglect of sanitary measures, fall
neither upon the employer nor upon the consumer, who directly benefit by
the produce of the industry, but upon ratepayers, to whom the
manufactory itself may be a nuisance. In the instance of such trades,
personal cleanliness is so far a requisite as to justify an additional
rate of insurance where it is neglected. Yet the regulations preventive
of disease are by no means onerous, either in their cost or their
interference with the processes. Some of the noxious manufactures, and
especially those in lead, have been the subject of examination by the
“Conseil de Salubrité of Paris,” and the preventive rules they
prescribed were as follows:—1. The establishment of a good ventilation
in the workshops or manufactories. 2. Exacting from the workpeople close
attention to personal cleanliness; obliging them to wash the hands and
face before dining, and before leaving the workshop; forbidding them
taking any of their meals in the workshop, and, by reasoning and
information, directing their attention to the dangers by which they are
surrounded. 3. Employing the practicable means for conducting the
processes so as to raise the least dust possible. 4. Boarding off the
mills and sieves, so as to prevent the escape of the smaller particles.
5. Requiring of the workmen engaged in the processes where there is
lead-dust or any other injurious dust suspended in the air, that they
cover the nose and mouth with a handkerchief slightly moistened. 6.
Subjecting the workshop to occasional medical inspection, in order to
prevent the intensity of any maladies that break out, and with that view
to examine the workmen from time to time to detect any symptoms of
disease, and to oblige the workman attacked to abstain from work until
the medical officer declares that he may resume it without
inconvenience. 7. Obliging workmen to wear frocks or blouses, which they
should leave in the workshop when they quit work; and these blouses
should from time to time be washed. 8. Sending away from the workshop
every workman who gives himself up to debauchery or drunkenness. 9.
Endeavouring to get the workmen, (_i. e._ workers in lead) to form the
habit of drinking every day, on leaving the workshop, a little
hydro-sulphuretted water, to neutralize the effects of the lead that may
have been taken into the stomach.
All these regulations, with the medical attendance for the purpose of
prevention, would be greatly below any charge of insurance to the
individual workman for procuring medical attendance and remedies when
thrown out of work by sickness.
In some of the trades, scattered instances of attention to cleanliness
and measures of prevention are found: for example, amongst the
journeymen painters. In answer to a question put by Dr. Mitchell to _Mr.
Tomlins_, the clerk to the Painters’ Company, whether painters suffer so
much as formerly from the disease to which they are peculiarly liable,
the clerk says,—
“Not so much as formerly. This has been ascertained by a charity
administered at Painters’ Hall to men labouring under sickness. The
men are now more attentive to cleanliness. Formerly they would throw
their clothes on their beds and go to their meals without washing
their hands. A large proportion of the journeymen now carry a
workingdress to their job with them, and when they quit work at night
they exchange and put on clean clothes which are free from paint. This
applies more particularly to the westward of Temple Bar. One
master-painter of my acquaintance, Mr. Thornton, of Doctors’ Commons,
keeps a pail of solution of potash in his shop, in which the men wash
their hands, and which takes off every particle of paint; and it is
worthy of remark that only two men in 20 years have been afflicted
with paralysis in his employ. This is taken from 15 men constantly
employed on an average for seven years.”
It will suggest itself that another generation of workpeople, and their
premature sickness and death, ought not to pass away leaving this
practice confined to the painters to the west of Temple Bar, and leaving
the beneficent expedient exclusively to the shop of Mr. Thornton, of
Doctors’ Commons.
In connexion with the instance of the painters, I may give the following
from _Mr. James Gibbins_, a manufacturer of colours at the Mile-end
road. He was asked—“Are there any peculiar hazards to health connected
with the trade?” He replies,—
“Arsenic and lead are employed in making colours, and hence injury
does arise, but such need not necessarily be the case; but although
water, towels, and soap are placed at the use of the men, there is no
persuading them to be habitually cleanly. After making or grinding
colours, they will not take the trouble to wash their hands, but
merely wipe them a little on their clothes, and then will take their
bread and meat, by which particles are carried off into the stomach.
It is impossible to persuade the men to be more cautious. The lead is
much more in use than the arsenic, and on the whole does more harm, as
the men are more on their guard against the arsenic.”
The prevalent impression upon such instances would be expressed by such
phrases as, “If men will be so careless, there is no help for it; they
must take the consequences:” but they only take a part of the
consequences—the sickness; the main part of the consequences are taken
by others, especially if they are married, when the premature widowhood
and orphanage are sustained by the wife and children, who are maintained
at the expense of the relations or of the public. This recklessness is
however the result of neglected education, of which the workmen are the
victims, and for measures of beneficence such workmen are to be regarded
and treated as children, for they are children in intellect. An instance
of a beneficial measure of compulsory prevention taken by some employers
of labour is mentioned by Mr. John Kennedy, jun., in a report on the
condition of some classes of workpeople examined under the Commission of
Inquiry into the Employment of Children, not included in the regulations
of the Factory Act. Some workmen employed in “Kyanizing” wood became
frequently ill from the fumes created in the process, to which fumes
they unnecessarily exposed themselves. Admonitions to care were found to
be of no avail, and the employer at length gave notice that he would
discharge entirely from employment the first that was attacked with the
peculiar illness produced by the fumes of the metal. This threat was
acted upon, and no other cases of illness afterwards occurred.
In France, where the diseases by which the working classes are afflicted
have been investigated by those medical men who have given their
attention to the improvement of the public health, the general
conclusion has been established of the futility of leaving protective
measures to the voluntary adoption of the individual workman. In the
course of one of his reports, _M. Duchâtelet_ observes, that—
“It appears certain that the greatest part of the attacks of asphyxia
which have taken place in the sewers have arisen from the traps being
closed. I know that it is now enjoined on the workmen to open these
traps while they are at their labour. But do they do this? Assuredly
not in by far the majority of cases. Is it not a maxim to render
independent of the will and superintendence of men, and above all of
workmen, everything which appertains in a notable manner to their
preservation? In the grave and learned discussions which have occupied
this year (1824) the Academy of Sciences, on the means of preventing
the dangers arising from steam-engines, not only all the members of
the Commission, but the entire Academy, have been unanimous on the
necessity of rendering independent of the workmen the direction of the
level of the water in the boilers, and the tension of the steam. It
evidently appeared that on this depended the solution of the problem.
The same thing is now discussing on the subject of lighting by
hydrogen gas.”
I will further adduce parallel examples, drawn from experience, in
respect to the condition of the working population in France. It is
contained in a treatise by _M. Emile Beres_, on the Means of
Ameliorating the Condition of Artisans:—
“The condition of the labouring population would be less precarious,
and their lives less exposed to accidents of every kind, if more
foresight presided over their operations. Employers are often guilty
of unpardonable carelessness with respect to the employed. To see
their conduct, one would suppose that the men in their service were
inert machines, or else that they possessed the power of the Creator
to reconstruct broken limbs, to restore exhausted constitutions, or to
give life to the dead. Here a deleterious atmosphere, which ought to
be carefully purified, is imprudently allowed to be inhaled; there a
poison, which ought to be handled with precaution, is allowed to
penetrate every pore. Further on, as if man had wings, he is embarked
on the most fragile scaffolds. Again, he is inconsiderately left to
prosecute dangerous researches which demand the utmost care. It is not
thus that we should act when the health and life of human beings are
in question. To such neglects how many families owe their poverty and
misery!
“There have long existed mills to grind plaster, which have not,
nevertheless, prevented the unhappy workmen from being employed, in
many places, and even in Paris, to pound it with a wooden club, their
bodies bent towards the ground, and thus inhaling it in such
quantities that the greatest number of them die young, of pulmonary
phthisis.
“The use of the moveable inodorous tanks has been long understood in
Paris. It consists in substituting for the tanks of masonry vessels of
oak, painted, and strongly hooped with iron, so as to allow neither
matter nor smell to escape. They are placed beneath the pipe which
conveys the contents of the water-closet, and, when full, are carried
away, and replaced by others at every hour of the day, without
difficulty, without danger to the workmen, without inconvenience to
the inhabitants. Well; not only are the ancient tanks not suppressed
in favour of this system, so convenient in all respects, but every day
new ones are constructed, though not a year passes in which we do not
hear of unhappy men perishing in the process of emptying, suffocated
by the gas which escapes in their disgusting operation. Now, if we add
to the danger of emptying the receptacles, the nuisance to all the
inhabitants of the house, which is infected in its remotest corners,
as well as the neighbouring houses of the same street, or even
quarter; when we take into account the damage to furniture (especially
to things that are gilt) by the escape of sulphureous gas, we shall
have the measure of the negligence, I will not say of the proprietors
only who maintain such an abuse without any justifiable motive, but
even of the authority that suffers it. It is no rare thing, after the
emptying has taken place, to see asphyxia produced in the masons who
are employed in repairing the walls, or in remedying the infiltrations
from the privies.
“There is another method, more recent, and, in all probability, more
advantageous, of preventing the inconveniences of the ancient
receptacles; it is the system of disinfecting fecal matter, discovered
by a learned chemist, M. Payen. Independently of its hygienic
advantages, and the procuring a powerful manure, this method comprises
a question of human dignity of great value. It is necessary, as far as
possible, to take from our fellow men the mischievous necessity to
perform labours which invest them with ideas of disgust.
“Since the use of gas for lighting, several accidents have happened.
Are they not due, for the most part, to the want of precaution in the
directors of these manufactories, who have not sufficiently prescribed
to their men the necessary measures of prevention? Should they not all
know that one must not run with a candle into a place where there is a
stream of gas, as one would go in search of a stream of water? It is
this imprudence which commonly occasions the explosions that happen,
and which are ordinarily followed by the gravest accidents. Do we not
find the same carelessness in our mines, followed by the same
catastrophes? It is in vain, therefore, that Sir Humphry Davy applied
his genius to the discovery of the safety-lamp! Do not the most
ordinary rules of health condemn the ignorance with which the
preparations of mercury, of sulphur, of lead, of oxide of copper, &c.,
are made? In the places, lastly, in which wool, hides, and other
animal substances are prepared, why not purify the atmosphere in which
the workmen exist with such difficulty? This omission is the more
strange, that some centimes of solution of chlorine every day would be
sufficient to purify the largest shops.
“I insist strongly on the contents of this chapter, because it reveals
one of the deepest plague-spots of the labouring population of towns,
and because the remedies that it indicates are neither difficult to
discover, nor expensive in their application. With more solicitude and
surveillance on the part of the government, with more philanthropy on
the part of masters, with more precaution as well as self-love on the
part of the workmen, would our hospitals receive so many unhappy
beings, and death reap so many victims?”
_Employers’ Means of influencing the Condition of the Working Population
by regard to respectability in Dress._
Besides those means which affect immediately the health and moral
condition of the workpeople, others are within the control of their
employers which affect the personal appearance, and, through the
self-respect, the morality of the population. _Mr. William Fairbairn_,
in the course of an examination, adverted to the means of promoting
respectability in personal appearance:—
“It is always,” said he, “an indication of looseness of character, and
a low standard of moral conduct, to see a mechanic in dirt or in his
working-clothes on Sunday. Thirty years’ experience leads me to draw a
very unfavourable conclusion as to the future usefulness to me, and of
success to himself, of any workman whom I see in dirt on a Sunday.
“As a general rule, does the advance of his house keep pace with the
advance in condition of the person?—As a general rule, it does. Better
personal condition leads to better associates, and commonly to better
marriage, on which the improved condition of the house is entirely
dependent. It is due to the labouring classes of females in Lancashire
and the surrounding districts to state that, in the important
household virtue of cleanliness, they are superior to the females of
the same class in Scotland.
“Are you aware of what is the condition of their houses. Have you
visited them?—I have not made it a practice to visit them, I chiefly
judge of their circumstances from seeing them with their wives and
families, and their well-dressed and respectable condition on the
Sundays. These externals are always indications of greater comforts
and respectability at home. I am a strong advocate for dress, and
encourage the working men to dress well; if I see any workman in a
dirty condition and in his working-clothes in the streets on the
Sunday, I do not, perhaps, speak to him then, but on the Monday I tell
him that I have been looking over the books, that I find that he has
had as good wages as other men who dress respectably, and that I do
not like to have any one about me who will not dress well on the
Sunday. This intimation has generally had the desired effect.”
_Employers’ or Owners’ Influence in the Improvement of Habitations and
sanitary Arrangements for the Protection of the Labouring Classes in the
Rural Districts._
I would now submit, for consideration the evidence collected to show the
appropriate means for the improvement of the condition of the labouring;
classes in the rural districts; and first, as to the effects produced by
improved residences:—
These are stated in a letter from the chairman of the Bedford union to
Mr. Weale, the Assistant-Commissioner of the district, who had been
requested by the Board to inquire as to the moral as well as the
sanitary effects of improved tenements:—
“_Turvey Abbey, January 4, 1841._
“My dear Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the
1st of January. You there state that, in a Return made to you by the
Board of Guardians of the Bedford Union on the sanitary condition of
the labouring population, it is reported that, in a few instances,
cottages of an improved description have been erected by the employers
of labour, the advantages of which have had a salutary influence on
the moral habits of the inmates: and you request to know in what
particular acts the improvement in moral conduct is displayed.
“I have much pleasure in saying that some cases of the kind have come
under my own observation, and I consider that the improvement has
arisen a good deal from the parties feeling that they are somewhat
raised in the scale of society. The man sees his wife and family more
comfortable than formerly; he has a better cottage and garden: he is
stimulated to industry, and as he rises in respectability of station,
he _becomes aware_ that he has a character to lose. Thus an important
point is gained. Having acquired certain advantages, he is anxious to
retain and improve them; he strives more to preserve his independence,
and becomes a member of benefit, medical, and clothing societies; and
frequently, besides this, lays up a certain sum, quarterly or
half-yearly, in the savings’ bank. Almost always attendant upon these
advantages, we find the man sending his children to be regularly
instructed in a Sunday, and, where possible, in a day-school, and
himself and family more constant in their attendance at some place of
worship on the Lord’s-day. I know of more instances than one where, in
consequence of encouragement of the kind above mentioned to the father
of a poor family, the children were regularly sent to school, and
there became so much improved in character and learning that they are
now filling situations of high respectability, (one a confidential
clerk in a large mercantile house in London,) and are assisting to
support their parents in a manner as delightful as it is creditable.
“A man who comes home to a poor, comfortless hovel after his day’s
labour, and sees all miserable around him, has his spirits more often
depressed than excited by it. He feels that, do his best, he shall be
miserable still, and is too apt to fly for a temporary refuge to the
alehouse or beer-shop. But give him the means of making himself
comfortable by his own industry, and I am convinced by experience
that, in many cases, he will avail himself of it.
“Believe me, my dear sir, sincerely yours,
“CHARLES LONGUET HIGGINS.
“_To Robert Weale, Esq._,
“_Assistant Poor Law Commissioner_.”
The next exemplification is afforded in a letter from the clerk of the
Stafford Union:—
“_Marston, Stafford, January 20, 1841._
“Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st
instant, as to the Return made by the Board of Guardians on the
sanitary condition of the labouring population of this Union, in which
it is stated that improved cottages have been erected by landed
proprietors for their labourers, and the advantages afforded by such
cottages have had a salutary influence on the moral habits of the
inmates, and requesting to be informed in what particular acts the
improvement in moral conduct is displayed.
“In answer thereto, I will endeavour to illustrate the remark of the
Board of Guardians by contrasting the habits, the condition, and
prospects of a labourer occupying an improved cottage with the
occupier of a cottage of a contrary description. If we follow the
agricultural labourer into his miserable dwelling, we shall find it
consisting of two rooms only; the day-room, in addition to the family,
contains the cooking utensils, the washing apparatus, agricultural
implements, and dirty clothes, the windows broken, and stuffed full of
rags. In the sleeping apartment, the parents and their children, boys
and girls, are indiscriminately mixed, and frequently a lodger
sleeping in the same and the only room; generally no window, the
openings in the half-thatched roof admit light, and expose the family
to every vicissitude of the weather; the liability of the children so
situated to contagious maladies frequently plunges the family into the
greatest misery. The husband, enjoying but little comfort under his
own roof, resorts to the beer-shop, neglects the cultivation of his
garden, and impoverishes his family. The children are brought up
without any regard to decency of behaviour, to habits of foresight, or
self-restraint; they make indifferent servants; the girls become the
mothers of bastards, and return home a burden to their parents, or to
the parish, and fill the workhouse. The boys spend the Christmas
week’s holiday and their year’s wages in the beer shop, and enter upon
their new situation in rags. Soon tired of the restraint imposed upon
them under the roof of their master, they leave his service before the
termination of the year’s engagement, seek employment as
day-labourers, not with a view of improving their condition, but with
a desire to receive and spend their earnings weekly in the beer-shop;
associating with the worst of characters, they become the worst of
labourers, resort to poaching, commit petty thefts, and add to the
county rates by commitments and prosecutions.
“On the contrary, on entering an improved cottage, consisting on the
ground-floor of a room for the family, a wash-house and a pantry, and
three sleeping-rooms over, with a neat and well-cultivated garden, in
which the leisure hours of the husband being both pleasantly and
profitably employed, he has no desire to frequent the beer-shop or
spend his evenings from home; the children are trained to labour, to
habits and feelings of independence, and taught to connect happiness
with industry, and to shrink from idleness and immorality: the girls
make good servants, obtain the confidence of their employers, and get
promoted to the best situations. The boys, at the termination of the
year’s engagement, spend the Christmas week’s holiday comfortably
under the roof of their parents; clothes suitable for the next year’s
service are provided, and the residue of wages is deposited in the
savings’ bank; a system of frugality is engrafted with the first
deposit, increasing with every addition to the fund: they are
gradually employed in those departments of labour requiring greater
skill, and implying more confidence in their integrity and industry,
and they attain a position in society of comparative independence.
“I have selected an extreme case to show more fully the advantages
derived from improved cottages, and the immoral effects of inferior
dwellings, unfortunately too numerous, in this Union.
“I have the honour to be, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“PETER LOWE.
“_To Robert Veale, Esq.,
“Assistant Poor Law Commissioner._”
Much regret is frequently expressed at the change of condition which has
taken place in the cultivation of the soil by farm labourers instead of
farm servants living in the house of the farmer, and subject to the
household rules at his board; but whatever real ground there may be to
regret the change, it appears to be one generally preferred by both
parties, and there appears to be no reason to expect that the ancient
system will be revived. In the Appendix I have given an examination of
the Rev. Thomas Whately, in reference to some frequent and most
important mistakes in respect to cottage economy.
The Board agreeing that the most important leading examples of
improvement were to be expected from the benevolence and public spirit
of opulent individuals, requested the assistant commissioners in England
to note the most conspicuous improvements of labourers’ tenements they
have met with in their districts, and procure plans with a view to their
promulgation. From these I have selected several examples, and have
added several that I have met with in the course of my own inquiries.
Some eligible plans of cottage tenements are thus described in _Mr.
Twisleton’s_ report from Norfolk and Suffolk:—
“Although the general aspect of the cottages in Norfolk and Suffolk is
pleasing and attractive, I do not think that these counties can be
generally cited as abounding with model cottages. Some of the best
which I have seen belong to the Earl of Stradbroke, at Henham, near
Halesworth in Suffolk; to the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham; and to
the Rev. Mr. Benyon, at Culford, about five miles from Bury St.
Edmunds. Those of the Earl of Stradbroke are built of brick, roofed
with tiles, have four rooms at least, and have all proper conveniences
of pantries, cupboards, and out-offices; but, at the same time, as
they are principally with only one story, so that the bed-rooms are on
the same floor with the parlour and kitchen, such cottages would only
be built where land is no object; and they must be considered in the
light of luxuries and ornaments. Some of the cottages of the Earl of
Leicester, at Holkham, are perhaps the most substantial and
comfortable which are to be seen in any part of England; and if all
the English peasantry could be lodged in similar ones, it would be the
realization of an Utopia. I have obtained from Mr. Emerson, of
Holkham, their builder, drawings of the plans and of the elevation of
eight of these cottages, which are built of brick roofed with tiles. I
herewith transmit them to you, and it will be observed that there are
three sets, two of two cottages each, and one of four cottages.
Without entering into details respecting all the eight, I will draw
your attention to the double cottages of 1819. Each of these has a
front room, 17 feet by 12 feet in width, and 7 feet to 7 feet 6 inches
high; a back kitchen of the same height, and 13 feet by 9 feet wide,
together with a pantry on the same floor. Above these are three
bed-rooms which, in different proportions, cover the space already
specified for the ground-floor. At a convenient distance behind, each
cottage has attached to it a wash-house, a dirt-bin, a privy, and a
pig-cot. I may add that the drainage is excellent, that the water is
good, that each cottage has about 20 rods of garden-ground, and that
the rent, including gardens, is only three guineas a-year. Hence it is
not to be wondered at that Mr. Emerson the builder has been enabled to
say, in a letter to me: ‘I have never known in them an instance of
fever or any epidemic.’
“These cottages are cited as showing what may be done by a landed
proprietor who takes as great a pride in his good cottages and farms
as others in fine hunters and race-horses, rather than with the least
intention of asserting that the example is ever likely to be
universally imitated. The cost of building two such cottages is stated
by Mr. Emerson to be 220_l._ or 230_l._, which would be 110_l._ or
115_l._ each. Now, although individuals, here and there, may build
cottages without regard to the pecuniary return, it may be assumed as
incontrovertible, that no class of cottages will be universally
adopted which does not command a reasonable interest for the money
expended on them. But considering the cost of repairs, and the
frequent trouble and uncertainty of obtaining the rents, it will
probably not be denied that 6_l._ a-year would be the _minimum_ as a
remunerative rent for the outlay of 110_l._ or 115_l._ on a cottage.
However, the rent of 6_l._ would scarcely be paid by the agricultural
population generally at the present wages: for reckoning the rate of
wages at 12_s._ a-week (which would be high for some parts of the
country), very few would be willing, out of that sum, to expend 2_s._
3¾_d._ a-week, or nearly a fifth of their earnings, for the rent of
their cottage.
“I would take, therefore, a more attainable standard of excellence in
the cottages of the Rev. E. Benyon, at Culford. This is a remarkable
village of about fifty cottages, built within the last twenty years by
Mr. Benyon de Beuvoir. The outward appearance of them is pretty, and
it was this which first attracted my attention to them. They are built
with bricks, faced with blue flint-stones, which harmonize agreeably
with the blue slate of the roofs. They have each four rooms—two below
and two above—with a pantry and a cupboard. I herewith transmit to you
plans and drawings of five of these cottages in two sets—one
consisting of double tenements, and one of three tenements. It will be
observed that the principal room is 14 feet by 12 feet wide, and 7
feet high, which is inferior in size to those at Holkham, and that
they have only two bed-rooms, while those at Holkham have three. At
the distance of a few feet from each set of cottages there is a wooden
building, roofed with tiles, which comprises a space for fuel, and a
privy for each cottage, and a common oven. The average cost of the
double cottages at Culford is stated to have been 170_l._, or 85_l._
each.”
_Mr. Loudon_, who has paid great attention to the subject of cottage
architecture, directs attention to the labourers’ cottages, either newly
erected, or altered, or improved, on the estate of Gregory Gregory,
Esq., at Harlaxton, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.
“The village of Harlaxton,” says Mr. Loudon, “is, if possible, more
interesting to us than even the new mansion and gardens. We have seen
many ornamented villages both at home and abroad, but none so original
and so much to our taste as this of Mr. Gregory’s. Some of old date
are too like rows of street houses, such as those of Newnham
Courtenay, near Oxford; and Harewood, near Leeds; others are too
affectedly varied and picturesque, such as that at Blaize Castle, near
Bristol; and some have the houses bedaubed with ornaments that have
not sufficient relation to use, as when rosettes and sculptures are
stuck on the walls, instead of applying facings to the windows,
porches to the doors, and characteristic shafts to the chimney tops.
We recollect one near Warsaw, which is a repetition of the Grecian
temple, with a portico at each end; and one at Peckra, near Moscow,
every opening in which has a pediment over it, with highly enriched
barge-boards. In some villages the attempt is made to ornament every
house with trellis-work round the doors and windows, which produces
great sameness of appearance, and if ornamental, is so at the expense
of comfort, the creepers by which the trellis-work is covered
darkening the rooms, and encouraging insects; while, in other
villages, the cottages are so low and so small, that it is obvious to
a passing spectator they cannot contain a single wholesome room.
However, though we find fault with villages ornamented in these ways,
we are still glad to see them, because any kind of alteration in the
dwellings and gardens of country labourers can hardly fail to be an
improvement, both with reference to the occupiers and to the country
at large.”
The external condition of the residence, and the apparent rank it holds,
is not without a beneficial moral effect on the occupants, by increasing
their self-respect and pride in the decencies of life. Mr. Loudon’s
enumeration of the requisites for cottage building are given in the
Appendix, together with views of the groups of cottages Mr. Gregory has
erected; contrasted with these is a group of hinds’ cottages, as
described by Dr. Gilly, in his appeal in behalf of the border peasantry,
from which a conception may be formed of the great difference in morals
as well as in health that may be anticipated from the effects of the
different order of residences on the population.
[Illustration:
GROUP OF NORTHUMBRIAN COTTAGES COPIED FROM REV^D. D^R. GILLY
]
[Illustration:
GROUPS OF DOUBLE COTTAGES AT HARLAXTON.
]
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
VILLAGE SHOP AND DOUBLE COTTAGE AT HARLAXTON.
]
[Illustration:
GROUP OF COTTAGES AT HARLAXTON.
]
PLANS OF A TREBLE COTTAGE FOR THREE FAMILIES,
SITUATED ON THE ESTATE OF
GREGORY GREGORY ESQ^R, AT HARLAXTON.
_Estimate, inducting all Expenses & Out Buildings, £ 280._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_M^r. Twistleton’s Report on Cottages &c._
COTTAGES
BUILT BY
BENYON de BEAUVOIR, ESQ^R.
AT
CULFORD in SUFFOLK.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_M^r. Twistleton’s Report on Cottages &c._
COTTAGES BUILT BY THE EARL OF LEICESTER.
AT HOLKHAM. IN NORFOLK.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_Dimensions of Cottage._
_1. It is 36 feet in front. Its cost about £70._
_2. Each room is 16 feet square & 8 feet in height._
_3. There are two Garrets, used for sleeping rooms._
_2_
_Apartments._
Nº 1 _Is a necessary._
2 _Coal, Wood & Peat House._
3 _Scullery._
4 _Larder._
5 _Cowhouse._
6 _Kitchen._
7 _Sitting room._
8 & 9 _are Garrets._
_3_
_Warming Apparatus._
_Behind the fire place of No. 6, Kitchen, is an Iron box, one side of
this Iron box, made of strong sheet or plate Iron, forms the back of the
fire place of No. 6. As two plates of iron are rivetted together,
leaving a space of 6 inches between the plates which forms a box, a
passage or pipe below the door as seen in the Plan, opened through the
wall. This pipe or passage made of stone or brick, or of iron, admits a
current of cold air to pass into the Iron box. This air entering the box
and being heated by the fire in No. 6, gives its warmth out to No. 7. By
means of a pipe which ascends from the top of the Iron box the two
garret rooms are warmed. Wet linen may be dried by placing a screen with
it before the Iron box in room No. 7._
_4_
_The advantages of a fire place No. 7, constructed with an Iron plate
for its back, and made into a box having two Iron plates fastened
together, as seen in the Iron box between rooms No. 6 & 7, are that_
_1. One fire place is made to warm two apartments on the same floor,
and by means of an Iron pipe, warm air is conveyed into the two
garrets above._
_2. The house can never be damp with such a simple economical method
of heating._
_3. In the Southern, Eastern & Midland Counties of England, where fuel
is sold at a high price, it is beneficial for the labourer to heat
his house in the manner just shown in the Closeburn Cottage._
_4. Much of the sickness of the labourer and delicacy of his children
proceed from damp Cottages._
PLAN OF COTTAGES
ERECTED BY SIR STEWART MENTEATH, BARONET,
FOR HIS LABOURERS AT CLOSEBURN.
[Illustration]
PLANS OF COTTAGES ERECTED AT EGERTON FOR H. & E. ASHWORTH.
[Illustration]
PLANS OF A DOUBLE COTTAGE, ERECTED AT BOLLINGTON.
[Illustration]
PLAN
OF THE
FARM COTTAGES
ERECTED UPON
_THE EARL of ROSEBERRY’S ESTATES_.
[Illustration]
I have been favoured by the Earl of Roseberry with plans of the new
labourers’ cottages he has built on his property in Scotland, which have
been highly approved by the Highland Society, who have inserted the
plans for publication in their “Transactions,” _vide_ Appendix. I have
been favoured by James Monteath, Esq., with a model of the cottages
erected by his father, Sir Stewart Monteath, Bart., for his labourers at
Closeburn. The plan of these cottages presents an important improvement,
by which one fire-place is made to warm two apartments on the same
floor, and by means of an air pipe warms the air in the two rooms above
them. I was informed that it admits of a further improvement in
practice, namely, of some means of closing the access of the warm air to
the sleeping-rooms during summer.
The best plans I have obtained of tenements in actual occupation of the
rural manufacturing population appear to be those at Turton, and those
erected at Bollington. The best plans of labourers’ tenements in towns
are those supplied by Mr. Hodgson, and the Committee of Physicians and
Surgeons at Birmingham; the drawings and working plans of which I have
appended.
In several of the plans for the rural districts there is one appendage
of the cottage of which the best-informed witnesses consider they ought
invariably to be divested, namely, a pigsty. The medical witnesses
strongly object that it is injurious to the health, especially in rows
of cottages, as it occasions accumulations of filthy refuse. Other
witnesses, such as the Rev. Thomas Whately, object that the pig is not
economical to the labourer, and that it furnishes a temptation to
dishonesty. His evidence on that subject, and on the other more
important question of large cottage allotments, will be found in the
Appendix.
Mr. Loudon has favoured me with two drawings and plans of model
cottages, which need no other explanation than the specification. These
comprise the best examples that have come under observation during the
present inquiry of tenements in occupation that are well approved on
trial.
Every detail, however, of the materials with which the cottage is
constructed, and the mode of its construction, deserve, and there is
little doubt will obtain, most careful attention, for it is only by
considering their comforts in detail that they can be improved, or the
aggregate effect on the immense masses of the community can be analyzed
and estimated. For example, it has been mentioned that a decided
difference is perceptible in the health and condition of workmen of the
same class who live in houses made of brick as compared with those
living in houses made of stone.
A gentleman who has attentively observed the condition of the working
classes in the north of Lancashire, and the north of Cheshire, states
that the general health of the labourers in the north of Lancashire is
decidedly inferior. This inferiority he ascribes to several causes, and,
amongst others, to damp cottages, and—
“Wood and wattled houses, such as our forefathers built, are the
driest and warmest of all; brick is inferior in both these requisites
of a comfortable house; but stone, especially the unhewn stone as it
is necessarily employed for cottages, is the very worst material
possible for the purpose. I prefer the Irish mud cottages. The evil
arises from two causes. The stone is not impervious to water,
especially when the rain is accompanied by high winds; and it sucks up
the moisture of the ground, and gives it out into the rooms; but
principally, stone is a good conductor of heat and cold, so that the
walls cooled down by the outer air are continually condensing the
moisture contained in the warmer air of the cottage, just as the
windows steam on a frosty morning; besides, the abstraction of heat in
stone houses must be a serious inconvenience. The effect of this
condensation must be, and is, to make clothes, bedding, &c., damp,
whenever they are placed near the wall, and therefore extremely
prejudicial to those who wear the clothes or sleep in the beds. Of
course I do not attribute all the damp of our cottages in this
neighbourhood to the stone; much of it is due to the wet climate, wet
soil, and building so near the ground; but the stone, as a material of
building, must bear a considerable share of the blame. I believe, too,
it is partly the cause of the very great difference of cleanliness of
the Cheshire farming people and ours of the same class.
“Indeed the Cheshire people were brought up to wooden cottages: brick
was of later introduction. The greater facilities and inducements to
cleanliness in a dry house would, in the course of time, form a more
cleanly people, and superior healthiness would follow.”
_Mr. Parker_ observes, that the construction of the cottages in
Buckinghamshire is frequently unwholsome:—
“The improper materials of which cottages are built, and their
defective construction, are also the frequent cause of the serious
indisposition of the inmates. The cottages at Waddesdon, and some of
the surrounding parishes in the Vale of Aylesbury, are constructed of
mud, with earth floors and thatched roofs. The vegetable substances
mixed with the mud to make it bind, rapidly decompose, leaving the
walls porous. The earth of the floor is full of vegetable matter, and
from there being nothing to cut off its contact with the surrounding
mould, it is peculiarly liable to damp. The floor is frequently
charged with animal matter thrown upon it by the inmates, and this
rapidly decomposes by the alternate action of heat and moisture.
Thatch placed in contact with such walls speedily decays, yielding a
gas of the most deleterious quality. Fever of every type and diarrhœa
are endemic diseases in the parish and neighbourhood. Next to good
drainage and thorough ventilation, the foundation of a cottage is the
most important consideration. A foundation, to be good, must not only
be sufficiently strong to bear the superstructure, and of sufficient
depth to cut off all connexion with the surrounding vegetable mould
and that beneath the floor, but also be constructed of materials
calculated to resist moisture. The best materials for this purpose are
concrete and sound bricks, partially vitrified in the kiln or clamp.
If such bricks be well laid with mortar composed of sharp sand,
containing no vegetable substances, and the concrete be free from
earthy particles, well mixed and firmly thrown together, the admission
of damp will be entirely avoided. Stone, chalk, bricks which are not
thoroughly burnt, impure mortar, and wood, have all a tendency to
absorb moisture, which, if once received by such materials, ascends,
or ‘creeps up,’ as it is technically called by builders, and thus
affects the whole building. To avoid this “creeping up,” builders are
in the habit of placing a tire of slate in foundations above the
surface mould, a remedy of a temporary character only, for the action
of damp entirely destroys slate. Roman cement has also been used for
this purpose, but the sand mixed with this material renders it in some
degree porous. It has lately been suggested that a course of
well-burnt bricks set in asphalte would effectually prevent this
absorption of surface-water, and a favourable opinion of this plan has
been expressed by two intelligent architects.”
He adds that—
“In Berkshire the floors of the cottages are laid with red tiles,
called ‘flats,’ or with bricks of a remarkable porous quality, and as
each of these tiles or bricks will absorb half a pint of water, so do
they become the means by which vapour is generated. The cleanly
housewife, who prides herself upon the neat and fresh appearance of
her cottage, pours several pails of water upon the floor, and when she
has completed her task with the besom, she proceeds to remove with a
mop or flannel so much of the water as the bricks have not absorbed.
“After having cleansed the cottage, the fire is usually made up to
prepare the evening meal, and vapour is created by the action of the
heat upon the saturated floor. Thus the means adopted to purify the
apartment are equally as injurious to the health of the inmates as the
filth and dirt frequently too abundant in the cottages of labouring
persons.
“It is usual to insert in local Acts for the regulation of towns a
clause prohibiting the use of straw and similar vegetable substances
for roofing; and it appears to me to be desirable that some provision
should be made for the rural districts, by which the thatch of
cottages, when in a decomposed state, might be required to be removed.
In the parishes of Binton, Dorsington, and Long Marston, in the
neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, simple continued fever, described
to be similar in character to the form of fever which frequently
occurs in the autumn and beginning of winter throughout England,
prevailed very extensively in the winter of 1839. Of 31 patients
attacked by it, seven died. Dr. Thompson of Stratford-on-Avon, the
physician who visited all the cases by the desire of the Board of
Guardians of the Stratford-on-Avon union, observes:—‘As almost all the
cottages in which there has been fever are thatched, and the thatch in
many of them is in a very rotten and insufficient condition, it is not
improbable that slow decomposition in the thatch, from the unusual
quantities of rain which has fallen, may have been going on, and
contributed to the production and continuance of fever. It has been
observed by others, I believe, that it is more difficult to get rid of
fever in thatched than in slated cottages.’ Dr. Thompson also remarks,
that in thatched cottages it is not usual to ceil or plaster the
inside of the roof; and he recommends that this should be done, and
that the plaster should be lime-washed once a-year.”
In the course of some observations made on the construction of the
cottages of the labouring classes in France, it is observed that—
“It is in vain that the workman breathes a pure air out of doors, if
on his return to his home he finds an infected atmosphere. Air, which
is so necessary to life and health, and which it is of the last
importance to renew often, especially in small rooms, remains thick
and loaded in the abode of the workman, because no currents can exist
in consequence of the window being almost always placed alongside the
door. The form of the chimney is another great evil in the
construction of country cottages. With a shaft very short and very
large, it is impossible for the room to get warm, and the heat
produced is almost entirely lost. This form of the chimneys is only
explicable by the ignorance of the constructors. However large a fire
may be required by the diverse needs of the family, it does not
involve the necessity to make the chimney shaft of a corresponding
size; on the contrary, the facility with which the smoke ascends is
altogether proportioned to the smallness of the latter, as may be seen
in the chimneys of stoves, which are always extremely narrow.”
The _Rev. C. Walkey_, of Collumpton, gives instances of the want of
provision for ventilation in the cottages of the labouring classes:—
“Cottages for the most part are without sufficient ventilation,
particularly in the up-stairs apartment, this being almost invariably
without a chimney, with a low window, commonly about two feet from the
floor, and having no ceiling, therefore the thatched roof, lofty in
itself, and full of cobwebs, contains the foul air; and in several
instances I have been the means of restoring health apparently by
blowing gunpowder in cases where fever has raged for months, the
ground-floors being often damp—very seldom above the level of the
land.”
The proceedings of the Highland Society for the improvement of the
material condition of the labourer, especially on the subject of cottage
economy, appear to be extremely well directed. They have sought to make
improvements in detail, which are thus described in one of the reports
of a committee appointed to inquire into the subject:—
“Medals have been offered by the society to proprietors for building
cottages of a good construction; and these medals are already in
demand. The subject was again brought forward by the Marquis of
Tweeddale, who filled the chair at the last general meeting; and
throughout the whole of Scotland it is attracting increasing
attention. The style of such buildings is everywhere improving, and
the measures of the society will make the country acquainted with the
best models. Still, without a considerable diminution of the expense,
the rapid introduction of a better system is hardly to be expected. To
that point, accordingly, the directors have turned their serious
attention.
“Their first object has been the improvement of the windows, which
always form one of the principal items of charge, and have been
generally one of the worst constructed parts of the building. In many
districts of the Highlands the huts of the peasantry have nothing of
the kind, nor are there tradesmen within reach from whom they can be
obtained; and even in many of the more improved parts of the country
the cottage windows are seldom large enough to admit a sufficiency of
light; they are almost never provided with the means of ventilation;
and in a few instances can they be repaired without applying to a
tradesman. This is always attended with considerable expense; and, in
remote situations, skilful workmen are hardly to be obtained on any
terms. Accordingly, when glass is broken, recourse is had to the most
unseemly substitutes. These may annoy the inmate at first, but he soon
becomes habituated to them; one eyesore prepares him for another, and
in a short time the same slovenliness and disorder spread over the
whole establishment.
“It appeared to the directors that much of this would be avoided if
the public could be made acquainted with the best description of a
cottage window. The demand would necessarily lead to their being
extensively manufactured, and consequently supplied at a moderate
price; and, what is of still more consequence, the general adoption of
such windows would lead to glass of the proper size being kept in
every village, and labourers would then be enabled to repair their own
windows. A premium was accordingly offered last year for the best
cottage window, not so much in the expectation of bringing forward
anything altogether new, as of enabling the directors to select the
best of the forms now in use.
“Various specimens were sent in. Some were made of zinc; but these
were rejected, on the advice of tradesmen, as being too weak to admit
of repair by an unpractised hand. Wood and lead are, for the same
reason, equally unsuitable. One was constructed with astragals of
malleable iron, so thin as very little to impede the light, and
consequently admitting of glass of a very small size; but the
astragals not being provided with flanges for the glass to rest upon,
the repair must necessarily be a work of some difficulty; and these
also were consequently deemed unfit for the purpose. Cast-iron appears
to be the material least liable to objection; but astragals of
cast-metal must be of considerable thickness; and such frames,
therefore, could not be adapted to a very small size of glass without
materially obscuring the light. It was made by Messrs. Moses M’Culloch
and Co., Gallowgate, Glasgow; and, without the wooden frame, it costs
5_s._ Glass for such a window may be purchased at 2¾_d._ per square.
These windows would appear adapted for farm-houses and workshops as
well as for cottages. They admit of being made of every variety of
size, and, in most cases, they may thus be fitted with ease to houses
already built. In many situations, it will thus deserve consideration
whether it may be better to repair the glass of old frames, or to
adopt windows of this construction, which may be purchased and kept up
at so very moderate an expense. It is understood that Messrs.
M’Cullock intend to establish agencies in all parts of the country,
and light and pure air will thus be supplied to the humbler classes
everywhere at a much cheaper rate than they have hitherto been
obtained.”
The directors have next turned their attention to the means of
economizing fuel; and a premium for the best mode of accomplishing
this will be found in the list of this year. It will be observed, that
the object of the premium is not to obtain plans merely from Scottish
tradesmen, but to ascertain the devices which are practised in foreign
countries. In America, and several of the continental states, it is
understood that stoves are generally used for this purpose, and some
of these are said to be so perfect that no one who has been accustomed
to them would tolerate the fire-places of the Scottish cottages. There
may be a difficulty in introducing a novelty of this kind here; but if
it should promise to be beneficial, it would be at least deserving of
a trial; and if it should be generally adopted, this also would become
the subject of an extensive manufacture, and be obtained at a cheap
rate.
“It appears to the committee, that still further facilities would be
afforded, both for the construction of new cottages and the
improvement of those already built, were doors, shelving, and the
other wooden work of the building manufactured in the same way as the
windows. The committee do not at present see any means of contributing
to the establishment of such works by the offer of premiums; but it
occurs to them that extensive proprietors might find it worth their
while to try the experiment, as an addition to the work of saw-mills.
If it should succeed with them, it could not fail in the hands of
tradesmen devoting their whole attention to the subject; and there
would be no want of men ready to embark in such undertakings. Should
an experiment of this kind be made, the committee hope that the
directors will be made acquainted with the result.
“Such a supply of the leading materials would not only greatly
facilitate the work of proprietors both in the erection of new
cottages and the improvement of old ones, but labourers who have the
prospect of being permanent tenants would likewise be induced, at
their own expense, to make improvements, which they would at present
find quite impracticable. As the reduction of the price of every
article of dress now enables the humblest labourer to appear
respectably clothed, so the reduction of the expense of so many of the
essentials in the construction of a house would bring comfortable
lodging equally within his reach.”
To the above-recited measures of the Highland Society, which are so well
directed to the improvement of the structure of cottages in the
important points of economy as well as of efficiency, they have added
prizes for the best-kept cottages and the best cottage gardens, which
have everywhere excited competition, and have been attended with
beneficial results.
I have as yet met with no similar instance of attention given by large
and influential public bodies, to the improvement of the residences of
the working-classes in towns. I have, however, been favoured with one
communication from _Mr. Sydney Smirke_, the architect, who has had
experience in planning and superintending the erection of residences for
the men of the coast-guard service, and who, in some suggestions for the
improvement of the metropolis, has endeavoured to direct public
attention to the improvement of the structure of the residences of the
labouring classes. He states that—
“The course that has been adopted by great manufacturers and others in
some rural districts, of erecting ranges of distinct cottages for
their labourers, is plainly inapplicable to large towns. If there were
no other obstacle to this arrangement, the value of land would alone
be fatal to it in such places; but my belief is that, without ultimate
pecuniary loss, and with the utmost direct and indirect benefit,
buildings, placed under some public control, might be erected for the
joint occupation of many families or individuals, and so arranged that
each tenant might feel that he had the exclusive enjoyment of a home
in the room or rooms which he occupied, and yet might partake, in
common with his neighbours, of many important comforts and advantages
now utterly unknown to him.
“I propose that there should be erected buildings, in various parts of
the suburbs, consisting of perhaps 50 or 60 rooms, high, airy, dry,
well ventilated, light and warm, comfortably filled up, fire-proof,
abundantly supplied with water and thoroughly drained; such
regulations might be laid down for the conduct of the inmates as may
be necessary for the common good, without undue rigour or interference
with natural and proper feelings of independence.
“Another class of structures should be raised, perhaps rather as
dormitories than for permanent residence, from which families would be
excluded; these should be arranged like some of the wards of Chelsea
Hospital, with separate compartments appropriated to each tenant.
Unlike the frail and worthless tenements that rise in great profusion
around London, these buildings should be studiously planned and
strongly constructed; all that the builder’s art can contribute
towards the safety, health, and comfort of each individual, should
here be found. In the former class of buildings, a room or rooms
should be let at a low weekly rent to any decent family that should
apply: in the latter, each compartment should be let by the night.
“The exterior of these locanda, or public lodging-houses, should have
a cheerful, inviting appearance, not entirely without architectural
character, although free, of course, from the mere ornament and
frippery of architecture.
“In throwing out these suggestions for such consideration as they may
deserve, it seems superfluous at present to trouble you with
explanatory plans and other details; it may be enough for me to assure
you that buildings can be erected, affording all the accommodations
above described, and offering to their inmates the luxury of a decent,
cleanly, and healthy abode, at a cost less than is usually required by
them for the purchase of the squalid resting-places they now resort
to, and yet enough to repay a fair interest on the original expense of
the new building.
“It may be said that in providing these commodious dwellings for their
needy inmates, we shall be furnishing them with that which they do not
desire; that habitual and long acquaintance with privation has taught
them to regard and to endure, without any lively distaste, much of
that misery from which others, more delicately educated, would shrink
with disgust; but I consider this objection quite unfounded. A tainted
atmosphere cannot be less injurious because by long habit it is
breathed without nausea. If these deplorable habits have really
acquired so much force, it should be our part to make corresponding
efforts to teach the victims of them to become more sensible of their
misery, not indeed by inculcating lessons of discontent, but by
affording to them facilities for providing themselves with healthier
and happier abodes.
“It is the true saying of an eloquent writer, that ‘les esclaves
perdent tout dans leur esclavage, jusqu’au désir d’en sortir;’ yet
surely no benevolent person would think himself idly or unprofitably
employed in loosing from bondage those whom long endurance has caused
to forget the blessings of freedom. I am, however, unwilling to
believe, even now, that the classes of whom I am speaking are
insensible to the comforts of cleanliness, or unable to appreciate the
benefit to be derived from improved habitations.
“I confess I cannot discover any objection to the adoption of such a
plan for ameliorating the dwellings of the poorest classes of our
fellow creatures that would not be counter-balanced by many direct and
indirect advantages.”
I beg leave to submit this communication and the plans with which Mr.
Smirke has favoured me, that it may be made known and considered. Much
importance will be attached to the testimony received from him as well
as from other professional men, that it is possible to afford to the
labouring classes the luxury of “a decent, cleanly, and healthy abode at
a cost less than is usually required from them for the squalid
resting-places they now resort to, and yet enough to repay a fair
interest on the original expense of the new building.”
I see no reason to doubt the applicability of Mr. Smirke’s plan to such
places as those where ranges of buildings are now required as lodgings
for workmen, and, without questioning the applicability of the
proposition last cited, to all classes of residences. It is proper to
mention, that in the course of this inquiry frequent instances have
arisen of much social disorder arising from the too close contiguity of
residences, or from the want of some control over the inmates. In the
instances noticed of lodging-houses, or of one building, inhabited by
different families, living as in the apartments of the same dwelling,
the conclusion afforded by experience seems to be, that a power and
discipline almost as strong as that of a man-of-war, is requisite to
preserve order in such communities; and that until a degree of education
of the lower classes is attained, which is hopeless for the present,
generation at least, it is desirable to avoid any arrangement which
brings _families_ into close contact with each other. A large proportion
of the cases of assault and brawls which occupy the attention of the
petty sessions and sessions in towns, arise from contentions amongst the
inhabitants of courts and alleys, which are clearly ascribable to too
close contiguity; and these effects have frequently given rise to the
suggestion that if a city were rebuilt, the preservation of peace would
be much easier if such places were entirely removed and the inhabitants
separated. A common pump has gone far to furnish practice to a petty
attorney. All the females wanted to use it at the same time, and
perpetual quarrels and frequent assaults arose to get the first
supplies. Several attempts have been made by benevolent landlords to get
their labourers to make use of common bakehouses, common wash-houses, to
join for one common brewing, and have offered them the use of utensils;
but they never could be got to agree upon it, and I have met with no
instance in which such plans have succeeded. Unless the walls of
contiguous cottages are very thick, detached cottages have social
comforts and moral advantages superior to those houses built in rows;
and persons even of the middle class pay a higher rent for detached
tenements for the sake of the comparative freedom which they allow from
disturbance by their neighbours. The information I received in Scotland
respecting the assemblages of single men, farm-servants, in houses
called boothies, showed that the effect was also extremely unfavourable
to their moral habits.
SKETCH OF A PLAN FOR A
PUBLIC LODGING HOUSE
[Illustration]
In some of the new towns in Germany it is considered advantageous, for
the sake of the circulation of air as well as for comfort and for
security against fire, to have each house detached by a small space from
its neighbours.
_Effects of Public Walks and Gardens on the Health and Morals of the
Lower Classes of the Population._
Whilst separation rather than aggregation, more especially for families,
is the course of policy suggested by experience for the places of
residence of the working-classes, accommodation is called for from every
part of the country for public walks or places of recreation. The
committee of physicians and surgeons of Birmingham state, in the course
of their report on the sanitary condition of the population of that,
town:—
“The want of some place of recreation for the mechanic is an evil
which presses very heavily upon these people, and to which many of
their bad habits may be traced. There are no public walks in or near
this town; no places where the working-people can resort for
recreation. The consequence is that they frequent the ale-houses and
skittle-alleys for amusement. Within the last half century the town
was surrounded by land which was divided into gardens, which were
rented by the mechanic at one guinea or half a guinea per annum. Here
the mechanic was generally seen after his day’s labour spending his
evening in a healthy and simple occupation, in which he took great
delight. This ground is now for the most part built over, and the
mechanics of the town are gradually losing this source of useful and
healthy recreation.”
_Mr. Mott_, in his report on the condition of the labouring population
of his district, observes, in respect to that in Manchester—
“There are circumstances attending the local position of Manchester
which might be urged in palliation of some of the habits of the
working classes.
“There are no public walks or places of recreation by which the
thousands of labourers or families can relieve the tedium of their
monotonous employment. Pent up in a close, dusty atmosphere from
half-past five or six o’clock in the morning till seven or eight
o’clock at night, from week to week, without change, without
intermission, it is not to be wondered at that they fly to the spirit
and beer-shops, and the dancing-houses, on the Saturday nights to seek
those, to them, pleasures and comforts which their own destitute and
comfortless homes deny.
“Manchester is singularly destitute of those resources which conduce
at once to health and recreation. With a teeming population, literally
overflowing her boundaries, she has no public walks or resorts, either
for the youthful or the adult portion of the community to snatch an
hour’s enjoyment.
“The prospect of obtaining any wide area to be appropriated as a
public walk or otherwise for the use of the labouring classes, becomes
more remote each year, as the value of the land within and in the
neighbourhood of the town increases.”
Mr. Joseph Strutt, of Derby, has presented to that town a public garden
of eleven acres, which has been so laid out by Mr. Loudon as to give the
advantages of a walk of two miles, and the interest afforded by an
arboretum, displaying the specimens of 1000 shrubs and plants. The plan
of laying out this public ground so as to make the most of the space,
appears to be one deserving of peculiar attention; and I have appended
to this report a copy with which I have been favoured. I am informed
that his Grace the Duke of Norfolk has expressed an intention, as soon
as some leases are out, to bestow 50 acres for the use of Sheffield as a
public garden.
Much evidence might be adduced from the experience of the effects of the
parks and other places of public resort in the metropolis, to prove the
importance of such provision for recreation, not less for the pleasure
they afford in themselves, than for their rivalry to pleasures that are
expensive, demoralizing, and injurious to the health. A benevolent
gentleman near Cambridge, who wished to arrest the debauchery and
demoralization promoted by a fair, and, if possible, to put an end to
the fair itself, instituted on the days when it was held, and at a
distance from it, a grand ploughing match, at which all persons of
respectability were invited to attend. This brought from the fair all
the young men whom it was desired to lead from it to a regulated and a
rational and beneficial entertainment, and thus, without force and at a
very trivial expense, the fair was suppressed by the quiet mode of
drawing away its profit.
On the holiday given at Manchester in celebration of Her Majesty’s
marriage, extensive arrangements were made for holding a chartist
meeting, and for getting up what was called a demonstration of the
working classes, which greatly alarmed the municipal magistrates. Sir
Charles Shaw, the Chief Commissioner of Police, induced the mayor to get
the Botanical Gardens, Zoological Gardens, and Museum of that town, and
other institutions thrown open to the working classes at the hour they
were urgently invited to attend the chartist meeting. The mayor
undertook to be personally answerable for any damage that occurred from
throwing open the gardens and institutions to the classes who had never
before entered them. The effect, was that not more than 200 or 300
people attended the political meeting, which entirely failed, and
scarcely 5_s._ worth of damage was done in the gardens or in the public
institutions by the workpeople, who were highly pleased. A further
effect produced was, that the charges before the police of drunkenness
and riot were on that day less than the average of cases on ordinary
days.
I have been informed of other instances of similar effects produced by
the spread of temperate pleasures on ordinary occasions, and their
rivalry to habits of drunkenness and gross excitement, whether mental or
sensual.
But want of open spaces for recreation is not confined to the town
population. In the rural districts the children and young persons of the
villages have frequently no other places for recreation than the dusty
road before their houses or the narrow and dirty lanes, and accidents
frequently take place from the playing of children on the public
highways. If they go into the fields they are trespassers, and injure
the farmer. The want of proper spaces as play-grounds for children is
detrimental to the morals as well as to the health in the towns, and it
probably is so generally. The very scanty spaces which the children,
both of the middle and the lower classes, the ill as well as the
respectably educated, can obtain, force all into one company to the
detriment of the better children, for it is the rude and boisterous who
obtain predominance. In the course of some investigations which I had
occasion to make into the causes of juvenile delinquency, there appeared
several cases of children of honest and industrious parents, who had
been entrapped by boys of bad character; I inquired how the more
respectable children became acquainted with the depraved; when it was
shown that in the present state of many crowded neighbourhoods all the
children of a court or of a street were forced to play, if they had any
play whatsoever, on such scraps of ground as they could get, and all
were brought into acquaintanceship, and the range of influence of the
depraved was extended. The condition of the children in large districts
where there are no squares, no gardens attached to the houses, and no
play-grounds even to their day-schools, and where they are of a
condition in life to be withheld from playing in the streets, is
pronounced to be a condition very injurious to their bodily development.
The progress of the evil in the rural districts has been, to some
extent, arrested by a beneficent standing order of the House of Commons,
that all Enclosure Bills shall include provision for a reserve of land
for the public use for recreation. For children, however, the most
important reservations would be those which could be made for
play-grounds in front of their homes, on plots where they may be under
the eye of their mothers or their neighbours. Where the cottages are
near a road, they should be some distance from it, with the gardens or
play-ground in front. The separate or distant play-grounds have many
inconveniences besides their being out of sight; and where they are far
distant, they are comparatively useless. I have great pleasure in being
enabled to testily that the instances are frequent where the regulated
resort to private pleasure-grounds, and parks has been indulgently given
for the recreation of the labouring population.
Amongst the instances of practical attention to the improvement of the
physical condition of labouring classes in the agricultural districts, I
may notice the following statement made to me by the late _Mr. Monck_ of
Coley House, Reading, who had bestowed much care upon the cottages on
his own estate. It comprehends the provision adverted to:—
“The care taken of these cottages and gardens,” said he, “afford an
excellent criterion of the character of the labourers. I have paid
especial attention to those labourers who have displayed cleanliness
and order; and I pay the most respect to those who have achieved a
situation of the greatest comfort, and keep themselves and their
houses cleanly, and their children tidy. Formerly the cottages were in
bad order, their pavements and windows were broken; I had them all
paved, and their windows glazed. I told the cottagers that I did not
like to see shabby, broken windows, with patches of paper and things
stuffed in, or broken pavements which they could not clean; and that I
disliked Irish filth and all Irish habits of living. I engaged, after
the cottages were thoroughly repaired, to pay 1_l._ a year for
repairing them. I undertook to make the repairs myself, and deduct the
expense from this 1_l._; but if no repairs were wanted, they were to
have the whole 1_l._ themselves. This course has, I find, formed
habits of care; and their cottages are now so well taken care of that
very little deduction is made annually from the 1_l._ Formerly they
used to chop wood carelessly on their pavements, and break them; now
they abstain from the practice, or do it in a careful manner, to avoid
losing the money. In the winter, I give them two score of fagots
towards their fuel. I have found that by this means I save my hedges
and fences, and am pecuniarily no loser, whilst pilfering habits are
repressed. Since the enclosures have been made, I think some place
should be provided for the exercise and recreation of the
working-classes, and especially for their children. I have set out
four acres at Oldworth as a play-ground for the children, or whoever
likes to play. They have now their cricket-matches, their
quoit-playing, and their revels there. Sheep and cows feed on it; so
that it is no great loss to me. I let it for 4_l._ a-year to a man, on
condition that he cuts the hedges and keeps it neat. I have surrounded
it with a double avenue of trees. The sheep and cows do good to the
ground, as they keep the grass under, which allows the ball to run. I
give prizes to the boys at the school, which is maintained by the
cottagers themselves, and to which I contribute nothing but the prizes
for reading, writing, and knitting.
“Many persons accuse the poor of ingratitude, but I find them the most
grateful people alive for these little attentions; and what do they
all cost me? why not more altogether than the keep of one fat
coach-horse.”
VII.—RECOGNISED PRINCIPLES OF LEGISLATION AND STATE OF THE EXISTING LAW
FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH.
The evidence already given will, to some extent, have furnished answers
to the question—how far the physical evils by which the health, and
strength, and morals of the labouring classes are depressed may be
removed, or can reasonably be expected to be removed by private and
voluntary exertions. I now submit for consideration the facts which
serve to show how far the aid of the legislature, and of administrative
arrangements are requisite for the attainment of the objects in
question.
It will have been perceived, that the first great remedies, external
arrangements, _i. e._ efficient drainage, sewerage and cleansing of
towns, come within the acknowledged province of the legislature. Public
opinion has of late required legislative interference for the regulation
of some points of the internal economy of certain places of work, and
the appointment of special agents to protect young children engaged in
certain classes of manufactures from mental deterioration from the
privation of the advantages of education, and from permanent bodily
deterioration from an excess of labour beyond their strength. Claims are
now before Parliament for an extension of the like remedies to other
classes of children and to young persons, who are deemed to be in the
same need of protection. The legislature has interfered to put an end to
one description of employment which was deemed afflicting and degrading,
i. e. that of climbing-boys for sweeping chimneys, and to force a better
means of performing by machinery the same work. It will be seen that it
has been the policy of the legislature to interfere for the public
protection by regulating the structure of private dwellings to prevent
the extension of fires; and the common law has also interposed to
protect the public health by preventing overcrowding in private
tenements. The legislature has recently interfered to direct the poorer
description of tenements in the metropolis to be properly cleansed. On
considering the evidence before given with relation to the effects of
different, classes of buildings, the suggestion immediately arises as to
the extent to which it is practicable to protect the health of the
labouring classes by measures for the amendment of the existing
buildings, and for the regulation of new buildings in towns in the great
proportion of cases where neither private benevolence nor enlightened
views can be expected to prevail extensively.
It will have been perceived how much of the existing evils originate
from the defects of the external arrangements for drainage, and for
cleansing, and for obtaining supplies of water. Until these are
completed, therefore, the force of the evils arising from the
construction of the houses could scarcely be ascertained.
The experience of legislation available for England for the regulation
of buildings is chiefly confined to the Metropolitan Building Act. The
provisions of that Act were directed simply to the prevention of the
spread of fires by requiring that party-walls should be built so as to
prevent the spread of fires, by confining them to the houses where the
fires occur. In this object it is in most instances successful. Wherever
a fire spreads beyond the single dwelling in the metropolis, it is
usually found either that the provisions of the Act have been evaded,
the walls being of the required thickness but rotten in substance, or
that omissions have occurred from default of notice, or from neglect of
the district surveyor. Out of the jurisdiction of the Act, the instances
are frequent where fires spread from the want of party-walls. The
erection of party-walls is good economy as a matter of insurance, for
each house is thereby confined to its own risks, instead of having the
additional risks of each of the contiguous houses, and perhaps of two or
three houses beyond them. If there were any point on which _à priori_
legislative interference might be thought unnecessary it would be this,
on which the self-interest of the parties, for their own protection,
would ensure attention. Yet the immediate interest of the builder in
getting buildings erected at the lowest cost, or the want of foresight
on the part of the owner himself, has caused extensive masses of
buildings to be run up in the suburbs of the metropolis, and in
provincial towns, without any such protection. Whilst this Report was in
preparation I was informed of the destruction by fire of several
contiguous houses at Oxford that were without party-walls. But
party-walls are only one provision against fire; the omissions of other
necessary precautions are fearfully extensive, especially in warehouses
and buildings of a magnitude too great for the fire to be restrained by
party-walls, or to prevent fire catching the adjacent buildings whenever
it occurs.
One, however, I may advert to, as connected with the provisions
necessary for the improvement of the sanitary condition of a town
population. It has been shown that the cheapest mode of street cleansing
is by supplies of water, which it would be necessary to use from
standing pipes. By the Street Act, the parish officers are directed to
provide standing pipes for the supply of engines in case of fire. This
regulation is declared to be almost a dead letter. The only means to
obtain supplies of water in the case of fire are from the plugs provided
by the water companies themselves for cleansing the pipes by
occasionally allowing the water to flow into the streets. It has been
proved to be practicable without any considerable cost to keep up, at
all times, such a pressure of water as on putting on a hose on any
standing pipe connected with the service, to enable the water to be
thrown over the highest houses. The fronts of houses in London have, in
some instances, been washed by this means, and in one instance it was
immediately and successfully applied to extinguish a fire. A large
proportion of houses are destroyed or seriously injured before engines
can be brought to the spot or water obtained. During the last four years
the fires in London have been more than 600 per annum. If each fire on
the average incurred a loss of 500_l._, the total loss annually would
exceed the total cost of the supplies of water for the whole of the
metropolis to the inhabitants, which, according to returns made to
Parliament in the year 1834, amounted to 276,200_l._ The superintendent
of the police at Liverpool estimated the average loss by fires in that
town during eight years at a much greater amount before a better system
of prevention was established. The cost of keeping the water always on
in the mains is so inconsiderable that it was voluntarily proferred by a
competing company in the metropolis, as an advantageous arrangement to
save the expense of water-tanks in private houses. I have high practical
authority for stating that the arrangement for keeping the water on the
mains for street cleansing, for washing the footways as well as the
carriage-ways, and, when necessary, for washing the fronts of the
houses, would also serve, at an inconsiderable expense, as the most
efficient means of extinguishing fires. Instead of the general loss of a
considerable part of an hour’s time before intelligence can be
dispatched and the distant fire-engines be got to the spot, in a few
minutes, or as soon as the flexible pipe in daily use could be screwed
on the main, a supply of water as powerful as that from any engine might
be brought to bear upon the fire. An extensive saving of life and
property, and of well-grounded alarm, might thus be added to the train
of benefits derivable from systematised arrangements for the cleansing
of towns and the prevention of epidemics.
The provisions of the old Building Acts afford no sanitary securities,
but in connexion with the provisions respecting sewerage they afford
examples of what would be the effect of any measure which shall be
either unequally applied as to the jurisdiction, or unequally
administered.
The attention of the Board has several times been directed to the
sickness prevalent amongst the working classes in various parts of the
Kensington union. Having had occasion to inquire into the subject, I
found that nearly all the illness occurred in premises run up by
inferior speculating builders out of the jurisdiction of the commissions
of sewers, or of the district surveyors; that they were built on
undrained spots, with walls not more than one brick thick; and that the
immediate expenditure for protective or sanitary purposes had thus been
extensively evaded. On carrying the inquiry further, it became apparent
that the limits of the jurisdiction of the commissioners of sewers, and
the limits of the jurisdiction of the district surveyors around the
metropolis, mark the commencement of buildings of an inferior character,
built without drains, without the security from party-walls, and without
proper means of cleansing. (_Vide_ Appendix, the evidence of Mr. Gutch,
district surveyor.) Under the peculiar circumstances of the country,
towns may arise and the old evils may be implanted before any old
district would probably be taken to include them. For example, the town
of Old Kingston is tolerably well drained and healthy; on the completion
of the railway a new town was suddenly run up by building speculators,
called New Kingston, built out of the jurisdiction of Old Kingston, but
without any adequate under-drainage, on a soil retentive of moisture,
and with streets unpaved and covered with mud; it is reported as a
consequence that fever has been rife in New Kingston, whilst Old
Kingston is comparatively free from it.
If any one had to erect forty or fifty fourth-rate tenements near the
metropolis, by shifting them beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of
the district surveyor, he would nearly gain one house by the saving of
fees alone in the ordinary mode of remunerating such officers.
All the information as to the actual condition of the most crowded
districts is corroborative of the apprehensions entertained by witnesses
of practical experience, such as Mr. Thomas Cubitt and other builders,
who are favourable to measures for the improvement of the condition of
the labouring classes, that anything of the nature of a Building Act
that is not equally and skillfully administered will aggravate the evils
intended to be remedied. To whatever districts regulations are confined,
the effect proved to be likely to follow will be, that the builder of
tenements which stand most in need of regulation will be driven over the
boundary, and will run up his habitations before measures can be taken
to include them. The condition of the workman will be aggravated by the
increased fatigue and exposure to weather in traversing greater
distances to sleep in a badly-built, thin, and damp house. An increase
of distance from his place of work will have the more serious effect
upon his habits by rendering it impracticable to take his dinner with
his family, compelling him either to take it in some shed or at the beer
shop. It is also apprehended that anything that may be done to increase
unnecessarily or seriously the cost of new buildings, or discourage
their erection, will aggravate the horrors of the overcrowding of the
older tenements; at the same time, the certain effect of an immediate
and unprepared dislodgement of a cellar population, would be to
overcrowd the upper portions of the houses where they reside. It would
indeed often be practicable to make those cellars as habitable as are
the cellars inhabited by servants in the houses of the middle and higher
classes of society. The difficulties which beset such regulations do not
arise from the want of means to pay any necessary increase of rents for
increased accommodation, but in the very habits which afford evidence of
the existence of the sufficiency of the means of payment.
For practical legislation on the subject of increased charges on
tenements, the labourers must be considered to be in a state of penury,
and ready to shift from bad to worse for the avoidance of the slightest
charges, and therefore to be approached with the greatest caution.
But there are other elements which it is proper to note as increasing
the tendency to evade immediate charges even for benefits.
The increasing tendency to carry on manufacturing as well as commercial
operations for small profits on large outlays will probably occasion the
subject of the rents of labourers’ tenements in manufacturing districts
to be more closely considered as part of the cost of production than it
has hitherto been. The whole of the consequences cannot distinctly be
foreseen, further than that it will probably occasion a reduction of
high ground-rents, or the abandonment of particular districts which are
now the seats of some descriptions of manufacture. In the course of an
examination of the condition of the working population of Macclesfield,
which I was requested to aid, it was complained that much work was put
out to a rural district at a few miles distance from the town. On
inquiring as to the cause, it was answered, that the weavers in the
rural district were enabled to do the work at a reduced price, but at
the same real wages in consequence of reduced rents. The following
examination, however, displays the element indicated:—
_Mr. Shatwell_, relieving officer, examined—
“What is the common amount of rent paid by weavers in Macclesfield and
the adjacent districts?—A weaver cannot get, in Macclesfield, a proper
house for his loom, with due lights, for less than 10_l._ a-year. In
Hazel Grove and other places, he may get them for 2_l._ or 3_l._
less—for about 7_l._—with a small garden attached, worth at least
20_s._ a-year more.
“What difference in price do you think would induce a manufacturer to
send goods to Hazel Grove in preference to Macclesfield?—A farthing a
yard, as that difference might make the difference in his profit.
“How many yards will a weaver weave in the week?—They calculate that a
good weaver will weave 12 yards a-day, or an average of 60 yards
a-week.
“Since 1_s._ 3_d._ a-week, or a farthing a yard, will make the
difference in profit, will not the difference in rent enable the
weaver to make that difference in price and yet obtain the same net
amount of wages?—Precisely so.
“So that a manufacturer who employs 1000 hands at a low-rented place,
3_l._ or 4_l._ a-year cheaper, such as Hazel Grove, if he obtain the
difference of rent as profit, will obtain a profit of 3,000_l._ or
4,000_l._ per annum?—Certainly.
“The cost of building and building materials being nearly the same in
Macclesfield and such a place as Hazel Grove, does not the difference
in rent consist chiefly in the difference of ground-rent?—Yes.”
If in all instances, as in the last, better as well as cheaper
residences, with gardens attached, were likely to be the result of the
commercial operation to the workmen, the change were, of course, to be
desired. But it is to be feared that it may often be otherwise than a
competition of comforts, unless timely security be taken against its
being otherwise by appropriate legislative measures, which indeed were
necessary for the due protection of the ratepayers against the pecuniary
consequences of the disease and destitution undoubtedly occasioned by
such tenements as are thus described by _Mr. Mott_:—
“An immense number of the small houses occupied by the poorer classes
in the suburbs of Manchester are of the most superficial character;
they are built by the members of building clubs, and other
individuals, and new cottages are erected with a rapidity that
astonishes persons who are unacquainted with their flimsy structure.
They have certainly avoided the objectionable mode of forming
underground dwellings, but have run into the opposite extreme, having
neither cellar nor foundation. The walls are only half brick thick, or
what the bricklayers call ‘brick noggin,’ and the whole of the
materials are slight and unfit for the purpose. I have been told of a
man who had built a row of these houses; and on visiting them one
morning after a storm, found the whole of them levelled with the
ground; and in another part of Manchester, a place with houses even of
a better order has obtained the appellation of ‘Pickpocket-row,’ from
the known insecure and unsubstantial nature of the buildings. I
recollect a bricklayer near London complaining loudly of having to
risk his credit by building a house with nine-inch walls, and declared
it would be like ‘Jack Straw’s House,’ neither ‘wind nor water tight:’
his astonishment would have been great had he been told that thousands
of houses occupied by the labouring classes are erected with walls of
4½ inch thickness. The chief rents differ materially according to the
situation, but are in all cases high; and thus arises the inducement
to pack the houses so close. They are built back to back, without
ventilation or drainage; and, like a honeycomb, every particle of
space is occupied. Double rows of these houses form courts, with,
perhaps, a pump at one end and a privy at the other, common to the
occupants of about twenty houses.”
Whilst there is the new element of this extreme rapidity of construction
to accommodate demands for labour, the increasing rapidity of the
conveyance of goods and information is manifestly loosening the ties of
the manufacturer to particular neighbourhoods. Whilst looms have been
idle in Spitalfields on disputes on scale-prices, or from hesitation as
to comply with the requisite changes of modes of working, I am informed
that large quantities of work have been taken away, executed in the new
neighbourhoods, and returned at reduced prices to the London markets. In
the instance of Macclesfield, it is shown that neither foresight nor
considerations of the expediency of a reduction operates on the
speculating owners of tenements occupied by workmen in towns, or even on
the other ratepayers, (who bear the burdens of the sickness and
mortality, and pay extravagant rates, which are incident to them); nor
can the operation of a wise self-interest be relied upon to avert the
tendency to the dispersion of work, and the multiplication of
ill-conditioned and ultimately burdensome tenements. The following
evidence supplies additional illustration of this state of things:—
_John Wilson_, relieving officer.
Are you acquainted with the cottage property in Macclesfield?—Yes, I
am; as an assistant overseer, I see that the rates are collected.
Are there in Macclesfield many large owners of cottage tenements?—The
number of owners of property in Macclesfield is about 1000; of these
about 300 receive incomes from cottage property, some of those only
one, others only two. The chief owner owns about 200 cottages; the
next owns about two streets or 45 cottages. One man owns about 180.
Do you receive rates from these cottages?—From the cottages belonging
to these large holders we get no rates.
How is it that you obtain no rates from these classes of
cottages?—Because they are tenanted by the lowest class of persons who
have nothing in their houses from which we could recover the rates.
What are the rents paid from these cottages?—The rents vary from 1_s._
to 2_s._ 8_d._ each house. The average would be about 2_s._ a-week.
What would be the amount of rates on this cottage property if payment
were enforced?—From the 1_s._ a-week cottages the rates would be 6_s._
per annum; from the others, 12_s._ per annum. Last quarter there were
nearly 300 people excused; and the total amount lost for rates excused
and houses empty was 900_l._
What proportion does that bear to the whole rates for the quarter or
for the year?—The loss for the year would be 1800_l._, and the rate
last year was 8726_l._; the amount collected was 5900_l._; but the
arrear of the former year would be in round numbers about 2000_l._
more.
Is the tenantry of these cottages a fluctuating tenantry?—Yes, very
much so.
Are these tenements taken on the expectation that the rates will be
excused?—Yes; in many cases they are told when objecting to the
payment of the rent that they will have no rates to pay.
Considering the qualities of the tenements, are the rents charged
really high rents?—Yes, they are.
Are they such rents, as would justify the levy or the deduction of
rates from the proprietor, comparing them with the rents paid for good
property?—Yes, they are such rents; the house which I live in, and for
which I pay rates, and pay 8_l._ a-year rent, is a house of three
rooms on a floor, two floors, detached yard, and every convenience;
whilst cottages of a very inferior description, with two rooms only on
a floor, are as high rented and pay no rates.
Are the rents from the inferior tenements rigorously exacted?—Yes,
they are.
Are the occupants of these houses frequently applicants for parochial
relief?—Yes, they are.
Do any numbers of them receive relief?—Yes, they do.
What is the average amount of weekly out-door relief given to the
recipients?—Perhaps about 3_s._
Then the average relief is of the average amount of the rent of the
tenements you describe?—Yes; and I have no doubt that much of the
relief has gone to pay rent.
If the rates were duly exacted, do you think it must follow that the
unduly high rents must be lowered in proportion?—Yes, they must.
If the landlords were compelled to pay the rates, what would be the
saving to the town?—1_s._ in the pound.
And no additional burden cast on the labouring classes?—No material
additional burden.
Of course the diminution of out-door relief would diminish the means
of unduly paying high rents?—Certainly, it would.
The sanitary condition of many of these dwellings is described in the
reports of Mr. Bland, the medical officer already quoted.
It may hereafter excite surprise, that the labouring classes have
hitherto been left exposed to such influences as those described in the
last evidence, and in the evidence previously cited, as to the
pernicious operation of exemptions from payments of rates on the parties
intended to be benefited.
My inquiries into the effects of the administration of the old poor law
brought before me numerous instances of such devastation, the effects of
which would not be obliterated during the lives of a generation.
Examples might also be presented of the deterioration of property by the
irruptions of an ill-regulated population by the running up of undrained
and badly-constructed dwellings in the finest suburbs of the metropolis,
and other towns throughout the country. Any regulations of the nature of
Building Acts confined to towns, or to particular districts, or that
were unequally or oppressively administered, must powerfully tend to
increase such evils to the labouring classes, to the ratepayers, and to
the owners of all suburban property.
Frequent opportunities are, however, presented and commonly lost for the
erection of improved tenements for the use of the labouring classes, on
the occasion of taking down old tenements and erecting new ones to form
new streets, under the authority of Buildings’ and Towns’ Improvement
Acts. It is usually assumed that the general effect of the “clearances,”
as they are called, occasioned by the formation of new streets, though
attended with the present inconvenience of disturbing the occupants, is
ultimately of unmixed advantage, by driving them into new and better
tenements in the suburbs. I have endeavoured to ascertain by inquiries,
with the aid of the relieving officers, how far the assumption is
justified by the experience of such alterations as have been already
made in some of the crowded districts of the metropolis, by taking down
inferior tenements to form new streets.
It is found to be difficult to trace the individuals of a population so
removed, and the inquiries on the subject are incomplete; but they tend
to show that the working people make considerable sacrifices to avoid
being driven to a distance from their places of work; that the poorest
struggle against removal to a distance from the opportunities of
charitable donations; and that where new habitations are not opened to
them in the immediate vicinity, every effort is made by biddings of rent
to gain lodgings in the nearest and poorest of the old tenements. To the
extent to which the displaced labourers succeed in getting lodgings in
the same neighbourhood, as a large proportion of them certainly do, the
existing evils are merely shifted, and, by being shifted, they are
aggravated. On a survey of the newly-built houses in the suburbs to
which displaced labourers can go, it appears that the labourer, to use
the expression of Dr. Ferriar, is almost “driven to hire disease,” for
if he do not find any lodging near his place of work, he is driven to a
choice amongst tenements of the character of those found in the parts of
Kensington out of the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Building Act,
without sewers or drains, without water or proper conveniences on the
premises, without pavements or means of cleansing the streets; where
exorbitant rents are levied, where adequate means of moral or religious
instruction are yet unprovided, and where they will neither gain in
health nor in morals.
On reference to such past experience it appears to suggest itself as an
expedient arrangement, that on the removal of old tenements and the
occupation of the old ground by building new houses and streets for a
superior class of tenants, or for public buildings, some provision
should be made against the aggravation of the existing evils as respects
the old occupants; that it should be required to be shown, for example,
that appropriate unoccupied tenements are in the market, and on failure
to do so, provisions might be made (on the principle of those provided
for preserving accommodation for the labouring classes in enclosure
bills) for the construction of appropriate tenements, in which qualities
of the nature of those described by Mr. Sydney Smirke might be ensured.
If the attention and power by which large public alterations are
obtained were, at the same time, directed to the construction of new
dwellings for the labouring classes, instead of spreading existing
evils, all such alterations might certainly, and at remunerative though
not at increased rents, be made the means of greatly improving the
condition of those who stand in the greatest need of attention and aid
for improvement.
The most important immediate general measure of the nature of a Building
Act, subsidiary to measures for drainage, would be a measure for
regulating the increments of towns, and preventing the continued
reproduction in new districts of the evils which have depressed the
health and the condition of whole generations in the older districts.
Regulations of the _sites_ of town buildings have comparatively little
effect on the cost of construction, and it may in general be said that a
Building Act would effect what any enlightened owner of a district would
effect for himself, of laying it out with a view to the most permanent
advantage; or what the separate owners would effect for themselves if
they had the power of co-operation, or if each piece of work were
governed by enlarged public and private views. Had Sir Christopher Wren
been permitted to carry out his plan for the rebuilding of London after
the great fire, there is little doubt that it would have been the most
advantageous arrangement for rendering the whole space more productive,
as a property to the great mass of the separate interests, by whom the
improvement was defeated. The most successful improvements effected in
the metropolis by opening new lines of street, and the greater number of
the openings projected are approximations at an enormous expense to the
plan which he laid down. The larger towns present instances of
obstructions of the free current of air even through the principal
streets, and of deteriorations which a little foresight and the exercise
of an impartial authority would have prevented. In one increasing town,
a builder made a successful money speculation by purchasing such plots
of ground as would enable him to erect impediments and extort
compensation for their removal from the path of improvements in
building. The improvements affecting whole towns are also frequently
frustrated by the active jealousies of the occupants of rival streets.
It would appear to be possible to provide an impartial authority to
obtain and, on consultation with the parties locally interested, to
settle plans for regulating the future growth of towns, by laying down
the most advantageous lines for occupation with due protection of the
landowners’ interest. The most serious omissions in the building of
common houses are so frequently oversights as to make it probable, that
if it were required that a plan of any proposed building should be
deposited with a trustworthy officer, with a specification of the
arrangements intended for the attainment of the essential objects, such
as cleansing and ventilation, the mere preparation of the document would
of itself frequently lead to the detection of grievous defects. An
examination of Mr. Loudon’s specification of the requisites of cottages
will show that a large proportion of the most important of these are
independent of the cost of construction.
_General State of the Law for the Protection of the Public Health._
In a work which is considered in Germany the chief authority in respect
to the extensive administrative duties comprehended under the term
police,[41] the author, Professor Mohl, of Tubingen, in speaking of the
sanitary police of towns, observes, that “Medical police is both in
theory and practice essentially German. In German states only, as
Austria and Prussia, has anything been done in it systematically; the
literature also of medical police is almost entirely German. Other
states either do nothing at all, as England, the United States of
America, or only very imperfectly, as France; where anything is done,
German principles and arrangements are closely imitated.”
It is stated that some of the new towns and the new parts of the old
towns in Germany, as in Stuttgard, Manheim, Darmstadt, exhibit striking
marks of this care in the comparative structure and arrangements of the
houses, and in the general administration, with a view to the health and
pleasure of the population, which is sometimes impressively displayed in
the superior condition of the public walks and gardens, as at Frankfort
and Baden-Baden. The professor’s reproach is, however, scarcely
applicable to the substantive English law, or to the early
constitutional arrangements in which are found extensive and useful
provisions, and complete principles for the protection of the public
health.
1st. So much of the structural arrangements as depended on drainage was
provided for by the Commissions of Sewers, who were invested with
valuable powers by the statute 23d Hen. VIII, cap. 5, s. 1; the
authority of these Commissions “to be directed into all parts within
this realm where need shall require, according to the form ensuing, to
such substantial persons as shall be named by the Lord Chancellor and
Lord Treasurer, and the two chief justices, or by three of them, whereof
the Lord Chancellor to be one,” to cause “to be made, corrected or
repaired, amended, put down or reformed, as the case shall require,
walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, gates, cullices, bridges,
streams, and other defences by the coasts of the sea and marsh ground.”
2dly. The ancillary arrangements as to road cleansing as well as road
structure, were provided for by the highway laws, including the
provisions of the 5th Eliz. c. 13, s. 7, for the cleansing of the
ditches, &c.
The common law provided general remedies for the redress of injuries,
under the comprehensive title nuisance (_nocumentum_), meaning anything
by which the health or the personal safety, or the conveniences of the
subject might be endangered or affected injuriously. By the law as it
now stands, the subject is entitled to protection against things which
are offensive to the senses, from which no injury to the health or other
injury can be proved than the often overlooked but serious injury of
discomfort, of daily annoyance, as by matters offensive to the sight, as
by allowing blood to flow in the streets; by filth, by offensive smells,
and by noises. The injuries termed nuisances were threefold,—first,
public or general; second, common; third, private. “Public is that which
is a nuisance to the whole realm; common is that which is to the common
nuisance of all passing by; private is that which is to a house or mill,
&c.” 2 Institute, 406. A common nuisance is defined to be an offence
against the public “either by doing a thing which tends to the annoyance
of all the king’s subjects, or by neglecting to do a thing which the
common good requires.” Hawk, p. 1. c. 107, c. 75, f. 1. For the private
injury there was the remedy by civil action; for the common and the
public injuries, the remedy was by indictment.
The common-law obligation upon all owners of property has, in general,
been adhered to by the superior courts. “_Prohibetur ne quis faciet in
suo quod nocere possit alieno; et sic utere tuo ut alienum non lædas._”
9 Co. Rep. 58.
Thus, it is held to be a common nuisance and indictable to divide a
messuage in a town for poor people to inhabit, by which it will be more
dangerous in time of infection. 2 Roll’s Abridgment, 139. Such
indictment of one Brown for dividing a messuage in the village of
Hertford was held good, and he was put to plead to it; and it was then
said that such indictments are frequent in London for dividing of
messuages.
The policy of the common law was endeavoured to be enforced by the
statute of the 31st of Eliz. c. 7, which provided that there should not
be any inmate or more families or households than one dwelling or
inhabiting in any one cottage, made or to be made or created, upon pain
that every owner or occupier of such cottage, placing or wilfully
suffering any such inmate or other family than one, should forfeit
10_s._ for every month that such inmate or other family than one should
dwell in it. The statute provided that no cottage should for the future
be built without four acres at the least of land attached to it. But
this provision did not extend to cottages in towns, or for mineral
works, navigation, sheep cotes, &.c. From the number of decisions in the
books, it would appear that the provisions of the statute were
extensively enforced against the overcrowding of the tenements, but the
obligation for attaching the four acres of land impeded the erection of
new tenements, and occasioned inconvenience and led to the repeal of the
whole statute, by the 15th Geo. III. cap. 32.
In a temporary Act passed in the 35th of Eliz. cap. c., for the
reforming of the great mischiefs and inconveniences that “daily grow and
increase by reason of the pestering of houses with divers families
harbouring of inmates,” that occurred in the city of London and
Westminster, it is recited that the practice had been productive of
“great infection of sickness.” This effect could scarcely have failed to
be perceived when the plague was so frequent and dreadful in its
visitations. The exemption from it is ascribed to such widening of the
streets and improvements of the houses as took place after the Fire of
London.
But we apprehend that the common-law remedy still remains in force as
against the owners of tenements which are a nuisance. It was decided in
the case of the King _v._ Pedley, temp. 1834, 1st Adolphus and Ellis,
822:—
“That if the owner of land erect a building which is a nuisance, or of
which the occupation is likely to produce a nuisance, and let the land,
he is liable to an indictment for such nuisance being continued or
created during the term.
“So he is if he let a building which requires particular care to prevent
the occupation from being a nuisance, and the nuisance occur for want of
such care on the part of the tenant.
“That if a party buy the reversion during a tenancy, and the tenant
afterwards during his term erect a nuisance, the reversioner is not
liable for it; but if such reversioner relet, or having an opportunity
to determine the tenancy omit to do so, allowing the nuisance to
continue, he is liable for such continuance. Per Littledale, J.
“And such purchaser is liable to be indicted for the continuing of the
nuisance if the original reversioner would have been liable, though the
purchaser has had no opportunity of putting an end to the tenant’s
interest or abating the nuisance.”
The stopping of wholesome air is held to be a nuisance as well as the
stopping of the light. Co. 9 Will., Aldred, 57. In the case of Lewes
_v._ Keene, Trin. Term. Jac. Rex, it was held by the court—“that the
light which cometh in by the windowes, being an essential part of the
house, by which he hath three great commodities, that is to say, air for
his health, light for his profit, prospect for his pleasure, may not be
taken away no more than a part of his house may be pulled down, whereby
to erect the next house adjoining. And with this resolution agreeth the
case of Eldred, reported by Sir Edw. Coke, in his Ninth Report, fol. 58,
where he showeth the ancient form of the action upon the case to be
_quod messuagium horrida tenebritate obscuratum facit_; but if there be
hinderance only of the prospect by the new erected house, and not of the
air, not of the light, then an action of the case will not lye, insomuch
that the prospect is only a matter of delight, and not of necessity.”
The corruption of the water is an offence at common law, and was early
the subject of a statutory provision. In the earlier periods the power
of the legislature was directly exercised for the abatement of
nuisances. I am favoured by the following illustrations from a
collection of records upon the subject made by _Mr. T. D. Hardy_, of the
Record Office in the Tower:—
The first extract shows that sea-coal was in use in London much earlier
than is commonly supposed:—
“_Patent Roll_, 16 Edw. 1.—The king to his beloved and faithful Thomas
de Weylaund, John de Luvetot, John de Cobeham, and Ralph de Sandwico,
custos of his city of London, greeting: From the complaint of many
persons, we understand that many people are dangerously aggrieved by
the furnaces of lime which are built in the said city and its suburbs,
and in Southwark; because the lime which formerly used to be burnt
with wood, is now burnt with sea coal, by which the air there is
affected and corrupted, to the great danger of persons frequenting
those parts and dwelling around them: we, therefore, being willing to
afford a fitting remedy for this, have appointed you to see those
furnaces, and remove the danger and nuisances which threaten from them
in these days, and to order further concerning them according to your
discretion, as you shall see most expedient for the common use and
safety; and therefore we command you, that taking with you our
sheriffs of London and our bailiffs of Southwark, you perform the
premises with diligence. We have also commanded the same sheriffs and
bailiffs that at a certain day, which you shall make known to them,
they attend to this with you, in form aforesaid. Witness, Edmund Earl
of Cornwall, at Westminster, on the 26th day of May.”
“A.D. 1290, 18 Edw. I.—The Carmelite Friars of London, the
Friars-preachers, the Bishop of Salisbury, and others, petition
Parliament to abate a nuisance (viz. a great stench) near them which
they cannot endure, and which prevents them from performing their
religious duties, and from which several of the monks had died.
(Petit, in Parl. 18 Edw. I.)
“35 Edw. I.—The mayor of London is commanded to prevent persons from
lighting furnaces near the Tower of London during the stay of the
Queen and the nobles at the tower, because the air is corrupted and
infection generated by the insalubrity of the air on account of the
said furnaces. (Rot. claus. 35 Edw. I.)
“A.D. 1320, 14 Edw. II.—The inhabitants of the neighbourhood of
Smithfield complain to Parliament that wells and ditches are dug there
without the king’s license, to the annoyance of the inhabitants and
passengers. The mayor and corporation of London are thereupon ordered
to see that such nuisances are abated. (Petit, in Parl. 14 Edw. II.)
“A.D. 1330, 4 Edw. III.—The chancellor and University of Cambridge
petition Parliament that the mayor and corporation of Cambridge may be
constrained to scour the ditch of the town, which is injurious to the
health of the inhabitants of the town. (Petit, in Parl. 4 Edw. III.)
“44 Edw. III.—The butchers of London are forbidden to slaughter cattle
within that city, or throw entrails into the river Thames, on
forfeiture of the carcase and imprisonment. (Rot. claus. 44 Edw. III.)
“A.D. 1370, 3 Rich. II.—The inhabitants of Smithfield and Holborn
complain of the infection of the air from butchers slaughtering
cattle, &c., and casting entrails into the ditches. (Petit, in Parl. 3
Rich. II.)
“By stat. 12th Rich. II. c. 13.—None shall cast any garbage or dung or
filth into ditches, waters, or other places within or near any city or
town, on pain of punishment by the Lord Chancellor at his discretion.
“Butchers of London shall erect a slaughter-house on the banks of the
Thames, and thither carry off their offals, which, when cut into
pieces, shall be carried in boats, and at the commencement of the ebb
cast into the river. (Rot. Parl. 16 Rich. II.)
“A.D. 1392, 16 Rich. II.—It is enacted that the butchers of London
shall not slaughter therein any swine or other beasts for sale. (Rot.
Parl. 16 Rich. II.)
“Same date.—All filth, &c. ordered by Parliament to be removed from
both banks of the Thames between the palace of Westminster and the
power of London; and butchers or others are prohibited from casting
entrails, &c. into the river on penalty of 40_l._ (Ibid.)
“Parliament forbids all persons from throwing dung, garbage, or
entrails of slaughtered beasts into rivers or waters near cities or
towns to corrupt the air and cause infection. (Rot. claus. 4 Hen. IV.)
“The Chancellor is authorized to treat touching the non-rebuilding of
two forges in Fleet-street, London, demolished in a riot, as
straitening the said street.” (Rot. Parl. 18 Hen. VI.)
We find the authority of Parliament exercised in the reign of Henry VII.
to restrain a nuisance. In the 4th of his reign, c. 3.
“Item, it was shewed by a petition put to the king, our said sovereign
lord, in the said Parliament, by his subjects and parishioners of the
parish of St. Faith’s and St. Gregory’s in London, near adjoining unto
the cathedral church of St. Paul’s, that whereas great concourse of
people as well of his royal person as of other great lords and states
with other his true subjects, oftentimes was had unto the said
cathedral church, and that for the most part throughout the parishes
aforesaid the which oftentimes been greatly annoyed and distempered by
corrupt airs engendered in the said parishes, by occasion of blood and
other foulis things by reason of the slaughter of beasts and scalding
of swine, had and done in the butchery of St. Nicholas’s flesh
shambles, whose corruption and foul ordure by violence of unclean,
corrupt, and putrefied waters is borne down through the said parishes,
&c., complaint whereof at many and divers seasons also by the space of
sixteen years continually, as well by canons and petty canons of the
said cathedral church, landlords there, as also by many other of the
king’s subjects, of right honest behaviour, hath been made unto divers
mayors and aldermen of the City of London and no remedy had ne found;
that it may please our said sovereign lord of his abundant grace, to
provide for the conservation as well of his most royal person, as to
succour his poor subjects and suppliants in this behalf, considering
that in few noble cities and towns, or none within Christendon,
whereat travelling men have laboured, the common slaughter-house of
beasts should be kept in any special part within the walls of the
same, lest it might engender sickness unto the destruction of the
people.”
Therefore it is enacted that butchers shall not slay beasts within the
walls of London; and that this law be observed in every walled town
“except Berwick and Carlisle.”
The courts, however, have always had regard to the convenience of trade:
thus it was held,—
“Si homme fait candells deins un vill, per qui il cause un noysom sent
al inhabitants, uncore ceo nest ascun nusans car le _needfulness_ de
eux dispensera ove le noisomness del _smell_.” (2 Roll’s Abr. 139.)
But this decision has been doubted, “Because,” says Serjeant Hawkins,
Pl. Cor. 190, c. 75, “whatever necessity there may be that candles be
made, it cannot be pretended to be necessary to make them in a town, and
that the trade of a brewer is as necessary as that of a chandler; and
yet it seems to be agreed that a brewhouse erected in such an
inconvenient place where the business cannot be carried on without
incommoding greatly the neighbourhood may be indicted as a common
nuisance. A presentment was made to a Leet for erecting a glass-house;
and Twisden, J., said he had known an information adjudged against one
for erecting a brewhouse near Serjeants’ Inn; but it was insisted that a
man ought not to be punished for erecting anything necessary for the
exercise of his lawful trade; and it being answered that it ought to be
in convenient places where it may not be a nuisance, the other justices
doubted, and agreed that it was unlawful only to erect such things near
the King’s palace.” Vent. 26, Pasch. 21, Car. 2. Recently, however, when
some architects and medical gentlemen went to the top of Buckingham
Palace to examine it preparatory to its occupation by Her Majesty, they
were assailed by a cloud of smoke from the chimney of the furnace of a
neighbouring brewery; and the nuisance remains to the present time in
full force, notwithstanding the statutory provisions against it.
Where the defendant in his business as a printer employed a
steam-engine, which produced a continued noise and vibration in the
plaintiff’s apartment which adjoined the premises of the defendant, this
was held to be a nuisance. The Duke of Northumberland _v._ Clowes, C.
P., at Westminster, A.D., 1824.
The earlier sanitary regulations were frequently set forth in the
provisions of the local Acts for the regulation of the streets. From the
early street regulations of the city of London, we find that the purity
of the river and of the contributary streams was zealously regarded; the
ward inquests were specially charged to inquire:—
“If any manner of person cast or lay dung, ordure, rubbish, sea-coal
dust, rushes, or any other noiant, in the river of Thames, Walbrook,
Fleet, or other ditches of this city, or in the open streets, ways, or
lanes within this city.
“Also, if any person in or after a great rain falleth, or at any other
time, sweep any dung, ordure, rubbish, rushes, sea-coal dust, or any
other thing noiant down into the channel of any street or lane,
whereby the common course there is let, and the same things noiant
driven down into the said water of Thames.”
But when it is considered how few of the streets were paved, or sewered,
or drained, the following regulation indicates what must have been their
condition and the habits of the inhabitants:—
“No man shall cast any urine-boles or ordure-boles into the street by
day or night, afore the hour of nine in the night: and also he shall
not cast it out, but bring it down, and lay it in the channel, under
the pain of three shillings and four-pence; and if he do cast it upon
any person’s head, the party to have a lawful recompense, if he have
hurt thereby.”
The state in which the streets were under such regulations is indicated
in the proclamations issued at the time of the Plague, 1569, to “warne
all inhabitants against their houses to keep channels clear from filth,
(by onlie turning yt) aside, that the water may have passage.”
The prominent provisions of the modern Sewers’ and Street Acts are those
which contain penalties against the most effectual means of
street-cleansing,—that by discharging the street refuse through the
sewers; but whilst the local legislation was deficient in principle in
the main provisions, it is distinguished by a multitude of particular
provisions against nuisances and obstructions, which would argue the
most extensive foresight. The nature of the provisions habitually
resorted to are illustrated in the statute of 4th Geo. IV. c. 50, s. l,
for building the new London Bridge.[42]
“Every man may abate a common nuisance.” Br. Nuisance. “The nuisance may
be abated, that is, taken away or removed by the aggrieved thereby, so
as he commits no riot in doing of it.” “And the reason,” says
Blackstone, “why the law allows this private and summary method of doing
one’s-self justice, is because injuries of this kind which obstruct or
annoy such things as are of daily convenience and use require an
immediate remedy, and cannot wait for the slow progress of the ordinary
forms of justice.” Com. B. iii. 6. And the annotator adds, “The security
of the lives and property may sometimes require so speedy a remedy as
not to allow time to call on the person on whose property the mischief
has arisen to remedy it. Pardon for a nuisance is void as for the
continuance thereof.” 3 Cro. Jac. 492, Dewell _v._ Saunders.
_State of the Special Authorities for reclaiming the Execution of the
Laws for the Protection of the Public Health._
The most important, perhaps, because the most cheap and accessible
authority for reclaiming the execution of the law for the protection of
the subject against nuisances, for punishing particular violations of
it, was vested in the Courts Leet. The statute of the view of
Frankpledge, 13 Edw. II., directs inquiry to be made of waters turned,
or stopped, or brought from their right course, and obstructions in
ditches were presentable at the Leet; but the stopping up a
watering-place for cattle was held not to be presentible as a common
nuisance. (40 Lit. 56 _a._) The juries, commonly called “annoyance
juries,” impanelled to serve on Courts Leet in towns, are accustomed to
perambulate their districts to judge of nuisances upon the view. But the
state of this machinery will be seen in the state of the evils which
come within its jurisdiction.
With all this legal strength, however, there is scarcely one town in
England which we have found in a low sanitary condition, nor scarcely
one village marked as the abode of fever, that does not present an
example of standing violations of the law, and of the infliction of
public and common as well as of private injuries, the tenements
overcrowded, streets replete with injurious nuisances, the streams of
pure water polluted, and the air rendered noisome.
The chimneys of the furnaces which darken the atmospheres, and pour out
volumes of smoke and soot upon the inhabitants of populous towns, afford
most frequent examples of the inefficiency of the local administration,
and the contempt of the law for the protection of the public against
nuisances which are specially provided for.
Most modern private Acts contain penalties on gas-companies permitting
their washings to contaminate streams, or using for steam-engines
furnaces which do not consume their own smoke. The general statute, 1
and 2 Geo. IV. c. 41, empowers the court to award costs to the
prosecutor of those who use such furnaces. Where the grievance may be
remedied by altering the construction of the furnace employed in the
working of engines by steam, the court may make an order for preventing
the nuisance in future.
The specific effects of an excess of smoke on the general health of a
town population has not been distinguished, but from the comparatively
high average of mortality amongst the middle classes in situations
undistinguished by confined residences, or defective drainage, or
anything but an excessively smoky atmosphere; from the comparatively
rapid improvement of convalescents on removal to purer atmospheres,
there is strong reason to believe that the prejudicial effect is much
more considerable than is commonly apprehended even by medical
practitioners. As the smoke in Manchester and other towns becomes more
dense, the vegetation declines; and even in the suburbs the more
delicate species die. _Dr. Baker_, in his report on the sanitary
condition of the town of Derby, after adverting to the state of the
places of work as affecting the health of the operations, proceeds to
notice the effects of the smoke:—
“The next general cause of injury to public health, and connected with
the foregoing, is the corruption of the air caused by the torrents of
black smoke that issue from the manufactory chimneys, the nuisance
from which is much augmented in heavy and moist states of the
atmosphere. There is a law by which those who most offend, as regards
their chimneys, can be punished; but of course the magistrates are not
also prosecutors, whilst, private individuals, being unwilling to
become informers, little is done to check this nuisance; and such is
the state of the air, that in gardens in the town none but deciduous
shrubs can be kept alive.”
Besides the prejudicial effects on the health of the population by the
deterioration of the quality of the air that is breathed, a serious
effect is created by its operation as an impediment to the formation and
maintenance of habits of personal and household cleanliness amongst the
working classes. Even upon the middle and higher classes the nuisance of
an excess of smoke, occasioned by ignorance and culpable carelessness,
operates as a tax increasing the wear and tear of linen and the expense
of washing, to all who live within the range of the mismanaged chimneys.
In the suburbs of Manchester, for example, linen will be as dirty in two
or three days as it would be even in the suburbs of London in a week.
One person stated that, on the Isle of Arran, a shirt was cleaner at the
end of a week’s wear than at Manchester at the end of a day’s.
Nor is this the only oppressive tax occasioned by the carelessness; _Mr.
Thomas Cubitt_, the eminent builder, when examined before the Committee
of the House of Commons, was asked,—
“Suppose it were intended to build a row of houses, would you not
suffer them to be built unless there was a sewer provided?—I would not
allow a house to be built anywhere unless it could be shown that there
was a good drainage, and a good way to get rid of water. I think that
there should be some public officer responsible for that; that there
should be surveys of every district, so that the officer should be
aware whether the sewers were provided or not. I think there should be
an officer paid at the public expense, who should be responsible for
that. I think they should not be appointed by the district; there
should be no favouritism of that kind; but public officers, changed
from point to point, to take care of all public nuisances. With
respect to manufactories, here are a great number driven by
competition to work in the cheapest way they can. A man puts up a
steam-engine, and sends out an immense quantity of smoke; perhaps he
creates a great deal of foul and bad gas; that is all let loose. Where
his returns are 1000_l._ a-month, if he would spend 5_l._ a-month more
he would make that completely harmless; but he says, ‘I am not bound
to do that,’ and therefore he works as cheaply as he can, and the
public suffer to an extent beyond all calculation. I look upon it it
has this effect: a gentleman comes to London, and lives in London; I
will suppose he fits up his house in the best style he can; he has a
taste for good pictures and upholstery, and so on. After a time the
smoke has destroyed them, and he is disappointed and annoyed, and the
effect is he is brought down in his feelings in a degree from the
state in which he was accustomed to have things.”
The appearance of the towns on the Sunday, when nearly all the furnaces
are stopped, when there is little more than the smoke from the
dwelling-houses, when everything is comparatively bright, and the
distant hills and surrounding country that are never visible though the
atmosphere of the town in the week-days may be seen across it, presents
nearly the appearance which such towns would assume on the working days,
if the laws were duly executed, and the excessive smoke of the furnaces
prevented. On inquiry of a peace-officer acting where redress is
provided for under a local Act, how it was that the dereliction of duty
occurred that was visible in the dense black clouds that darkened the
town, he replied that the chief members of the Board were the persons
whose furnace-chimneys were most in fault, and he appealed whether a man
in his condition was to be expected to prosecute his patrons?
The greater part, if not the whole, of the excess of smoke and of
unconsumed gas by which the metropolis and the neighbourhoods of
manufactories are oppressed, is preventible by the exercise of care in
the management of the fires of the furnaces. And here also the measures
for the prevention of the nuisance are measures of economy.
Many witnesses whose opinions are enforced by practical examples, state
confidently that such nuisances are generally the result of ignorance or
carelessness. Amongst others we may cite the authority of Mr. Ewart, the
inspector of machinery to the Admiralty, residing at Her Majesty’s
Dock-yard at Woolwich, where the chimney of the manufactory under his
immediate superintendence, regulated according to his directions, offers
an example of the little smoke that need be occasioned from steam-engine
furnaces if care be exercised. He states that no peculiar machinery is
used; the stoker or fire-keeper is only required to exercise care in not
throwing on too much coal at once, and to open the furnace door in such
slight degree as to admit occasionally the small proportion of
atmospheric air requisite to effect complete combustion. Mr. Ewart also
states that if the fire be properly managed, there will be a saving of
fuel. The extent of smoke denotes the extent to which the combustion is
incomplete. The chimney belonging to the manufactory of Mr. Peter
Fairbairn, engineer at Leeds, also presents an example and a contrast to
the chimneys of nearly all the other manufactories which overcast that
town. On each side of it is a chimney belonging to another manufactory,
pouring out dense clouds of smoke; whilst the chimney at Mr. Fairbairn’s
manufactory presents the appearance of no greater quantity of smoke than
of some private houses. Mr. Fairbairn stated, in answer to inquiries
upon this subject, that he uses what is called Stanley’s feeding
machinery, which graduates the supply of coal so as to produce nearly
complete combustion. After the fire is once lighted, little remains to
the ignorance or the carelessness of the stoker. Mr. Fairbairn also
states that his consumption of fuel in his steam-engine furnaces, in
comparison with that of his immediate neighbours, is proportionately
less. The engine belonging to the cotton-mills of Mr. Thomas Ashton, of
Hyde, near Stockport, affords to the people of that town an example of
the extent to which, by a little care, they might be relieved of the
thick cloud of smoke by which the district is oppressed.
At a meeting of manufacturers and others, held at Leeds, for the
suppression of the nuisance of the smoke of furnaces, and to discuss the
various plans for abating it, the resolution was unanimously adopted,
“that in the opinion of this meeting the smoke arising from steam-engine
fires and furnaces can be consumed, and that, too, without injury to the
boilers, and with a saving of fuel.” Notice of legal proceedings being
given against Messrs. Meux, the brewers in London, for a nuisance
arising from the chimneys of two furnaces, they found that by using
anthracite coal they abated the nuisance to the neighbourhood, and saved
200_l._ per annum. The West Middlesex Water Company, by diminishing the
smoke of their furnaces saved 1000_l._ per annum.
The gas-companies in the city of London were indicted for throwing their
refuse into the Thames, and compelled to dispose of it otherwise; and
they found out that they had been guilty of waste as well as of
nuisance; and it is stated that the whole of what was formerly cast away
has now become an important article of commerce.
In the rural districts the Courts Leet have generally fallen into
desuetude. In illustration of the feeble tenure on which they were held,
I may mention that in some instances, where it has been necessary to
disallow payments of fees paid to the officers of those courts from the
poor’s rates, the stewards have stated that they should hereafter
discontinue the courts; and it is probable that they did so. In the
towns, Courts Leet are sometimes held, and inquest juries appointed; but
it is objected to these bodies, and frequently to the bodies constituted
under local acts, that they are usually composed of tradesmen who attend
unwillingly and at an inconvenient sacrifice of time; who can have
little or no information in respect to the evils in question; who have
no arrangements to bring the evils in question before them; no time to
master such information as may be brought before them casually; little
interest and scarcely any real responsibility imposed for ensuring any
mastery of it; and neither time nor adequate means at their disposal for
the removal of such evils as those in question when they are presented
to them, and proved to exist. Thus: two persons of respectability who
were unexpectedly called upon to serve on a jury of this description in
the metropolis, state that, as they had no properly qualified officer to
instruct them, they were only directed to the performance of their
duties by the accidental presence of a builder.
“When we were sworn in, we went over the district: we went through
many places which were disgustingly filthy, that I have since learned
were places where there is always fever, but we were not told about
it; the afflicted knew nothing of our coming, and we had no medical
officer, or means to enable us to detect the presence of any nuisances
which would endanger the public health.
“The number of persons sworn in was twenty-four, of whom I can
remember six were publicans (at one or other of whose houses we dined
on the days of meeting), one or two cheesemongers, three or four
tailors or drapers, one builder, and one bricklayer; the trades or
occupations of the remainder I cannot remember. Of the twenty-four
sworn in, twelve only served, and the duties were performed in
rotation. An allowance of 2_s._ 6_d._ was given to each juryman for
his expenses on the days of acting, with the exception of the foreman
and the secretary, who had been unfortunate enough, or who, for some
purpose of their own, managed to be sworn in on three or four previous
occasions. None of the jury knew the nature of the duties further than
that they were to examine weights and measures; that part of their
duty respecting the removal of nuisances, or of things affecting the
health or the lives of the inhabitants of the district which we
perambulated, was entirely neglected or lost sight of; the only
instance that I remember of any attention being paid to the subject,
was that of the condemnation of an old house in a disgusting
neighbourhood of houses; and in this case, although the house
certainly looked in a bad condition, the jury were quite unable to
come to a decision until the bricklayer and builder pronounced its
condemnation, when the jury at once became unanimous, and condemned
the house forthwith. My own impression was, that the house was not in
a safe condition, but I felt, in common with others, (the tailors,
drapers, and cheesemongers,) that however anxious we might be to
discharge our duties faithfully, that the nature of our occupations
did not at all qualify us to express an opinion upon the subject, and
hence we were all guided and determined by the opinion of the
bricklayer and builder who happened to be present. Had they not been
present, we should probably have done nothing. It is only necessary
for any sensible person to serve on such a body in a town to be
convinced of its entire inefficiency.”
The district over which this jury perambulated was one in which
contagious disease often prevails in its worst forms; and it is quite
clear that, without appropriate arrangements, such a body would continue
to walk over the ground, equally unconscious of the evil and impotent to
effect its removal.
A civil engineer and surveyor of very high acquirements in the
metropolis thus describes the qualification of persons serving on these
inquests:—
“I speak from experience, having personally attended one of these
inquests, with a view to give them the benefit of my practical
knowledge; I did not find one of them amongst the twelve competent to
perform usefully to the parish or the public the duties imposed upon
them. I have known repeated instances in these united parishes, where
ruinous houses have been permitted to remain for years without
receiving any attention from the authorities, to the great danger of
the occupiers and also to the public. I would instance two houses that
to my certain knowledge have for ten or a dozen years inclined over in
the street from the pavement upwards of eighteen inches, without being
noticed by an Inquest Jury. My attention was lately directed
professionally by the owner of the houses in question to their state
and condition; upon a careful examination I found them so dangerous
that I immediately gave directions to have them shored up, and
recommended the tenant to vacate them in the meanwhile: to my great
surprise, at the expiration of three or four days after the houses had
been properly secured, the freeholders were served with a notice from
the Inquest Jury to do what had already been done, viz., secure the
houses from danger.”
A gentleman who has acted as one of the Commissioners under the Act for
Bolton, thus describes the operation of its provisions:—
“We have an Act in Little Bolton with extensive powers for the
preservation of the public health.
“I was appointed in 1837 one of the Trustees or Commissioners under
this Act; they are elected by the ratepayers, and one-third go out
annually; party political feeling has created a strife as to whether
Whigs or Tories shall expend the public funds (the same is the case in
Manchester), and hence a strife as to the economy of management. The
streets are badly lighted, and sometimes not at all, to save the
expense of gas. A surveyor is appointed in Little Bolton, whose duties
are to see after the lighting, paving, cleansing, sewering,
fire-engines, and firemen, the prevention of nuisances, encroachments,
&c., &c.; to hiring and paying all the workmen, and buying the
materials for repairing the roads and streets over a district
containing about 15,000 inhabitants, for all of which service he
receives 80_l._ a-year.
“With such talent as 80_l._ a-year will command, and such duties to
perform, it may readily be supposed that sewerages and nuisances are
liable to be overlooked.
“I once called the surveyor before a Board of about twenty Trustees,
to draw attention to a pool of stagnant water lying in front of or
betwixt two rows of cottages about 60 feet apart from each other, and
about 150 feet long, covering nearly the whole of this vacant space of
around from one to two feet deep; dead dogs, kittens, and other
impurities in the height of summer were floating in it, yet I was
unable to obtain an order for the surveyor to expend a few pounds in
draining it off, or to compel the owner to do it, although situate in
the centre of a very populous district; and it continued in the same
state till built over by cottages the following year.”
The nuisances which favoured the introduction and spread of the cholera
were for the most part evils within the cognizance of the Leets, and
could not have existed had their powers been properly exercised, yet so
complete was the desuetude of the machinery of these Courts that it
appeared nowhere to be thought of as applicable, and the new and special
machinery of the Boards of Health were created for the purpose of
meeting the pestilence. There are no funds provided by which the common
remedy by indictment could now be prosecuted: and since the most
offensive and injurious nuisances are those supported by large capital,
redress for the private injury is practically available only to persons
who can afford to risk large sums in litigation. In one instance in
Scotland, where the stream which supplied a village was discoloured and
rendered disagreeable to the taste by some dye-works, a gentleman who
took up the defence of the villagers, who were mostly his tenants,
stated to me that the litigation incurred by an obstinate defence
involved an expenditure of no less a sum than 4,000_l._, the whole of
which he did not recover, and that from his own experience he was
clearly of opinion no one who had not most inflexible determination, as
well as ample means, would be warranted in entering upon such a contest.
Powerful influence was used to induce him to stay the suit, and he was
by persons of his own class regarded as the persecutor of the author of
the nuisance.
The complication of various nuisances in some of the larger
manufacturing districts has frequently become so great as to put them
beyond any existing legal remedy, whether private or public, by placing
out of the apparent possibility of distinct technical proof any injury
or particular effect arising from any one. An instance of this is stated
by Messrs. Paris and Fonblanque, where two indictments were preferred;
the one preferred against the proprietor of a Prussian-blue manufactory;
the other against a black-ash manufacturer; both of these works were
situated in Seward-street, Goswell-street, London. The counsel for the
defendant, in his cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution
of the Prussian-blue maker, drew from them an account of the noisome
vapours of the black-ash manufactury; while in the latter trial the same
barrister made the witnesses declare the extreme stench of the
Prussian-blue manufactory; so that in both cases the defendants obtained
a verdict, because in neither case could the witnesses for the Crown
unequivocally prove from which of the manufactories the nuisance
complained of arose.
_State of the Local Executive Authorities for the Erection and
Maintenance of Drains and other Works for the Protection of the Public
Health._
Having shown the state of the existing local authority for reclaiming
the execution of the law, for _causing_ that to be done “which the
common good requires,” and those things not to be done which tend “to
the annoyance of all the king’s subjects,” I proceed to describe the
general state of the executive authority, charged with the _doing_ of so
much of these things as is comprehended in town and road drainage; the
sewerage for house and street drainage, and the provisions for the
surface cleansing of streets.
The extent of the areas to be drained determines arbitrarily the extent
of the operations of drainage, whether public or private, which shall
combine efficiency and economy. If these areas are occupied by different
parties, they cannot be cleared separately at an expense proportioned to
the extent cleared. In general they are only to be won by agreement
amongst the parties holding the property, to place the operations under
the guidance of science; these labours will then be rewarded by
production, whilst disease and pestilence, as well as sterility, are the
effects of the ignorance and selfish rapacity which impede such union
for the common advantage. The early history of the attempts of the
separate owners of portions of the tract of country included in the
Bedford Level to drain their property separately, is a history of
expensive failures, of attempts to get rid of the surplus water only by
flooding the lands of neighbours, and scenes of wretched animosities.
These continued until the whole tract was put under one strong authority
and scientific guidance, when productiveness and health arose as
described in the account of the sanitary condition of the Isle of Ely.
Had the natural district formed by the geological basin of that level
been subdivided for drainage operations into districts co-extensive with
districts for municipal, ecclesiastical, or parochial and civil
administrative purposes; or had it been divided into districts according
to property or occupation; had the commissions charged with the drainage
of these subdivisions acted independently by ill-paid and ill-qualified
officers, without any competent control, instead of acting on one
comprehensive plan in subordination to an engineer of science adequate
to its design and execution, vast sums of money might have been spent,
and the land would still have remained a pestilential marsh occupied by
a miserable population.
The amount of surface-water on those lands made the expediency of
enlarged operations obvious, and their necessity pressing. Besides the
towns and tracts of country oppressed with surface-water, as described
in such evidence as that cited from the sanitary reports from populous
districts, the extent of country which is unhealthy as well as
comparatively unproductive, from the want of systematic under-drainage,
appears to be extensive and immense beyond any conception that could be
formed _à priori_, from the more conspicuous instances of enterprize,
intelligence, and science manifest amongst the population. What the
tract of country belonging to the Bedford Level, so subdivided and
inefficiently and expensively managed once was, large urban and rural
districts are now found to be in degree. The circumstances which govern
what is called the private drainage will illustrate the nature of the
administrative obstacles to efficient public drainage, and it is
necessary to consider them in connexion, for they are inseparably
connected by nature.
Although the larger share of the land-drainage redounds to the pecuniary
profit of private individuals, yet it is proved so far to affect, the
public health beneficially, and contribute to the productive employment
of the labouring classes, and to other general public advantages, that
such works fairly come within the description of _publicum in privato_,
and as such entitled to collective and legislative care. Drainage
appears to be the primary, and in many cases the principal, operation
for the efficient construction and economical maintenance of roads. But
an efficient system of sewerage, and general town and road-drainage, has
an additional value as removing serious impediments to the general land
drainage. The following portion of the evidence of _Mr. Roe_ affords an
exemplification of the extent to which the private land-drainage is
commonly affected by such operations:
“Have you found the sewerage produce any effect in the drainage of the
surrounding land?—Yes, we have found it lower the water in the wells,
often at great distances. For instance, in forming a sewer in the
City-road, we found that it lowered by four feet a well nearly a
quarter of a mile distance. The only remedy we could advise to the
parties was to lower the well: they did so. We afterwards had occasion
to lower the same sewer three feet, when the well was lowered again in
proportion; so that the construction of the sewer, in this instance,
drained an area of 40 or 50 acres on that side, and perhaps further.
The water is sometimes in such quantities, and so strong in the
land-springs, as to require openings to be left in the side of the
sewer for its passages.”
The first obstacles to the general land-drainage have already been
adverted to in the small occupancies. To these must be added the want of
capital. The legislature has recently given to the owners of life
estates the power of charging the inheritance with the contributions to
the cost of permanent improvements by drainage. This power does not meet
the case of the smaller holdings; and drainage operations to be
effectual must, in general, be on a scale too large to be within the
habits of thought or action of small owners or occupiers, of varying
interests, and wanting confidence in each other to combine, make, or
manage immediate outlays for such purposes. But above all these is to be
added the circumstance of the power which the possession of a small part
of a district gives to one individual, to thwart those operations of the
majority which are for the common advantage, and consequently the
temptation which the possession of such power gives and almost ensures,
of its use to exact unjust and exorbitant conditions. When expressing to
a gentleman who has actively promoted improvements in agricultural
production in Scotland, my surprise at the large extent of marshy
district allowed to continue in a state of comparative sterility,
sources of rheumatism, and fevers and other diseases, he directed my
attention to the following among other exemplifications:—
About a mile and a half distant, from one of the towns in Scotland,
there is a moss about seven miles long, with a small stream running
through it, with a fall of about 25 feet. At the outlet of this stream
there is an old corn-mill, which yields a rental of about 25_l._ per
annum. By the water being dammed up to turn this mill, the whole run is
impeded; and the consequent sluggishness of the stream occasions it to
be choked up with weeds. Whenever a fall of rain takes place, the banks
are overflowed, and not only is every improvement rendered
impracticable, but on several harvests as much as 500_l._ worth of hay
has been destroyed at a time when a heavy fall of rain has occurred and
occasioned an overflow.
It so happens that the proprietor of the mill would himself clearly gain
more than the value of the mill from the drainage that would be effected
on his own lands by the removal of the dam. The other proprietors,
however, offered to him for its removal the full rental that he now
derives from the mill. The property is in the hands of a factor, who is
ignorant and obstinate, and the offer was refused. Now the land which
would be affected beneficially by the removal of the dam, is a tract of
seven or eight miles long, with an average width of two miles and a
half. The expense of an Act of Parliament, if it were resisted, as it
most probably would be, renders an appeal to the legislature valueless.
Thus one individual is enabled to exercise a despotic caprice against
the health and prosperity of the surrounding population, to inflict an
extensive loss of labour and wages on the working man, the loss of
produce and profit to the occupiers, the loss of rent to the other
owners, and at the same time to inflict on all who may live on the spot,
or come within reach of the marsh, the ill health and hazards of disease
from the miasma which it emits!
The like despotic powers are found in every district in the way of the
public health, as well as of the private advantage.
The passenger who enters Birmingham from the London railway may
perceive, just before the terminus, a black sluggish stream, which is
the river Rea, made the receptacle of the sewers of the town. _Mr.
Hodgson_, and the committee of physicians of that town, state, in their
sanitary report, that—
“The stream is sluggish, and the quantity of water which it supplies
is not sufficient to dilute and wash away the refuse which it receives
in passing through the town, and that in hot weather it is
consequently very offensive, and in some situations in these seasons
is covered with a thick scum of decomposing matters; and this filthy
condition of the river near the railway station is a subject of
constant and merited animadversions, and that it requires especial
attention lest it should become a source of disease,” &c.
The fatally dangerous sluggishness of this river is occasioned by the
diversion and abstraction of its water to turn a mill, “a fact which
will amply account for the deficiency and sluggishness of the current in
the very places where the contrary condition is the most wanted.”
_Captain Vetch_, who has been engaged in engineering operations in that
part of the country which have led him to observe the spot, states that—
“The remedy is as easy as the evil is great; all obstruction being
removed from the course of the brook, and the water restored to its
original bed, the object would be effected; as to the value of the
mill-power which would thus be subverted, it cannot be a matter of
much amount, in a place where coals and steam-engines are so cheap,
and where the constant and regular work of the mill must be an object
of some importance.”
After describing the means of the removal, he states—
“In this manner, and by reserving the whole body of the water of the
Rea for cleansing its own bed, I have no doubt that this main sewer of
Birmingham would become as conspicuous for its wholesome and efficient
action as it now is for the contrary.”
Birmingham presents an example such as indeed is common in most towns,
of the stoppage of a main current of air by a private building carried
across one end of a main street. The effects likely to result from the
obstruction to the invisible current are not dissimilar to those which
result from the obstruction to the stream of water, and the cost and
difficulty of relief from them are perhaps much greater. _Captain Vetch_
refers, as another example of the condition of many of the towns in
respect to these chief streams, as described in the sanitary reports, to
the case of Haddington.
“In the town of Haddington a mill-dam crosses the river Tyne in its
passage through the place, and into the mill-pool the main sewer is
discharged with a diminished and sluggish descent; and on occasion of
floods in the river, the water passes up the sewers and occasionally
lays the lowest part of the town under water. It would not be
difficult to direct the main sewer into the bed of the river below the
dam or weir, and by the additional declivity give some current to the
water of the sewer, which, from the pending up of the river at its
present outlet, has rendered it almost stagnant, so much so, that in
hot weather, and where it is not covered over, the exhalations are
very offensive; but was the sewer improved by the alteration
mentioned, still the pooling up of the river for the mill keeps the
lower part of the town damp, and even subjects it to partial
inundations.
“One of the medical officers reports, that when ‘fever has been at any
time prevalent in the town, it has been most so in a portion of it
called the Nungate, lying close by the river, when during the summer
and autumn it is occasionally almost stagnant, and where there is a
considerable decomposition of vegetable matter.’
“Another medical gentleman, speaking of the main sewer, says, ‘this
small burn is a receptacle of the privies and refuse of vegetable
matters from the houses near which it passes; and in those parts where
it is uncovered, it forms an excellent index of the weather; previous
to rain the smell is intolerable.’
“The same gentleman proposes, as a remedy, that another small burn
having a parallel course at a short distance, should be turned into
the sewer to aid the sewerage. From my knowledge of the locality, the
recommendation, I should say, is judicious; but in this manner, though
the supply of water would be increased, the declivity or rather want
of declivity of the sewer would remain the same, and could only be
improved by removing the mill-dam, or directing the sewer into the bed
of the river below it, as already mentioned. Unquestionably from the
penning up of the river, the lower part of the town is at present very
ill drained, and it is somewhat remarkable that it was the first site
in Scotland visited by the Asiatic cholera.
“In reference to the two cases cited, and to others of a similar
nature, it should be remarked, that the vicinities of the nuisances
are chiefly inhabited by the poorer classes, and who, from want of
influence in their own parts, are the more necessarily thrown under
the protection of state regulations.”
It does not appear that any improvements have been suggested to the
inhabitants, or any question raised in respect to the compensation to
the owners of these obstructions. They are, however, enabled to refuse a
liberal compensation for removing from their property, and discontinuing
proceedings so injurious by the agency of invisible miasma, that if the
miseries were brought about by direct manual or visible operations, it
would be deemed the most horrible tyranny. In many, if not in most such
cases, the use of the property, with such attendant consequences, would
be found to be in contravention of the existing public rights; but the
expense and delay and uncertainty of the legal procedure practically
sustain such invasions on the surrounding property and on the public
health.
The powers of continuing such evils amidst large masses of the
population, and against specific representations of the attendant evils,
are terrible when the extent of those evils are examined. For example,
it is stated in the records of the proceedings before adverted to, with
which _Dr. Currie_, of Liverpool, was connected, that,—
“In the beginning of the year 1802, the corporation of Liverpool,
being about to apply to Parliament for powers to improve the streets
and the police of the town, requested the physicians of the infirmary
and dispensary to suggest to them ‘such alterations as might
contribute to the health and comfort of the inhabitants,’ in order
that, where necessary, they might include in the Bill about to be
brought into Parliament the powers requisite to carry such alterations
into effect. The physicians took this request into serious
consideration, and presented a report of considerable extent,
including a view of the causes of the uncommon sickliness of the two
preceding years, and of the measures requisite to prevent its
recurrence, and to remove the frequency of contagion in the
habitations of the poor. To lessen as much as possible the
contamination of the atmosphere, they recommended that lime should be
prevented from being burnt within a certain distance of inhabited
houses; that soaperies, tan-yards, and other offensive manufactories,
should in future be prevented from being established in the town; and
where now established, and authorized by usage, that they should,
whenever practicable, be purchased by the body corporate, and the
space they occupy be converted to other purposes. The same
recommendation they extended to slaughter-houses, and to all other
offensive trades or manufactories. They recommend, that in all cases
where fire-engines, or steam-engines, are necessarily employed in the
town or its vicinity, the burning of smoke should be enforced, as well
as in all other practicable cases where large volumes of smoke are
emitted.
“They pointed out the necessity of enforcing cleanliness in the
streets, to which end an improvement of the pavement was represented
to be essential; and they particularly advised a general review of the
common sewers, and an improvement of their structure, on the
principles of a report on this particular subject addressed by them to
the mayor and magistrates in 1788. They further advised that effectual
provision should be made for draining the grounds within the
liberties, and particularly to the north of the town. ‘Repeated
remonstrances (I quote the words of the report) have been made for the
last twenty years on the collections of standing water, including
filth of every kind, which are suffered to remain in the district
which extends along the termination of the streets from St.
Paul’s-square to Byrom-street, and to which the low fevers which, in
the autumnal months especially, infest these streets, are principally
to be imputed. These remonstrances have been passed over, on the
ground, as we are informed, that the proprietors of the lands will not
agree to the plan necessary for draining them.’”
Some of the most important improvements that might be accomplished in
the poorer and most infected districts of the larger towns by pulling
down the present tenements and erecting tenements of a superior order,
would, there is little doubt, amply repay any large capitalist or single
proprietor. In the course of our examination of the most wretched and
overcrowded wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh, we were informed by persons
apparently of competent local information that, if they could be
purchased at a fair price for the public to be pulled down, there would
be a gain in the prevention of the charges of sickness and crime arising
from them; and that if they were simply rebuilt on a good plan, the
necessary outlay would be repaid by the improved rental from the
superior order of tenements. Each flat or story, however, frequently
belonged to a different owner, and the property in which the most
afflicted classes lived appeared to be extensively subdivided amongst
persons of different interests, of different degrees of permanency, and
with no power of co-operation, and with little or no capital.
Now the class of persons whose feelings, state of intelligence, and
modes of action are displayed in the evidence on the drainage redounding
to private profit, are the class from amongst whom are necessarily taken
the members of the local boards, to whose uncontrolled direction and
choice of officer the structural works essential to the public health
are confided.
The natural districts for public drainage are so capriciously subdivided
and departed from, as frequently to render economical and efficient
drainage impracticable.
The municipal authorities who obtained powers for drainage, only thought
of the surface drainage of their own jurisdictions. Some towns are at
the bottom of basins and others on elevations, and the operations for
effectual drainage must often be commenced at a distance. It is stated
by persons of competent skill in drainage, as an example, a town situate
on one side of a hill will be drained dry by tapping or opening a spring
on the other side. The manifest defect in the areas of operations for
drainage is noticed in the report of the Committee of the House of
Commons, which in the year 1834 inquired into the administration of the
sewers’ rate in the metropolis, where perhaps the most money has been
expended in imperfect sewerage and cleansing of any part of the kingdom.
They reported that a primary defect of their constitution—
“Is the want of system or combination between the different trusts
which have now, as before observed, each an independent action. The
inconveniences in this are palpable, for where the line of
communication with the Thames is not complete within each district,
the very improvements in the one trust may prove injurious to the
others. It appears by the evidence that a case of this kind occurred
not long ago in the city of Loudon, through which a part of the
Holborn and Finsbury sewerage is conducted to the river. The sewers of
the Holborn and Finsbury division having been greatly improved and
enlarged, the city sewers became inadequate to carry off their
contents, and a number of houses in the vicinity of the river were
inundated after each fall of rain, the contents of their own drains,
in addition to the waters from the high lands of the neighbouring
trust, being actually forced back into their houses from the volume of
water which occupied the main sewer. This has now been remedied at a
great expense to the city of London district, and by dint of much
labour and time; but if anything like combination had existed
previously, the improvements would have been carried on
simultaneously, and the inconvenience would never have occurred.”
The surveyor of the City sewers under the management of the corporation,
speaks in a tone of grievance and oppression, that the waters of the
county would run into the municipal jurisdiction. Speaking of the
formation of a particular sewer, he says,—
“The commissioners under the power of the Act of Parliament carried
the sewer, in the first instance, along their own pavement and for
their own drainage. It was thence continued up to Finsbury-place to
Bunhill-fields, then called Tyndal’s burial-ground, and is so
described in the Act; the county then communicated with it, and sent
their surplus water, or an immense run of it, into that sewer. The
city for its own drainage also built a sewer in Whitecross-street; the
county somehow or other got possession of that, and the water that
runs down Whitecross street is quite overpowering.”
He speaks of some other drains which were formed by the city, and the
effects of the waters let in upon them from the county.
“The Commissioners find themselves very much annoyed by the quantity
of water poured in from the county, which water communicates with the
city in Bishopsgate-street, through Shoreditch. * * * The county then
made another sewer, which takes water from the Tower Hamlets, and is
continued up the Kingsland-road, so that a very large portion of that
water has been thrown into that sewer, and annoyed this Irongate sewer
(the only communication with the Thames) very sorely; and the
Commissioners had been put to an enormous expense in rebuilding it,
and that was increased by houses being built over it with very high
stacks of chimneys. In consequence of the immense flood of water that
pours down all those different sewers from the county, the inhabitants
of the city, in the neighbourhood of Moorfields especially, have been
most dreadfully annoyed, so much so that their cellars became useless.
“By the county, you mean the Holborn and Finsbury division?—Yes;
everything out of the boundary of the city. In order to meet the
difficulty for which there was no other cure, the commissioners have
built a sewer for the New London Bridge, which is ten feet by eight
feet at the mouth; they are continuing it up to the new street, eight
feet six inches by seven feet, and it is intended to take it up the
New Road to Moorfields, to continue the sewer along Princes-street and
up that new street; and I confidently expect I shall get from eight to
ten feet additional depth, and that then the whole of Moorfields will
be effectually relieved.
“The necessity for this new sewer of this large dimension, arises from
the large quantity of water which flows in upon you from the
county?—Certainly.
“You conceive yourself on the other side to derive some benefit from
these waters, because they cleanse and scour your sewers down?—Yes, as
far as the direct run goes they do, but beyond that they do an injury
that is incalculable; in this way the water runs right a-head, and an
immense quantity is brought in, it fills it, and the collateral sewers
cannot bear up against it, they are driven back and the sediment is
deposited, and when it falls that is left behind.”
It need scarcely be pointed out that this municipal division had, until
they chose to drain, operated as a barrier to all the water described,
which was kept back to the injury of the county; to the injury indeed of
the health of those merchants and traders, clerks and men of business,
the population whose private residences are in the county, and beyond
their residences to the injury of the city, in so far as their
obstructions to drainage injured the pasturage and land cultivated for
the supply of the city.
But a considerable portion of the city was itself imperfectly drained.
The chairman was asked,—
“539. Do you conceive there is any large portion of the City left
without deriving direct advantage from the sewerage,—meaning, by
direct advantage, some underground communication with the sewers so as
to carry off the soil of the house?—There is a large part of the City
of London in that state.”
It was stated, as an example, that Cheapside had no sewer. This was
accounted for from the circumstance, that the
“whole form of that part of the city is like a tortoise’s back.
Cheapside and Leadenhall-street are the back-bone; and that accounts
for Cheapside, being the highest ground, never having had occasion for
a sewer for the surface drainage; the water all flows northward and
southward, so that accounts for the apparent contradiction of
Cheapside, a main street, having no sewer in it.
“As far as _surface_ drainage is concerned?—Yes; the inhabitants of
Cheapside, generally speaking, have got cesspools: they perforated the
yellow clay or loam and got into the gravel, and whatever is thrown
into the cesspool mixes with the water and the earth: that is for the
benefit of the water-drinkers!”
Thirty old streets in Westminster had no sewers. Other considerable and
ancient streets were also without sewers, although the inhabitants
contributed to the rates.
Nor does there appear to be any conception as to the objects of the
service; and illegal fees, that must operate as exclusions to the poorer
inhabitants from the advantages which it is most desirable to confer,
were allowed to be exacted by the officers. Thus the chairman of the
City Commission was asked,—
“574. Your clerks at the office take no fees?—I cannot say that they
take no fees; there is an ancient fee allowed, that any person who
communicates with the sewer shall pay a guinea; that is divided among
the clerks, the surveyor, and inspector, who see that the
communication is properly made: they pay a guinea for that purpose.
“575. Are your clerks paid by those fees?—No, by fixed salary; the
fees are very trifling, for till lately they did not amount to 100_l._
a-year.
“576. The aggregate of the fees?—Yes, nor to 50_l._ a-year: if a party
applies to communicate with a sewer, and the Commissioners have no
objection, they call upon him to pay the estimate of the surveyor, and
the charges are made at the contract price, and in addition to that
they pay one guinea as a fee.”
In another Commission the surveyor’s fee for the privilege is stated to
be one guinea.
Before the Committee _Mr. James Peake_, the surveyor of the
Commissioners for the Tower Hamlets, states (Committee on Health of
Towns), “that in making a communication to the common sewers, the
parties who have to make the drain, besides doing it at their own
expense, have to pay 17_s._ 6_d._ for the first three feet of sewer. And
they,” the Commissioners of Sewers, “do that for this reason:—if they
were not to resort to that measure, the sewers would be destroyed.
_Every one would make a hole in the sewer_,” _i. e._, every one would
_use_ the sewer.
_Mr. Samuel Byles_, another witness examined before the same Committee,
was asked—
“193. You state that a great deal of disease is generated by the want
of ventilation and sewerage; is there any power in the Sewer
Commissioners to oblige the parties inhabiting the district to
communicate with the sewer if they made one?—No; and there is
unfortunately a paradox; there is a penalty on any person
communicating from his house into the common sewer.
“194. If they are assessed to it that is not the case, is it?—Yes; it
appears to be a complete paradox; if privies are known to empty
themselves into the common sewer, the person is liable to a penalty.”
No arrangements are made to bring the effects of the absence of drainage
to the knowledge of those bodies for their guidance in the performance
of their duties, nor does it appear to enter into their conception that
the protection of the public health forms any part of the objects of
their service. _Mr. James Peake_, the surveyor of the Commissioners of
the Tower Hamlets, was questioned on this point—
“2012. It is stated to the Committee, that ‘in a direct line from
Virginia-row to Shoreditch, a mile in extent, all the lanes, courts,
and alleys in the neighbourhood pour their contents into the centre of
the main street, where they stagnate and putrefy;’ is that the case?—I
perceive by an inspection of the plan that there is no sewer about
Virginia-row; there is none nearer to it than Princes-street.
“2013. It is stated that in some or other of those houses fever is
always prevalent; do you know the district so as to be aware whether
that is the case?—I cannot speak as to the state of the inhabitants; I
know it is very wretched. The whole of this land was excavated for
brick-making, and has been reduced to an unnatural level, so that the
sewers are hardly available. I believe many of those houses have
ditches round their gardens, and flowers and roots and stems are
thrown into the ditches, where they remain and stagnate; we are
working up, and shall be able to get the sewer in some parts five feet
lower than it was.
“2014. It is stated to the Commissioners that in Whitechapel parish,
Essex-street and its numerous courts, as Martin’s-court, Moor’s-court,
Essex-court, Elgar-square, George-yard, and New-court, Crown-court,
Wentworth-street, and many parts of that street, there is no sewer
passes up?—There is none.
“2015. Are the people very much in want of some mode of cleansing in
consequence?—It is the filthiest place which can be imagined.
“2316. Is it thickly inhabited?—Yes, very densely populated.
“2028. Do you not think that the want of such provision is very
injurious to the health of the inhabitants?—I do not think that sewers
have the effect which is attributed to them.
“2029. You disagree with the medical men who think that the neglect of
this underground drainage is prejudicial to the health of the
community?—I cannot see how, if they have a good surface drainage,
they can be improved by an underground drainage, in nine cases out of
ten.
“2064. Do you consider it your duty to alter a sewer, or carry up a
sewer, with reference to the health of the inhabitants?—Certainly not.
“2065. Any alteration in the form of the sewerage, or any change
respecting it, is with reference to property, not with reference to
the health of the inhabitants?- Certainly.”
_Mr. Unwin_, the clerk to the Commissioners of Sewers for the Tower
Hamlets, was thus examined before the Committee:—
“1433. Do you know Hare-street-fields?—I do; that is not very densely
populated: there are a number of houses, but very few persons living
in them.
“1434. Do you know that in wet weather a large portion of that
neighbourhood is completely inundated; that in all the houses forming
the square, and in the neighbouring streets, fever is constantly
breaking out, and that the character of the fever in the neighbourhood
has lately been very malignant?—I never heard that before.
“1435. Then if that has occurred in the midst of your district, it is
a matter you never heard of?—Just so.
“1436. Do you know Baker’s-Arms-alley?—That is in the parish of
Hackney; that is in our district; but it is a very open place.
“1437. If it is the fact that there is a narrow court with a dead wall
about two yards from the houses, as high as the houses; that the
principal court is intersected by other courts extremely narrow, in
which it is scarcely possible for air to penetrate close to the dead
wall; that between the wall and the houses there is a gutter, in which
is always present a quantity of stagnant fluid full of all sorts of
putrefying matter, the effluvia from which are most offensive, and the
sense of closeness extreme; that all the houses are dark, gloomy, and
extremely filthy; that at the top of the innermost courts are the
privies, which are open and uncovered, the soil of which is seldom
removed, and the stench of which is abominable; you have not heard of
that?—No, I have not heard of any of those circumstances; I have heard
of very few complaints of fever in the Tower Hamlets.
“1440. Do you not recollect that there are most fearful accounts of
fever prevailing in that district?—No, I had a report sent to me,
which I understood came from Dr. Southwood Smith, and there was a
communication I think from the Secretary of State upon it.”
At the very time that this witness had heard of few complaints of fever
in the Tower Hamlets, the Board found themselves compelled, on account
of the appalling prevalence of fever amongst the poor resident in that
district, to direct the special inquiry by Dr. Arnott, Dr. Kay, and Dr.
Southwood Smith, as to the causes of the fever which led to the present
extended inquiry. The description given in the question of the narrow
court, with the dead wall about two yards from the houses was taken from
one of those reports. That self-same court was the Bakers’-Arms alley,
named in the preceding question; but instead of being situate, as
described by the witness, in the parish of Hackney, two or three miles
from the office of the Commissioners of Sewers, it is in Rosemary-lane,
distant from that office only the length of a street, and that not a
very long one—Leman-street.
On the subject of the escapes of gas from the sewers there is no one
point on which medical men are so clearly agreed, as on the connexion of
exposure of persons to the miasma from sewers, and of fever as a
consequence. It appears that the evils of these escapes, on which
several medical men to whose testimony we have alluded gave evidence
before the Committee of 1834, may be prevented, and one of them prepared
a plan for this purpose. He states that the Commissioners having
expressed their doubts as to whether they were justified in trying the
experiment at the public expense, he said—
“Very well, gentlemen, I suppose you are quite right there; I will
enter into an undertaking with you to do it at my own expense, to a
limited extent, in any part that the surveyor of the sewers will say
he thinks it will fail; at the worst part that he can point out I will
try it; and moreover, in that undertaking I engaged to replace the
things in _statu quo_ if they failed. I entered into that
understanding, and, as I was given to understand, the parish sent
their bond, with a copy of the request, to the Commissioners. Some
time elapsed and I heard nothing of it, and in fact I thought the
thing was so simple, and as I heard nothing to the contrary, I began
to make inquiries as to getting these traps cast, when one morning the
parish surveyor brought me the model back, with a verbal message,
which was, that ‘whether it would answer or not, it should not be
tried;’ the Commissioners had made up their minds that the stink
should not be kept down.”
The reply made to this before the Committee on behalf of the
Commissioners, by one of the officers, was, “The sewers must have vent
somewhere; if you stop the vent in the street, it will penetrate into
the houses; also the danger from the gas-explosions are continually
taking place, and our people are frequently sent to the hospital. Our
surveyor can show a specimen of an entire new skin to his hand, and he
had an entire new skin to his face, and laid up in a very dangerous
state. This was from an explosion in the sewers. This is a danger the
Commissioners must of necessity look to.” “The gas always ascends from
its lightness. If the air-trap was put at the upper end of the
gully-drain, that would be the place where the gas would lodge, and any
candle brought near to this outlet into the upper part would occasion an
explosion.”
Now it is precisely because “the gas always ascends from its lightness”
that men of competent science declare, without reference to the
particular plan proposed in this instance, that by means of a shaft or
chimney properly placed, private houses as well as the workmen may be
relieved from the dangers of the escapes of this gas, which is becoming
more deleterious from the increasing drainage from private houses as
well as from the escapes of gas from the gas-pipes, into the sewers of
which very strong instances are stated in the evidence.
In the map of Leeds, where the cholera track is pourtrayed, it will be
observed that it followed closely the fever track; and were such maps so
far improved as to show at a view the condition of a district in respect
to dwelling and drainage, the marks to denote sites where the drainage
was imperfect would at the same time denote the seats of epidemic
disease. This had been so far observed by medical men that there was,
perhaps, no point on which they were more anxious and urgent than that
increased sewerage and cleansing should be adopted as preventives of the
cholera. Yet in one extensive densely populated district, the
Commissioners, because they had observed no effects on their own men,
who were accustomed to the sewers, took upon themselves to disregard all
the precautions advised by persons of complete knowledge. “At the time
of the cholera the arching over the sewers was very much applied for” in
the Ravensbourne Commission; “but,” says the officer of the commission,
“I do not think there was anything done on account of the cholera,
because the court held a different feeling on that point. Out of all the
men employed by the Commissioners of Sewers, and who were constantly in
those sewers, there was not one of those attacked by the cholera.”
All this incompleteness as to the extent of the districts drained, and
the imperfection in the mode of executing the works, appears from the
complaints and evidence given before the Committee to be accompanied by
disproportionate and oppressive assessments and extravagant expenditure.
The rates were complained of as levied on property which was undrained,
and derived no benefit from them; and by equal assessments on houses
which derive benefit by direct communications with the sewers, and on
houses which have no communication with them, and only derive benefit
from the surface drainage, and in some cases on houses which were
unoccupied. These unequal charges, sometimes for long periods, and for
large and permanent works, fell upon a fluctuating tenancy. “We should
claim,” says one witness, “20 years’ rate from the incoming tenant
(122), or we might have sold the premises” (129).
In respect to the existing expenditure, very strong statements of
mismanagement were made in the majority of the town districts; but I
prefer referring on this topic to the evidence taken before the
Committee of the House of Commons. One marked character of the
expenditure is the greater amount paid to the clerk of the Board, and
for office expenses, than for any skill or science in the
superintendence of the work. Thus in the district where the
Commissioners, on the example of their own workmen, adjudged that the
applications for arching over the sewers on the ground that they created
a predisposition to the spread of the epidemic were unfounded, the
payments to the clerk of the Board for his salary and office was
750_l._, assistant-clerk 100_l._, and three surveyors were paid each
50_l._ (besides commission on works executed, and a fee of a guinea for
communicating with the drain.) In another subdivision the expenses of
the clerks, messengers, &c., exclusive of collection, were 15,737_l._
for 20 years, while for the same period the expense of surveyors,
inspectors, and clerks of the works was 14,928_l._ In another division
the tavern expenses for 20 years were 7,935_l._ In one district the cost
of the commission, compared with the beneficial outlay on the works,
appeared to be 200 per cent. In regard to another level, it is stated
that there was laid out on works the sum of 17,455_l._ 18_s._ 10_d._;
and—
£. _s._ _d._
In working the commission 9,003 18 7
Commission on collection 1,635 10 9½
——————— —— ——
Total £10,639 9 4½
======= == ==
The proportion of the cost of management to the expenditure on work
appears to have been similar in others of these administrative bodies.
The Committee stated as a principal defect of these bodies—“The want of
publicity and responsibility systematically enforced.” There were
several of the trusts in which the Courts have not been open to the
public, the right of the ratepayers to inspect the accounts not
admitted, and “where consequently a real responsibility in money matters
can hardly be said to exist.”
_Mr. W. Fowler_, a Commissioner, says—
“If they are to go from year’s end to year’s end without being subject
to any control, I feel the money will be expended as I believe it now
is, and dribbled away, not expended fairly in carrying the ostensible
works into execution.”
Another defect resulting from the capricious constitution of these
trusts, on which the Committee reported, was the want of uniformity.
“There are no two districts in which the law does not vary, or where,
if the law be the same, the commissioners do not interpret some parts
of in a different manner.
“Thus, a man having property in Finsbury and in Westminster, or in the
City and in the Tower Hamlets, may find himself placed under different
systems, and may be led by his knowledge of the regulations of the one
district to violate the regulations of the other.”
Such being the unfavourable constitution of these bodies as described in
the Parliamentary Reports, and the evidence taken before the Committees,
the accounts given of the qualifications of many of the officers of
these trusts for the execution of any work of magnitude requiring
scientific attainments are equally unfavourable. The following general
account of them is given by an architect of eminence, who has conducted
large works in the metropolis and in various parts of the country, and
is corroborated by several other engineers of extensive practice.
“In the rural districts, the men appointed as surveyors by the local
Commissioners are very little better than common labourers, men with
no idea of construction or of management; that is the description of
men I have met with in the country places: they are commonly a sort of
foremen of the labourers who are called ‘ditch casters.’ In the towns
the men appointed are frequently decayed builders, or tradesmen whose
knowledge is limited to common artificers’ work, such as bricklayers’
and carpenters’ work. Some may be capable of drawing: only a few. They
have neither education, nor salary, nor station, to place them above
bribery, and the consequences are notoriously such as might be
expected of public services performed by such an agency. In some
instances there are very good exceptions; that is, where the
remuneration is adequate to ensure the service of a respectable
persons, and where, as occasionally happens, a person of
respectability has the local influence to obtain the appointment. The
district surveyors in the metropolis are in general respectable and
well-qualified public officers. In local matters no thought is ever
had of combining duties. The chief concern of the Commissioner of
sewers, where he holds property of his own, is to drain his own
property.”
Another description of the persons usually appointed as surveyors is
given in the following terms by a gentleman who is himself a surveyor of
extensive practice:—
“As regards the appointment of surveyors to the Commissioners of
Sewers, I would observe that, in my opinion, very few of them are
properly qualified by education or otherwise to perform the important
duties entrusted to them in an effective and proper manner. A man to
be a good surveyor of sewers should be a practical civil engineer, in
which science is comprehended levelling in all its branches, and other
matters requisite and necessary in the construction of drains and
sewers: in proof of this, an instance recently occurred in one of the
divisions (which I need not particularize) in the construction of a
sewer, that after it had proceeded for a considerable distance, from
an error in taking the levels, was found to be below the level of the
outlet, and was in consequence obliged to be all destroyed, and
another sewer constructed upon a proper level. This error was so
clearly traced to the want of practical knowledge on the part of the
surveyor, or the application of it, that he was amerced in the greater
part of the cost.”
A builder of extensive experience in the wealthy districts of the
metropolis states, that in making drains and executing works which
communicate with the sewers on which large sums have been expended, he
has not found one main sewer in three properly made; and the strongest
statements of the extravagant nature of the expenditure was made by
witnesses who had themselves acted as members of the bodies directing
it.
The office business of two of the commissions appeared to me to be very
respectably conducted. But in the structural arrangements, in only one
commission do any of the works executed approach the existing state of
science. In that one, the Holborn and Finsbury trust, they happened to
obtain a surveyor, having science and practical experience as an
engineer, whose advice was acted upon, and that officer effected the
only considerable improvements of a scientific character that have been
made in the sewerage of the metropolis. These improvements for
preventing the accumulations of deposits in the sewers, and the
generation of malaria, and at the same time reducing the expenses of
cleansing more than one-half, must be considered improvements of a very
high order. But though they are demonstrated, and in full and successful
action, they appear to have been imitated only in one other adjacent
district. In the others they go on constructing sewers which are the
latent sources of pestilence and death. This officer was asked the
following questions:—
“If the public, who may be ignorant of the science of sewerage and of
what it may accomplish, make no complaints, and do not call for the
adoption of any improved system, in how long a time do you think the
improvements demonstrated in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions would
reach the other ends of the metropolis by the force of imitation and
voluntary adoption?—From the apathy shown and prejudice against
anything new, however valuable it may be as an improvement, and the
various interests affected, such as the contractors for cleansing, I
do not expect that they would become general in the metropolis during
my life-time. The public are passive, and the adverse interests are
active.
“You know the description of persons engaged as surveyors of various
descriptions in the rural districts and in the smaller towns?—Yes, I
do.
“Unless care be taken, is it to be apprehended that any new
expenditure will be made on imperfect and unwholesome drains with flat
bottoms and on false principles at a disproportionate
expense?—Undoubtedly, except they have to act on rule, it will
certainly be so throughout the country. The drainage that I have seen
in the country districts is worse than in the metropolis.”
The consideration of these circumstances, in respect to the past
expenditure in this branch of local administration, appears to be
necessary for meeting the objections and opposition to any future
expenditure, and especially of any apparent increase required for the
successful removal of the physical causes of bodily suffering, and the
moral degradation of the labouring classes. In the towns and districts
where the chief evils in question are admitted, but where anything
wearing the appearance of a new expenditure for any purpose is
unpopular, and will be thwarted or yielded unwillingly, the objections
when examined are found to consist mainly of a rooted distrust of the
money being equally levied, or carefully and efficiently expended for
the attainment of the professed objects of public advantage. From such
evidence as that already adduced from the Report of the Committee of the
House of Commons, but presented in greater extent and strength in the
course of the present inquiry—of instances of disease and death
occasioned by miasma from badly made and sluggish or stagnant drains
that pervade whole towns, it will be seen that it cannot fairly be said
that the distrust is not well founded.
A due examination, however, of the experience even of voluntary and
private expenditure on the wealthy districts where water is laid on, and
the main drainage is complete for the removal of refuse, appears to
establish the conclusion that only a part of the work is then attained,
and that for the economical attainment of the general objects of
protecting the least protected classes, that which is generally deemed
the private and subordinate work, namely, the house drainage, must form
part of the same general system, and be executed under the same general
superintendence.
It appears to be partly a defect in legislation, and partly a defect in
the constitution of the existing authorities for the direction of public
drainage, that their agency is never thought of for the superintendence
even of work which can seldom be cheaply and efficiently executed by
private individuals, and that can only be so executed and kept in order
by the systematic application of science and skill. An order, that the
landlords of all houses which have no drains communicating with the main
drains shall make them, is an order, when viewed in its operation in a
street or district where there are 50 or 100 different owners, that
those 50 or 100 persons shall separately get plans possibly from as many
different builders, and enter into contracts with them, and procure
capital which, to poor owners, will be a serious amount of several
hundred pounds in the aggregate, to be applied as a permanent investment
on property in which a large proportion of them will only have various
transitory interests. Viewed in its aggregate operation on all places
requiring amendment, the simple compulsory enactment for house drainage,
and without any previous care as to the means, would be, in effect, an
order for the expenditure of several millions of money in the manner
described by _Mr. Charles Oldfield_, a practical witness of great
experience, whose evidence (corroborated by the testimony of other
witnesses of extensive experience) has already been referred to on this
important topic:—
“Have you as a builder had much experience in the drainage of
houses?—Very considerable experience, and I pay particular attention
to it; there is no part of a building to which I pay more attention
than to the drainage. I seldom allow the drains to be covered in
without seeing to them myself.
“Do you think it desirable that legislative provision should be made
for the drainage of the tenements of the labouring classes?—I think it
most necessary; but merely ordering the drains to be made will not do.
Drains made for the tenements of the working classes, if left to the
parties, are almost sure to be badly constructed, and badly
constructed drains might merely carry away the soil; they might not do
that; and they would probably let in as great an evil, namely, the
foul air from the sewer. In general, unless care be taken, what is
called making drains will be opening conduits for the escape of foul
air from the sewers into the houses. This is frequently so with the
houses of the better classes of persons, where the drains are not made
perfectly air-tight, and are not properly trapped at all the
apertures. I am frequently called upon to examine houses where they
say they are oppressed by unpleasant smells. Some time ago I was
called upon to examine a house in one of the principal streets in
London, belonging to a gentleman of distinction, who was about to
abandon it in consequence of the unpleasant smells which were
continually arising. He was particularly annoyed that this smell arose
in the greatest strength whenever he had parties; the drains had been
opened, and there was no lodgement of soil in them. People commonly
imagine that when they get rid of the soil they have got rid of the
stench; they do not see and do not conceive the effect of the foul
air, which is so much lighter than atmospheric air that it escapes
where the atmospheric air would not. On examining the drains at his
house, I found that they were imperfect, and that the foul air
filtered through them. Whenever he had a party there was a stronger
fire in the kitchen, and stronger fires in other parts of the house,
and the windows and the external doors being shut, and a greater
draught created, larger quantities of the foul air from the sewers
rose up. These stenches arise in the greatest strength in the private
houses when the doors and windows are closed, the fire and column of
light air in the chimney being at work. So it would be with drains
made from the house to the sewer, or from the sewer to the house of
the poor man, unless care were taken in the construction of the
drains. When the door was shut, and he sat down to enjoy his fireside,
he would have a stench. This would be the effect of merely ordering
the drains to be made by the owners of such tenements, who would get
the work done in the way they thought to be the least expensive. You
would have them made in a row of tenements with every difference in
faults,—different forms, different sizes, different falls, bad
materials, without traps at the apertures, and not air-tight;
therefore constantly conducting a stream of polluted air from the
sewers into the houses; and there will be faults which an inspector
will not easily remedy when work is done in this manner.
“In what way, then, would you recommend them to be done, for
efficiency?—They should be done entirely by the persons in charge of
the sewers, or under the control of officers of competent skill, who
should have power to enter upon the premises, and see that the whole
of the work was properly done. Neither should private persons have
power to make any alteration without giving notice, and making the
alteration according to well-tried and approved plans. I confine my
observations, however, to tenements of certain size,—to those for the
labouring man, who has no power to protect himself, and who stands in
need of protection. It might be deemed objectionable to exercise any
control over the higher class of tenements, and the wealthier people
are able to protect themselves; but all those things that are out of
sight are done in the worst manner in the smaller tenements.
“If such an authority were to contract for the drainage of a whole
street, how much more cheaply do you conceive the work might be done
under one contract than if the labour were to be done separately, by
perhaps as many different occupiers or owners as there are houses,
each employing his own bricklayer?—At the least, from 10 to 15 per
cent. difference. Serving a notice in writing on a poor occupier,
perhaps a shifting one, that he is to get a drain made, would be of no
use. Proceeding by serving notices on the owners of such tenements, is
a course beset with difficulties. Many of the small owners are not
readily to be found; the ownership to some of the poorest plots are in
dispute. Then, when the owners are found, every owner has to seek and
bargain with a bricklayer for what he does unwillingly, and whom he
tells to do the work in the cheapest way he can. The owner does not
usually know what instructions to give; and in nine cases out of ten
the work will be badly, and at the same time expensively done. It is
with the greatest difficulty that I can get the drains to my own
houses properly done. Frequent complaints are made of the state of the
sewers by occupants in some districts, but when they are examined it
is found, in many cases, that the cause of complaint arises from their
own drain not being properly made. The poorer or reluctant owner would
seek a cheap or needy bricklayer, and will get an expensive one.
Everything ordered of this kind may be made a job of; the bricklayer
may do more than is wanted, or may make larger drains than necessary,
and thereby incur useless expense. If it be done by the public
authorities, leaving to the private parties to do it if they please
within a limited period, under the inspection of a proper officer, it
can hardly fail to be much less expensively done for the private
individual himself, and it is very sure to be better done for the poor
owner. The certain obstacles to any mere general enactments to have
the work done by a multitude of persons will be immense, and the work
will certainly be badly done, whilst, if it is well done, it will be
of the greatest public advantage.”
_Mr. Roe_, the engineer, was asked, with reference to house drainage—
“Have you found the system of cleansing the large drains by flushing
with proper supplies of water equally applicable to small drains?—Yes,
equally applicable. A gentleman has tried it on a private drain of
18–inch capacity, and 1200 feet length, and it answers equally well.
It is cleansed by the collection of refuse water from 30 or 40 houses.
“Might not the drains from private houses be also cleansed in the same
mode?—Yes, they might have a small and cheap apparatus for carrying
away all ordinary refuse. If in the small drain a brick fell in, it
could not be removed by the force of the small quantity of water which
could be obtained in such a situation. In our large sewers the heads
of water are in some cases strong enough to sweep away loose bricks.
“Would it not be of advantage to the occupier if the private drains
were under the same general superintendence?—I conceive it would in
management. They are frequently put to great expense by getting
persons to attend to them who really do not understand them. They are
often now obliged to have recourse to the contractor’s men. Private
property is often drained through other private property, and when the
drains are choked, if the parties are not on good terms, they will not
allow each other facilities for cleansing. Under the Finsbury Local
Act there is a power to enforce the cleansing of private drains, and
by way of appeal that power is sometimes resorted to by private
individuals.
“May we not presume that the same principles of hydraulics, as to the
advantages of a flow over a semicircular bottom, are as applicable to
small drains as to large ones?—More so from the flow of water being
smaller; the greater necessity for keeping it in a body to enable it
to carry away the common deposit.
“Then there is a proportionate loss in having the private drainage
made with flat-bottomed bricks or boards?—Yes, there is proportionate
loss from the extra cost of cleansing. Semicircular drains of tiles
would be better, and cheaper than brick for private houses.”
Supposing that only one-third of the existing tenements require
drainage, the saving of 15 per cent. on the expenditure by the execution
of the work by contract under the superintendence of a responsible
engineer would be more than 1,500,000_l._ sterling on the outlay,
independently of the difference in efficiency.
The necessity has previously been suggested of spreading the immediate
cost over a number of years to make the charge coincident with the
benefit. Were it left to the option of individuals to repay the cost at
intervals of 20 or 30 years, and charge their tenants, as described in a
supposed form of notice to them, which I have appended to illustrate the
practical working of such a provision, (allowing them either to defray
the whole cost at once, or execute the work themselves, under proper
superintendence; if they thought they could execute it cheaper,) the
immediate advantages of such improvements would then have some chance of
being fairly estimated as against the immediate cost and inconveniences
of a change, and resistance from latent motives of hostility would be
obviated.
But however the charge may be diffused, and to whatever extent
opposition on the part of the smaller owners may be obviated by care, it
cannot safely be overlooked that in the poorest districts where it is
most important that the works should be well executed, the superior
direction of such expenditure will, in the ordinary course, fall into
the hands of the owners of the worst-conditioned tenements, who have the
greatest dread of immediate expenses, and who are under the strongest
influence of petty jealousies; for in such districts it is precisely the
class of persons who cannot agree to profitable measures of private
drainage, who are the owners of the worst tenements, who, having leisure
during the intervals of their weekly collections, and from other causes,
are most frequently found in honorary offices for the direction of local
expenditure. One officer, when asked how it was that in a district where
fever had been rife nothing had been done under the authority of the
law, which authorized its being cleansed? replied, that the Board had
made precisely the same objections that were made when the cholera
appeared; when it was proposed to cleanse the district, the answer made
at the Board was, that “they did not believe it would do any good:” and
those of the officers who were landlords of the weekly tenements said,
“Why should we disturb and drive away our tenants?” and those who were
shopkeepers said, “Why should we frighten away our customers by
representing the neighbourhood as unhealthy?” consequently nothing was
done.
The legislature, in making demands for such honorary services, has
usually proceeded on the theory which views all those who may be called
upon to render them, as persons qualified to understand the whole
subject intuitively, and having no other interest or views than to
perform the services zealously for the common weal; whereas, in the
locality they are viewed in a totally different light, not as public
officers, but in their private capacities, as owners or tradesmen,
competitors for advantages of various kinds. However unjust this
impression may frequently be, it is the impression that commonly
prevails; and since all of one class cannot have a share in the
administration of such funds, others of the same class, whether owners
or tradesmen, view the persons exercising the power as rivals, and
distrust their administration accordingly. As an owner, one member of a
local Board is strongly indisposed to any line of operations that will
apparently improve the property of another; and as an owner, too, he is
under the strongest jealousy if he proposes or does anything which may
appear to benefit his own property at the public expense.
Neither is such distrust as to trustworthiness from skill and adverse
private interests confined to the administration of the public works of
sewerage and drainage; it is fortified by the example of the local
administration of the works of road construction and repair, a branch of
administration so inseparably connected with drainage operations, as to
justify and require a joint consideration with them.
Witnesses of the most extensive practical experience lay the greatest
stress on the necessity of lifting these important branches of
administration out of the influence of petty and sinister interests, and
of doing so by securing the appointment of officers of superior
scientific attainments, who (subject to a proper local as well as
general control) may be made responsible for directing any new
expenditure on a scale of efficiency as well as of economy. A competent,
scientific, and efficient management, let it be applied to what part of
these works it may, can scarcely fail to be immediately as well as
ultimately the most economical management. But it will be found on
examination that the consolidation of all the structural arrangements,
comprising under-drainage and surface-drainage, road structure and
repair, under one service, is most required for the sake of efficiency.
Division of labour in the arts derives its efficiency from combination,
adaptation, and subordination to direction to one end; but that which
appears to be a division of labour in local administration is, in fact,
an insubordinate separation, weakening the means of procuring adequate
skill and power, occasioning obstructions and defective execution, and
enhancing expense. Were pins or machines made as sewers and roads are
constructed; shafts of pins would be made without reference to heads,—in
machines screws would be made without sockets, and, it may be
confidently stated, there would not be a safe or perfect and
well-working machine in the whole country.
_Mr. Telford_, in a report on the Holyhead road, makes the following
observations:—
“Perfect management must be guided by rules and regulations, and these
must be carried into effect by the unceasing attention of a judicious
and faithful surveyor who has by actual experience and attention
acquired a thorough knowledge of all that is required, and applicable
to the general and local state of particular districts, as regards
soil, materials, and climate; likewise the sort of wear to which the
surface is liable. A person possessed of all these requisites, and
otherwise properly qualified to level and set out new lines, &c.,
where necessary, must receive the remuneration such a character
merits, and may always obtain, in this active and industrious country.
But however convinced and well-disposed trustees maybe to give this
remuneration, the tolls of five or six miles do not afford the means
of giving it. The consequence is that the Shifnal Trust (four miles)
has hitherto been under the management of a person so little
acquainted with proper road business, that it becomes a serious
consideration whether it will be prudent to suffer the extensive
improvement at Priors Leigh to be entrusted to his care. Until the
Parliamentary Commissioners interfered and showed a practical example,
the Wellington Trust (seven miles) was managed almost wholly by the
clerk; he had a sort of foreman, who appeared to be only partly
employed on the road. And on the Shrewsbury Trust (seven miles), as
has already been stated, the surveyor and contractor were united in
the same person. All these managers proceeded, without regard to any
rules and regulations whatever, receiving only occasional directions
from some of the most active of the trustees, whose varying opinions
served more to distract than benefit the practical operations of the
workmen. I must beg leave to add that these observations are
applicable to all trusts of similar extent, and are evidences of the
propriety of establishing districts of a magnitude to justify a more
perfect arrangement, and the employing of a properly qualified
surveyor, whose sole occupation should be the road under his care, and
who should also be enabled to keep constantly employed a set of
workmen thoroughly conversant with road observations, and working
chiefly by contract.”—_First Annual Report on the Holyhead Road_, May
4, 1824. p. 25.
It need scarcely be necessary to observe that in the sense of that great
engineer, care of the road implied the greatest care in respect to the
drainage. In consequence of the limited areas of management, although
great expense is incurred, the appointments of the surveyors to
superintend works which are never well executed by any other than an
experienced engineer, are inferior even to the appointments of the paid
officers to superintend the sewerage. _Sir Henry Parnell_ in his work,
“On the Formation and Management of the Public Roads,” thus
compendiously describes the composition of the chief bodies by whom
these officers are chosen and directed:—
“According to the provisions of every Turnpike Act, a great number of
persons are named as trustees; the practice is to make almost every
one a trustee, residing in the vicinity of a road, who is an opulent
farmer or tradesman, as well as all the nobility and persons of large
landed properly: so that a trust seldom consists of fewer than 100
persons, even it the length of the road to be maintained by them does
not exceed a few miles. The result of this practice is, that in every
set of trustees there are to be found persons who do not possess a
single qualification for the office, persons who conceive they are
raised by the title of a road trustee to a station of some importance,
and who too often seek to show it by opposing their superiors in
ability and integrity when valuable improvements are under
consideration, taking care, too frequently, to turn their authority to
account, by so directing the spending of the road money as may best
promote the interests of themselves or their connexions.
“It sometimes happens that if one trustee, more intelligent and more
public-spirited than the rest, attempts to take a lead, and proposes a
measure in every way right and proper to be adopted, his ability to
give advice is questioned, his presumption condemned, his motives
suspected; and as every such measure will, almost always, have the
effect of defeating some private object, it is commonly met either by
direct rejection or some indirect contrivance for getting rid of it.
In this way intelligent and public-spirited trustees become disgusted,
and cease to attend meetings; for, besides frequently experiencing
opposition and defeat at the hands of the least worthy of their
associates, they are annoyed by the noise and language with which the
discussions are carried on, and feel themselves placed in a situation
in which they are exposed to insult and ill-usage.”
He observes, that “Although this turnpike system has led to the making
of many new roads, and to the changing of many old ones into what may be
called good roads in comparison with what they formerly were, this
system has been carried into execution under such erroneous regulations,
and the persons who have been entrusted with the administration of them
have uniformly been either so negligent or so little acquainted with the
business of making or repairing roads, that at this moment it may be
stated with the utmost correctness that there is not a road in England,
except those recently made by some eminent civil engineers, which is not
extremely defective in the most essential qualities of a perfect road.”
To the varying extent of these defects the public are forced to ascend
unnecessary heights, travel unnecessary distances, employ more
horse-labour than would be necessary in travelling over roads that are
kept hard, dry, and level, instead of wet, soft, and rugged. From the
Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject, it
appears that for every 200 miles of turnpike road there are, on an
average, ten surveyors: whereas, if the highways and turnpike trusts
were consolidated, one properly qualified surveyor might perform much
better the service with which the ten are charged. There are, it
appears, 1,116 turnpike trusts, comprehending about 22,000 miles. The
officers employed consist of 1,120 treasurers, 1,135 clerks, and 1,300
surveyors: total, 3,555. The annual cost of the _repair_ of the turnpike
roads is 51_l._ per mile: total expenditure of 1,122,000_l._ per annum.
The debts amounted to upwards of 9,000,000_l._ and they appeared to be
rapidly increasing. The average expense of the _management_ of the
highway and the turnpike roads is estimated at 10_l._ per mile per
annum; but it is calculated that if the management of the turnpikes and
highways were consolidated, they might be better managed at an expense
of from 30_s._ to 2_l._ per mile per annum. On comparing the actual
expense of the repairs of roads under a scientific management of the
highways with the common cost, it appears probable that by management on
an extended and appropriate scale, upwards of 500,000_l._ per annum may
be saved on that branch of administration alone.
The Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1834, examined some
of the most able engineers in the country, and a Commission subsequently
appointed, at the head of which were the Duke of Richmond and the
Marquis of Salisbury, coincided in recommending the adoption of the
principle of consolidation as the only means of retrieving that branch
of administration.
I venture humbly to submit the grounds for the opinion in which I
believe their Lordships would concur, that the principle of
consolidation may be carried still further, and include all public works
within the locality, as the best means of obtaining for each or for all,
at the least expense, the most efficient scientific direction.
It has been shown, in respect to drainage as well as road construction,
that the economy and efficiency of the works will be according to the
qualifications, the powers, and responsibilities of the officers
appointed to execute them, secured by legislative means, and that new
labour on the old condition, without skill, will be executed in the old
manner, extravagantly and inefficiently. But engineers or properly
qualified officers having the science of civil engineering could not be
procured for every separate purpose in every part of the country, as is
generally assumed in Acts of Parliament for effecting particular
objects. When such connected work is divided and separated, the
remuneration necessary to obtain properly qualified officers to attend
to the fragment of service is too high; the separation, therefore, in
most places, amounts to the exclusion of science from public work, or,
in other words, to its degradation. It will be found, when the works of
draining and road making and maintenance are examined, that the common
practice of making sewers on plans independently of the construction of
roads, and roads independently of the arrangements for cleansing and
keeping them dry, is always to the disadvantage of the work and to the
public. The same surface levels and surveys serve for drainage and for
road construction. The construction of the drains for roads and streets,
and the maintenance of them, are the primary and most important works;
the construction and maintenance of the surface of the road is a
connected work, subsequent in order, and can be best superintended by
the same officer. In every part of the country inconveniences and losses
are experienced from the separation of such work on almost every
occasion where repair or new construction is needed. In the towns a road
is broken up by the bursting of a sewer or the necessity of cleansing or
repairing it; the sewer is repaired, but the road is left broken,
because the road surveyor and his separate set of workmen are engaged in
some other work. In the metropolis, the breaches left in the roads by
the delay and want of concert amongst the various officers are a source
not only of great obstruction but of frequent accidents. In replacing
the pavements the water and the gas-pipes are not unfrequently put out
of order, and these again occasion another opening and another expense
to the public, for repairs. In the rural districts a road is out of
repair, but the first remedy is drainage; the road surveyor cannot
proceed because the sewers’ surveyor has his men elsewhere occupied. In
various other particulars the consolidation of the same work under the
same officer, acting with a combined staff of foremen and workmen, is
attended with advantages in efficiency and economy to which it were
unnecessary to advert, if the opposite arrangements were not the most
frequent. In the few instances that have taken place of a combination of
duties, the experience of the advantages of the combination would
occasion a proposal for separating them to be viewed as an increase of
trouble and expense, and a hinderance to the proper execution of the
work.
In the districts where the greatest defects prevail, we find such an
array of officers for the superintendence of public structures as would
lead to the _à priori_ conclusion of a high degree of perfection in the
work from the apparent subdivision of labour in which it is distributed.
In the same petty districts we have surveyors of sewers appointed by the
commissioners of sewers, surveyors of turnpike-roads appointed by the
trustees of the turnpike trusts, surveyors of highways appointed by the
inhabitants in vestry, or by district boards under the Highway Act; paid
district surveyors appointed by the justices, surveyors of paving under
local Acts, surveyors of building under the Building Act, surveyors of
county bridges, &c.
The qualifications of a civil engineer involve the knowledge of the
prices of the materials and labour used in construction, and also the
preparation of surveys, and the general qualifications for valuations,
which are usually enhanced by the extent of the range of different
descriptions of property with which the valuator is conversant. The
public demands for the services of such officers as valuators are often
as mischievously separated and distributed as the services for the
construction and maintenance of public works. Thus we have often, within
the same districts, one set of persons appointed for the execution of
valuations and surveys for the levy of the poor’s rates; another set for
the surveys and valuations for the assessed taxes; another for the land
tax; another for the highway rates; another for the sewers’ rates;
another for the borough rates; another for the church rates; another for
the county rates, where parishes neglect to pay, or are unequally
assessed, and for extra-parochial places; another for tithe commutation.
And these services are generally badly rendered separately at an undue
expense.
It is in the ordinary course that local bodies would have the power of
appointing surveyors for seeing to the execution of provisions for the
regulation of buildings, on the precedent of the Metropolitan Building
Act; and these officers are paid by fees varying from 1_l._ to 3_l._
10_s._ each building. In the towns, it is rare that one-story houses are
erected where the ground is of much value; and it will be a low average
to take all the new houses as of two stories, that, is, fourth-rate
houses, for which a fee of 2_l._ has been proposed to be paid. Before
the building surveyor can proceed, the sewers’ surveyor must have seen
that the drains are properly laid, and the builder have obtained a
certificate from him to that effect. The labour of the budding surveyor,
if properly performed, may require as much as an hour for the inspection
of each new building. But the amount of the proposed fee would in
general more than pay, in ordinary cases, for the construction of an
efficient drain for such a tenement. Any speculating builder who is
building a fourth-rate street of fifty houses, would, by removing out of
the limits of the jurisdiction, save by the removal the means of
erecting an additional house or drains for the whole of them.
No past or proposed legislative measures prescribe any securities for
appropriate skill, or trustworthiness for the performance of such
services. It is matter of complaint in one extensive district in the
metropolis, that the duty of examining the premises is performed by
young men, junior clerks to the district surveyor.
In proportion as science is securely allied to local administration is
its respectability enhanced and the attainment of its objects ensured.
It is dangerous to legislate in detail, for the information is not
usually available for legislative preparation against all existing local
difficulties, still less all future important contingencies. Where
detailed regulations are prescribed arbitrarily, the danger is incurred
of creating an obstacle to the work intended to be forwarded. For
example, it has been proposed that Parliament shall not only provide
“That every outer wall of every building shall be built of good, sound,
well-burnt, bricks, or good sound stone, and set in good mortar,” but
shall direct and instruct the builders, and fix, against any alteration
or improvement, the mode in which good mortar shall be made, viz., “And
the mortar and cement shall be _well_ compounded in the proportion of
_one_ part of good fresh-burnt lime or cement, and _three_ parts of
clean sharp sand;” there, however, are large tracts of country where
neither clean sand, nor sharp sand, nor sand of any sort is to be had,
and where they use smiths’ ashes for the purpose. But the use of this
material is thenceforward illegal, and no new discovery can be adopted
without the sanction of an Act of Parliament. In one large parish it was
lately desired to try a pavement of wood, when it was discovered that
the local Act prescribed the use of granite for pavement. In the
impracticability of carrying out all such detail, or from default of
defining the ends and prescribing the attainment instead of the means,
or stating the means generally, as that a wall shall be built “of
incombustible materials,” it is in the usual course to require that
important work shall be done in such manner as “shall be satisfactory to
the surveyor who shall inspect the same,” or “according to the
directions of the surveyor of the district;” _e. g._, that no chimney
shall be built more than six feet high, “unless the same shall be
secured by sufficient iron stays of such strength and dimensions, and to
be fixed in such manner as shall be approved of by the surveyor who
shall inspect the building.” The objections entertained by builders of
respectability to the granting of such large powers, is founded on the
certainty as to the character of the appointments of surveyors to be
hereafter made if no other securities than mere general directions be
taken in respect to them for the public protection. It may be a rival
builder who is appointed, and it is very certain to be generally a
person in trade by whom the power is exercised, whose dissatisfaction
with work really fair and good may be governed by sinister
considerations against which a fair builder will feel he has no defence;
but the greater danger is to the public, that no dissatisfaction may be
expressed with work that is cheap but unsound. The building covers bad
drains, and hides rotten walls, and the effects in the calamities of
spreading fires and falling houses, and calamities of sufferings, and
deaths, occur in after years, when the original defect may not be
detected by the closest examination, and when all concerned may have
departed.
If the services of men of independent position, with the science and
qualifications of engineers, were secured, their inspection of works
would often be invited, and the notice they could not fail to take of
unintentional and profitless errors, such as wrong levels, which detract
from the convenience and value of tenements, would be of much value and
be received cordially, and the exercise of discretionary authority in
such hands would meet with comparatively respectful obedience.
No one can have had occasion to examine much of the business of local
administration, without being aware of other evils entailed by the
multiplication of badly appointed officer’s in addition to the evils of
excessive cost and bad quality of the service to the ratepayers. One of
the evils is the fuel they add to the flames of local parties, by which
both parties are generally losers. Where special and scientific
qualifications are not defined, or, if defined, not secured—where the
most fatal errors, as in this instance, are shrouded by the nature of
the work from detection—all the idle dependents of election committees
who have time to spare, because they have failed in their own business
for want of steady application, and because their time is worthless, are
let in as candidates, and in proportion to the absence of security for
qualifications is the extent of expectation created and disappointment
ensured. The dreadful state of the labouring classes in the most
important towns,—the entire neglect of existing sanitary
regulations,—the apathy to repeated remonstrances that have been made by
eminent medical practitioners, as by Dr. Ferrier in Manchester and by
Dr. Currie of Liverpool,—the entire neglect of recommendations made by
them, which, if carried out, would have protected those communities from
immense burdens, from pestilence and slaughters worse than many wars,
and from an enfeebled, diseased, and, by physical causes, a degraded
generation of workpeople,—the resistance made from no other manifest
cause than a blind jealousy of interference, to the exercise of powers
that can have no other object than to prevent the like evils for the
future,—all indicate the conclusion as to the nature of the arrangements
to be expected from those who have by familiarity become insensible to
the means of preventing the evils which fall with the greatest weight on
the least protected classes.
Supposing population and new buildings for their accommodation to
proceed at the rate at which they have hitherto done in the boroughs,
and supposing all the new houses to be only fourth rate, the expense, at
the ordinary rate of payment of surveyors’ fees, would be about
30,000_l._ per annum for the new houses alone. Fees of half the amount
required for every new building are allowed for every alteration of an
old one, and the total expense of such structures would probably be near
50,000_l._ in the towns alone—an expense equal to the pay of the whole
corps of Royal Engineers, or 240 men of science, for Great Britain and
Ireland.[43]
But at the rate of increase of the population, of Great Britain, which
is 230,000 per annum, (_i. e._ equal in population to the annual
addition of a new county, such as Worcester or the North Riding of
Yorkshire,[44] and to accommodate them 59,000 new tenements are
required, or a number equal to that of two new towns annually such as
Manchester proper, which has 32,310 houses, and Birmingham, which has
27,268 houses,) affording, if all that have equal need receive equal
care, fees to the amount of no less than from 80,000_l._ to 100,000_l._
per annum. This would afford payment equal to that of the whole corps of
sappers and miners, or nearly 1000 trained men, in addition to the corps
of engineers.
From a consideration of the science and skill now obtained for the
public from these two corps for general service, some conception may be
formed of the science and skill that might be obtained in appointments
for local service, by pre-appointed securities for the possession of the
like qualifications, but which are now thrown away in separate
appointments at an enormous expense, where qualifications are entirely
neglected.
The officers of the engineer corps have the execution and care of
structural works, docks and dock-yards, fortifications, military roads,
and barracks, in addition to the ordinary military duties. One captain
of engineers fills the office of hydraulic engineer to the Admiralty,
and to his superintendence is intrusted the construction and repairs of
all the docks, buildings, and other public works.
The officers of the engineers have been distinguished for their services
on some of the most important civil commissions. As collateral services
which they have rendered to the public, may be mentioned the
trigonometrical survey of Ireland, and that now in progress for England
under the Board of Ordnance, and also the geological survey. The
levelling, however, and the whole of the detail of the trigonometrical
survey in England, is taken by the privates, corporals, and sergeants of
the corps of sappers and miners, who have been instructed in geometry,
drawing, and mensuration at the school at Chatham. The triangulation for
the detail of this work is executed by the engineer officers under the
direction of the superintendent of the survey, Colonel Colby. The great
majority of the surveys obtained under the Parochial Survey and
Valuation Act from private surveyors have been inferior to the surveys
executed under superintendence by the privates and non-commissioned
officers of the sappers and miners serving at a pay of from 1_s._ 2_d._
to 3_s._, per diem. Out of 1700 first-class maps received under the
Parochial Assessment and Tithe Acts, not more than one-half displayed
qualifications for the execution of public surveys without
superintendence. Amongst the most satisfactory maps of the first class
of parochial surveys were those executed by a retired sergeant of
sappers and miners. The Commissioners for the colonization of South
Australia found it difficult to proceed satisfactorily with persons of
the ordinary qualifications of surveyors or civil engineers for that
country; and deemed it requisite to obtain the services of an engineer
officer, with a suitable number of trained men, sappers and miners,
under his command.
But for the construction and care of local works, sewers, roads, and
drains and houses, no qualification whatsoever is usually conceived to
be requisite. The chairman of the Holborn and Finsbury Commission of
Sewers, where a change of management so beneficial to the health, and so
economical of the funds of the ratepayers, was obtained by placing the
work under the direction of an engineer, informed me that when that
commission advertised for a person to act as surveyor to the works who
understood the use of the spirit level, the candidates, who were nearly
all common housebuilders, were greatly surprised at the novel demand,
and several of them began to learn the use of that instrument in order
to qualify them for the appointment. In the canvassing letters which I
have seen for parochial or local surveyorships, I never observed
qualifications for skill or science even adverted to; and where a
special qualification happens to be prescribed by statute, it is not
regarded. For example, the Act of the 5 and 6 _Wm._ IV. enables the
parochial vestries to appoint as surveyor a person of “skill and
experience” to serve the office of surveyor of such parish. As an
example of this description of appointments, I may mention one where, in
an important district, the person appointed was an illiterate tinman, a
leading speaker at parish meetings, who, for a service occupying a part
of his time, receives a salary of 150_l._ per annum, _i. e._, as much as
a lieutenant of engineers and a private, or as much as three sergeants
of sappers and miners, whose whole time is devoted to the public
service.
The mode in which such emoluments are at present wasted in the course of
administration under the Building Acts, and the extent of science and
skill that might be obtained for all purposes by the same amount of
money, may be seen by the rate of surveyors’ emoluments for a single
town. I submit, for example, the town of Leeds. There the average rate
of increase of houses having been 855 per annum, and of families 940, it
may be assumed that they will continue to increase at the same rate,
that is, of two new houses and three-tenths per diem, which, if they
were only fourth-rate houses, would be required to pay in fees 4_l._
12_s._ per diem for two or three hours’ service at the ordinary rate of
payment to private surveyors. If we bear in mind the evidence as to the
character of the past appointments, and of the works themselves, and
consider that, where no securities are taken for qualifications, none
will be found except by accident, the contrast with the payment for the
services of men of superior qualifications will be clearly perceived.
Such an amount of emolument would defray the expense of a whole Board of
superior officers at the rate of pay to the officers of the corps of
engineers:—
_Board of Officers._
£. _s._ _d._
1 Colonel 1 6 3
1 Lieutenant-colonel 0 18 1
2 Captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._ 1 2 2
2 First lieutenants, at 6_s._ 10_d._ 0 13 8
2 Second ditto, at 5_s._ 7_d._ 0 11 2
—— —— ——
4 11 4
Or if unity of direction and execution were required, the staff of
officers and men at the rate of pay for general service from the public
would be as follows. The rate of pay therein stated is subsistence pay:
the half-fees for every alteration made in a building would in most
cases suffice for the extra pay given to officers and men in active
service:—
£. _s._ _d._
1 Captain 0 11 1
2 First lieutenants 0 13 8
3 Second ditto 0 16 9
1 Colour-sergeant 0 3 0½
3 Sergeants, at 2_s._ 6½_d._ 0 7 7½
6 Corporals, at 2_s._ 2½_d._ 0 13 3
22 Privates, at 1_s._ 2½_d._ 1 6 7
—— —— ——
4 12 0
The high rates of remuneration ordinarily given for fragments of
practically irresponsible service, would not only serve to defray the
expense of direction by scientific officers, but of execution by trained
subordinate officers.
The following return will afford a display of the comparative rate of
emoluments in other towns from fees on the ordinary scale of surveyors’
fees:—
Rate of Rate of No. of New Rate of
Increase of Increase of Houses per Surveyors’ Fees
Families per Houses per Diem. per Diem for
Annum. Annum. Fourthclass
Houses.
£. _s._ _d._
Liverpool 1205 638 1‑7/10 3 8 0
Leeds 940 855 2‑3/10 4 12 0
Manchester 590 589 1‑6/10 3 4 0
Birmingham 561 474 1‑3/10 2 12 0
For the construction of efficient works for drainage, it is shown that
science is indispensable. If scientific officers be chosen for this one
purpose, if the objectionable mode of remuneration by fees be preserved,
since they are required to inspect the foundations of houses for the
purpose of drainage, they might for one-fourth of the proposed fee be
required to give inspection to the remainder of the work, and the
process of double certificates and divided responsibility be saved. Even
if the amount of work were in particular places too great to be
performed by one person, it would be better, and less expensive, that it
should be performed by him through an assistant, for whose defaults he
should be responsible. A reduction of the accustomed fees to one-fourth,
or of the aggregate emoluments obtainable under a general Building Act
to 15,000_l._ or 20,000_l._ per annum would still entail the loss of so
much money that might serve to secure superior scientific service;
whilst in the less populous districts the payment for the separate duty
of verifying the fact of compliance with the provisions of the Act would
be too small to ensure the service of competent and responsible
officers.
Besides the evils inherent in narrow districts, and the splitting of
connected functions which prevent the application of science by
preventing the appointment of scientific officers, there are other evils
attendant on such small jurisdictions and separation of functions,
namely, in the mode in which the money for such expenditure is levied.
The popular jealousy is excited by the further multiplication of
unnecessary offices, as of clerks and collectors, but real annoyance is
given by the consequent increased expense of separate collections. The
prevalent repugnance to direct taxation in any shape has hitherto been
greatly owing to the cause of grievances experienced in the number and
oppressiveness of the collections incidental to the ordinary local
taxation. Those collections confuse and obstruct the rate payers’
economy. Where there are a number of rates collected at different
periods, some are forgotten and not provided for; and when demanded,
they fall with the inconvenience and create the irritation of a new tax.
The householder may have paid the collector of his poor’s rates, then
the collector of his assessed taxes, then the collector of the land tax,
then the collector of the watch rates, then the collector of his paving
rates, then his lighting rates, then his water rates, and then he thinks
he has done, when a collector calls to demand the payment of the church
rates; he may have paid him, when another collector appears to demand
the payment of a sewers’ rate for two years, probably for the period of
a former tenant, and for which the tenant on whom the demand is levied
receives no apparent advantage. A witness says[45] (2231), “In Limehouse
there had not been a sewer built for 100 and odd years, and there are
2000 houses, and not a sewer to them.” Another states (2066), “In one
case a sewer rate of 6_d._ in the pound was levied for 10 years, without
even surface drainage;” and in that case the party paid another rate to
a trust for paving, lighting, and making drainage. “We could claim six
years,” says another witness (860); “three years’ rates in arrear, as
against former occupiers, were levied on the incoming tenants” (1798).
In a house receiving no benefit, the occupier, having refused to pay the
rate ten years, and having paid it but once in 1827, the commissioners,
when he left (1834) the house, “distrained on the new comer, and tore
down the corn-bin,” &c. His solicitor previously wrote to them that the
occupier was out of town, and wished them to abstain from taking any
violent measures, at the same time offering on his part to refer the
matter to any competent person (2328). In another case of aggravated
proceeding, Mr. William Baker, who was clerk to a like commission,
complained of the state of the sewerage, and of the rates in another
commission. He did not resist the rate, “for he knew very well what the
powers of the commissioners are, and it was not worth his while to
resist so strong a body.” The assessments of sewers’ rates are seldom
strictly legal.
Such rates, being small in amount, they are levied at long intervals,
for the collection at once of a sum sufficient to defray the expense of
collection; and because they are collected at long intervals, the
irritation and resistance and trouble is great, and an additional sum is
paid by the public for the collector’s share of the trouble of the
collection. For the collection of the assessed taxes 3_d._ in the pound
is paid; for the collection of the sewers’ rates from 6_d._ to 1_s._ in
the pound is usually paid. I venture to state, that by a consolidation
of the collection of such charges, enough may be saved of money
(independently of the saving of oppression and irritation) from the
collection of the one local tax, the sewers’ rate, to pay the expense of
the services of scientific officers throughout the country. At present
the high constable collects the county rate from every parish, and
carries it to the county treasurer, in the county town, and charges for
the expense of a journey. By an easy alteration, by payment by cheques
from the union treasurer to the county treasurer, in one county (Kent)
1000_l._ per annum might be saved, or enough to defray the immediate
expense of constructing permanent drains for upwards of 500 tenements.
What might be gained on this head for immediate expenditure, in most
towns, will be shown in the following extract, from the evidence of _Mr.
Simkiss_, the auditor of the Wolverhampton union:—
What are the amounts of the chief local rates collected, in round
numbers?—The poor’s rates are about 4000_l._, the highway rates about
2000_l._, and there are rates levied by commissioners under a local
Act for lighting, watching, and improving the town, amounting to about
3000_l._ in round numbers.
On his admission of the practicability of combining with advantage the
superintendence of all this expenditure by one Board in such a town, a
combination of which there are several examples, he observes:—
The greatest public advantage in having those duties united would be
the collection of the whole of the rates in one sum by the same
individual, and payment afterwards to the several purposes.
What are the present disadvantages of a separate collection of these
rates?—First, that there are three collectors to pay instead of one.
1_s._ in the pound is paid to the collector of the highway rates,
which is supposed to produce 100_l._ per annum. The collector of the
poor’s rates is paid by a fixed salary of 150_l._ per annum. The
collector of the commissioners’ rates is paid 8_d._ in the pound, and
he gets upwards of 100_l._ per annum. If the collection of the rates
were consolidated, they might be collected for 200_l._ per annum, and
upwards of 150_l._ per annum might be saved in salaries alone; but a
much larger sum might be saved by a more efficient collection of the
smaller rates. The surveyor’s rates and the commissioners’ rates not
being sufficient to occupy the whole time of separate individuals,
they attend to other things, and consequently much money is lost by
the delay in the operation. Parties remove, or die, or leave the town.
Three times the amount has been lost in Wolverhampton on the
collection of the highway rate as compared with the poor’s rates. The
highway rate and the commissioners’ rates, each being made for twelve
months, the collectors usually collect from the large rate payers
first; considerable time elapses before the smaller payers are called
upon, consequently much is lost by the delay. I have known it that the
highway rate has not been demanded in some parts of the town for seven
or eight months after it has been granted. The surveyors of highways,
and the commissioners of improvements, not taking so much care in
obtaining securities for the smaller rates, run greater risks of
defalcation. I do not advert to the collectors of the smaller rates in
our town, but the collectors of the smaller rates, being tradesmen,
usually use the public money in their trades, and there is frequently
much peculation. The accounts of the collection and expenditure of the
smaller rates are generally badly kept.
What I have already submitted will, I hope, suffice to sustain the
recommendation, that at the least nothing should be done to aggravate
the existing state of complication and waste, by new divisions of
service and the unnecessary additions of new and unqualified officers,
and that everything should be done to guard against the continued
reproduction of the evils in question in districts where there is clear
ground. It would, I apprehend, be practicable in the old districts to
superadd the appointments of officers, with proper qualifications,
without any diminution of the emoluments of the existing paid officers
or any material disturbance of them.
When the great importance of the general land drainage to the health of
those who labour upon it and to their most productive employment is
fully considered, it will, I conceive, be found entitled to all
collateral aid, to which an additional title would be conferred by equal
contribution of the owners and occupiers to the expenses of public
drainage. If officers of proper qualifications and responsibilities were
appointed, the works for sewerage branching from the towns, and the road
drainage, could not fail to aid, as indeed I conceive it should be
directed to aid, the private land drainage. The same surface levels and
sewerage, if made on the scale proposed by the Poor Law and Tithe
Commissioners (namely, of three chains to an inch) would serve for all
civil purposes, whether of towns or general land drainage, or road
drainage, for determining the descent of streams, for the application of
the water of which it is desirable to rid the upland wastes, and would
frequently be most beneficially applied for the use of the towns, and
for the use of the poorer districts.
The appointment of persons having the scientific qualifications and
position of civil engineers might serve to supply a want which is
generally found to be the chief impediment to the drainage of land
subdivided amongst numerous small holders, namely, the means of
reference or appeal to some authority deriving confidence from skill and
impartiality to determine on the need of works, and the mode of
executing them, or to arbitrate; and on the compensation due from damage
arising from them. Given such an authority, and in those small, but,
from their great number, most important cases, where the expense of an
application to Parliament is out of the question, it might, be safe to
say, by a general provision, that the inhabitants of a town may procure
springs of water, and make, deepen, and scour drains through the
circumjacent district; that regulations may be made for arching over or
covering the sewers to proper distances from the towns; for the purchase
of ground, and for the erection of works for rendering the refuse of the
towns available for agricultural purposes: power might also be given to
lay pipes in the highways, to put plugs for the supplies of water
against fires, and for watering the roads.
On referring to the experience of the efforts made in Ireland for the
drainage and reclaiming of bog lands, by which large tracts would be
obtained, it appears that the working of legislative measures for those
purposes have extensively failed, because the landowners had not
sufficient security that the work would be properly planned and
executed.[46]
I would here beg leave to guard myself from an apparent inconsistency.
In 1838, I was examined before a committee of the House of Commons on
their resolution, “That it is expedient that the parishes, townships,
and extra-parochial places should be united in districts for the repair
of the highways throughout England and Wales.” On that occasion I
adverted to the evil of the unnecessary multiplication of new
establishments as well as new officers, to their inevitable inefficiency
and to the expense and obstruction to improvement which they created;
and I submitted these, amongst other grounds, for proposing that the new
duties should devolve on the boards of guardians of the new unions, as
such duties had been in various instances combined under local Acts. The
committee recommended the proposal for adoption. On the premises then
placed before me, as to the expediency of establishing a new
administrative body with new clerks and officers for the collection and
management of the fund for repairs of the highways _alone_, and in small
districts for which even the areas of unions were thought large, I
should still adhere to the same conclusion.[47]
The present inquiry, however, has shown the general primary importance
of the works of sewerage and drainage throughout the country. The
execution of those works would properly devolve upon the commissioners
of sewers already in existence in the towns, or in the marsh districts,
or upon commissions of sewers which it will be found necessary to issue
to places where there has been no need of surface drainage, but which
stand in need of under-drainage. These being the primary works for
making the ground clear and keeping it clear for all other works, would
necessarily require the highest science and skill, and the strongest
establishment; and it would be only carrying farther the principle of
consolidation, as the only means of obtaining the most efficient
service, the most conveniently and at the lowest cost, now to recommend
that the care of the roads should, of all structural works, be made to
devolve upon that body which has the best means of executing them,
namely, the commissions of sewers, revised as to jurisdiction, and
amended and strengthened as to power and responsibility. What Colonel J.
F. Burgoyne, the experienced chairman of the Board of Works in Ireland,
stated in his evidence before the committee of the House Commons in
1836, (question 35,) on the consolidation of the turnpike trusts, may be
applied to the consolidation of other local works:—“One office and
account will then do for the whole; a superior superintendent could then
be employed, and more perfect machinery; the means will be more
generally available, and can be concentrated where required, by which
the works will be carried on with more advantage, and a system of
regular and rigid maintenance can be established so much more economical
and beneficial than that of occasional and periodical repairs.”
It is due to state that in petitions from ratepayers much
dissatisfaction is expressed with the proceedings of the commissions of
sewers, and their objectionable working is assigned to their
irresponsibility, and a favourite remedy proposed is to make them
elective; but if the administration of expenditure by elective vestries
be examined, it is found to be no better; and of entirely open vestries,
even worse; and the practical responsibility for injustice done to
individuals, or to any one who cannot get up a party, still less. It
may, however, be submitted for consideration, whether the commissions
for sewers might not be so far modified as to admit some infusion of the
representative principle in their composition, by including, as
ex-officio members of the commission, the chairman and vice-chairmen for
the time being of the Boards of Guardians of the poor law unions
included within the jurisdiction of the commission. These officers are
elected by the elected representatives of the ratepayers—the guardians.
It will be seen that much of the evil which the preventive measures
within the province of the commission of sewers must provide against, is
presented, in the first instance, to the Board of Guardians, in the
shape of claims to relief on the ground of destitution occasioned by
sickness. The chairman or the vice-chairman, before whom the cases are
thus brought, would form an efficient medium of communication. The
measures of drainage and structural improvement are permanent
improvements of the greatest importance to the labouring men, in common
with other classes; but it is matter of fact that such improvements are
the least supported by those who have the least permanent interest—the
smaller occupiers; or by those who have the least means and have the
greatest dread of immediate expenses—the smaller owners. The chairmen
and the vice-chairmen of the unions in the rural districts are, however,
the chief landed proprietors, who are elected by the guardians for the
interest they take in the improvement of local administration. The most
important improvements in the residences of the labouring classes that
have been brought to view by this inquiry have arisen from the
spontaneous benevolence of the larger proprietors; and so much
improvement must depend upon their voluntary exertion, that, for the
sake of the labouring classes, it recommends itself as an important
arrangement, that those who, as chairmen of the Boards, have the
distribution of relief to the destitution attendant on sickness, should
be placed in a position to represent the need of the means of
prevention, and urge forward their execution.
When the extent of the removable causes of sickness and mortality are
more clearly and extensively understood, as they will be, the Board of
Guardians will of necessity occupy much of the position of the Leet, as
a body fitted to act on complaints made, and to reclaim the execution of
the law against omissions and infractions which occasion illness or
injury to the most helpless classes.
_Boards of Health, or Public Officers for the Prevention of Disease._
In reports and communications, the institution of district Boards of
Health is frequently recommended, but in general terms, and they nowhere
specify what shall be their powers, how they shall seek out information
or receive it, and how act upon it. The recommendation is also
sanctioned by the committee which sat to inquire into the health of
large towns; and the committee state that “the principal duty and object
of these boards of health would be precautionary and preventive, to turn
the public attention to the causes of illness, and to suggest means by
which the sources of contagion might be removed.” “Such boards would
probably have a clerk, paid for his services, whose duty it would be to
make minutes of the proceedings, and give such returns in a short
tabular form as might be useful for reference, and important, as
affording easy information on a subject of such vital interest to the
people.”
I would submit that it is shown by the evidence collected in the present
inquiry, that the great preventives—drainage, street and house cleansing
by means of supplies of water and improved sewerage, and especially the
introduction of cheaper and more efficient modes of removing all noxious
refuse from the towns—are operations for which aid must be sought from
the science of the civil engineer, not from the physician, who has done
his work when he has pointed out the disease that results from the
neglect of proper administrative measures, and has alleviated the
sufferings of the victims. After the cholera had passed, several of the
local boards of health that were appointed on its appearance continued
their meetings and made representations; but the alarm had passed, and
although the evils represented were often much greater than the cholera,
the representations produced no effect, and the boards broke up. In
Paris a Board of Health has been in operation during several years, but
if their operations, as displayed in their reports, be considered, it
will be evident that, although they have examined many important
questions and have made representations, recommending for practical
application some of the principles developed in the course of the
present inquiry; still as they had no executive power, their
representations have produced no effect, and the labouring population of
Paris is shown to be, with all the advantages of climate, in a sanitary
condition even worse than the labouring population of London. In the
Appendix I have submitted a translation of a report descriptive of the
labours of the Conseil de Salubrité, in Paris. From this report it will
be seen that they have few or no initiative functions, and that they are
chiefly called into action by references made to them by the public
authorities to examine and give their opinion on medical questions that
may arise in the course of public administration as to what
manufacturing or other operations are or are not injurious to the public
health.
The action of a board of health upon such evils as those in question
must depend upon the arrangements for bringing under its notice the
evils to be remedied. A body of gentlemen sitting in a room will soon
find themselves with few means of action if there be no agency to bring
the subject matters before them; and an inquiring agency to seek out the
evils from house to house, wherever those evils may be found, to follow
on the footsteps of the private practitioner would be apparently
attended with much practical difficulty.
The statements of the condition of considerable proportions of the
labouring population of the towns into which the present inquiries have
been carried have been received with surprise by persons of the
wealthier classes living in the immediate vicinity, to whom the facts
were as strange as if they related to foreigners or the natives of an
unknown country. When Dr. Arnott with myself and others were examining
the abodes of the poorest classes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, we were
regarded with astonishment; and it was frequently declared by the
inmates, that they had never for many years witnessed the approach or
the presence of persons of that condition near them. We have found that
the inhabitants of the front houses in many of the main streets of those
towns and of the metropolis, have never entered the adjoining courts, or
seen the interior of any of the tenements, situate at the backs of their
own houses, in which their own workpeople or dependents reside.
The duty of visiting loathsome abodes, amidst close atmospheres
compounded of smoke and offensive odours, and everything to revolt the
senses, is a duty which can only be expected to be regularly performed
under much stronger motives than can commonly be imposed on honorary
officers, and cannot be depended upon even from paid officers where they
are not subjected to strong checks. The examination of loathsome prisons
has gained one individual a national and European celebrity. Yet we have
seen that there are whole streets of houses, composing some of the wynds
of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and great numbers of the courts in London, and
the older towns in England, in which the condition of every inhabited
room, and the physical condition of the inmates, is even more horrible
than the worst of the dungeons that Howard ever visited. In Ireland
provisions for the appointment of Boards of Health have been made, but
they appear to have failed entirely. One of the medical practitioners
examined before the Committee of the House of Commons was asked, in
respect to the operation of these provisions:—
“3297. But in ordinary times, when the fever is not of very great
intensity, and is confined to the dwellings of the humbler classes,
there is no such provision put into force?—No, but then there is
another provision which may be put into force; this Act provides, that
‘whenever in any city, town, or district, any fever or contagious
distemper shall prevail, or be known to exist, it shall and may be
lawful for any one or more magistrates, upon the requisition of five
respectable householders, to convene a meeting of the magistrates and
householders of such city, town, or district, and of the medical
practitioners within the same, in order to examine into the
circumstances attending such fever or contagious distemper.’ There is
another Act of 59 Geo. III., c. 41, which enables the parishes to
appoint officers of health; that is, a permanent power. Those officers
have very considerable authority; they can assess a rate.
“3298. Are they appointed?—They are appointed, I think, in all the
parishes in Dublin except two; but they are inoperative: they are
unpaid, and it is a very disgusting duty. They can be made to serve,
but there is no control as to the amount of service they perform; so
that the provision is quite inoperative, unless an alarm exists.
“3299. Do you not think the appointment of some such officers,
properly appointed, properly paid, and having reasonable power, for
the purpose of suggesting and enforcing such measures as shall be
beneficial, would be highly valuable?—I am sure it would, and it would
save an amazing quantity of expenditure to the country.”
It has only been under the strong pressure of professional duties by the
physicians and paid medical and relieving officers responsible for
visiting the abodes of the persons reduced to destitution by disease
that the condition of those abodes in the metropolis have of late been
known; and I believe that it is only under continued pressure and strong
responsibilities and interests in prevention that investigation will be
carried into such places, and the extensive physical causes of disease
be effectually eradicated.
Whilst experience gives little promise even of inquiries from such a
body as Boards of Health without responsibilities, still less of any
important results from the mere representations of such bodies separated
from executive authority, I would submit for consideration what appears
to me a more advantageous application of medical science, viz., by
uniting it with boards having executive authority.
Now, the claim to relief on the ground of destitution created by
sickness, which carries the medical officer of the union to the interior
of the abode of the sufferer, appears to be the means of carrying
investigation precisely to the place where the evil is the most rife,
and where the public intervention is most called for. In the metropolis
the number of cases of fever alone on which the medical officers were
required to visit the applicants for relief, at their own residences,
amounted during one year to nearly 14,000. The number of medical
officers attached to the new unions throughout the country, and engaged
in visiting the claimants to relief on account of sickness, is at this
time about 2300.
Were it practicable to attach as numerous a body of paid officers to any
local Boards of Health that could be established, it would scarcely be
practicable to insure as certain and well directed an examination of the
residences of the labouring classes as I conceive may be ensured from
the medical officers of the unions. In support of these anticipations of
the efficiency of the agency. of the medical officers when directed to
the formation of sanitary measures, I beg leave to refer to the
experience of a partial trial of them under a clause of the recent
Metropolitan Police Act, by which it is provided, that if the guardians
of the poor of an union or parish, or the churchwardens and overseers of
the poor of any parish within the Metropolitan Police district, together
with the medical officer of any such parish or union, shall be of
opinion, and shall certify under the hands of two or more of such
guardians, churchwardens, and overseers, and of such medical officer,
that any house, or part of any house, is in such a filthy unwholesome
condition that the health of the inmates is thereby endangered, then the
magistrates may, after due notice to the occupiers, cause the house to
be cleansed at his expense.
The defects of the provision are, that it only authorizes cleansing and
not providing for the means of cleansing and personal cleanliness, by
directing supplies of water to be laid on; that it does not extend to
the alterations of the external condition of the dwelling; that the
immediate expense falls upon the occupier, who is usually in so abject a
state of destitution as to serve as a barrier to any proceeding
apparently tending to any penal infliction. With all these
disadvantages, its working may be submitted to show the general
eligibility of the medical officers of unions as officers for the
execution of sanitary measures. The following account is given by the
clerk to the Board of Guardians of Bethnal Green of the working of the
provision in that part of the metropolis:—
_Mr. William Brutton._—We have taken prompt measures to execute the
clause of the Metropolitan Police Act, and the Commissioners’
recommendations upon it, in our parish, and the effect produced has
already been beneficial. For example, the medical officer recently
reported, through me, to the Board of Guardians, that fever had arisen
in certain small tenements in a court called Nicholl’s Court, and that
it was likely to spread amongst the poorer classes in the district. He
reported that others of the houses than those in which fever existed
(and the inmates) were in a filthy condition, and that, unless
measures were taken for cleansing them properly, fever must
necessarily ensue. The Board, on receiving this communication, desired
me to proceed instantly, and take such measures as appeared to me to
be necessary for the abatement and prevention of the evil. I
immediately obtained a summons from the magistrates for the attendance
of the owner of the houses. He came directly, and stated that he was
not aware that the premises were in the condition in which our medical
officer had found them; and he promised that measures should be taken
for proper cleansing. Those measures were taken: the furniture of the
houses was taken out and washed; the houses were lime-washed. Some of
those who were ill died, but the progress of the fever was certainly
arrested.
The Board followed up these proceedings by circulating the
Commissioners’ instruction and form of notification in every part of
the parish. But the proceeding had a very good effect in the immediate
neighbourhood. The proceeding was observed by the neighbours, and
there is every reason to believe that they have set to work to cleanse
and prevent a similar visitation. We have also learned that the
landlords of some of these smaller tenements have been rather more
particular than before: they have said we must see to the cleansing of
these places lest we should be had up for it before the magistrates.
The guardians, considering the form of notifications useful, have
directed that they should be issued periodically before the times when
disease usually appears. In the course of a fortnight or three weeks
hence, when the equinoctial gales prevail, and when we have usually
much sickness and claims to relief, we shall probably have another
issue of the notifications.
We have also given instructions to the relieving officer, as well as
the medical officer, to report on the existence of any filth or things
likely to be productive of disease that he may observe in the course
of his visits to the houses where he is called by the claims to
relief. The services of the relieving officer are highly important, as
he has an opportunity of observing the state of filth and the obvious
predisposition, and perhaps of causes of disease, preventing it before
the visits of the medical officer, who is of course only called upon
to attend when disease has arisen. The relieving officers visit more
frequently than the medical officer, and give the tickets or orders
requiring his attendance.
You are Commissioner of the Sewers in the Tower Hamlets, are you
not?—Yes, I am.
And you are of course aware of their procedure?—Yes.
Do you think that body would be available for the execution of
sanitary measures?—Certainly not as compared with the Board of
Guardians: the Commissioners of Sewers meet only monthly, and have no
medical officers and no relieving officers. The Board of Guardians
meets weekly, and their officers are constantly at work, night and
morning. We have not even waited for the landlords, where prompt
measures appeared to be necessary for the removal of any active cause
of disease. Where cesspools have overflowed, and where there has been
a stoppage of water, we have directed the surveyor of the roads to
ascertain the cause of the stoppage, and to remedy the mischief
forthwith.
But what legal right have the guardians had to do that: they have no
legal right to direct the road surveyor in the performance of his
duties?—Strictly speaking, we have not, but we have forcibly suggested
it as a matter of expediency.
Between the notification of the evil and the execution of the remedy,
in the example you have cited by the Board of Guardians, what length
of time elapsed?—From the Friday to the Monday following.
What time, so far as you have had experience, need ordinarily elapse
if execution follow immediately on the report?—Execution would follow
immediately on the order of the Board of Guardians. I think, however,
that the union officers should, in case of emergency, have a summary
acting power immediately for the preservation of life. The Guardians
thought their examination of the spot unnecessary after the report of
the medical officer.
The following is the examination of the clerk to the Strand union as to
the practical working of the same measure in another district:—
_Mr. James Corder_, clerk to the Strand union, examined;—
What has been done in the Strand union in respect to the provisions of
the Metropolitan Police Act, 2 and 3 Vict., c. 71, sec. 41, with
respect to the powers conferred by that statute for the cleansing of
houses which are in an unwholesome condition?
The attention of the medical officers was immediately drawn to the
section of the Act, and the instructions of the Poor Law Commissioners
relating thereto; and the result has been that proceedings have been
had in several cases, in all of which the necessary cleansing has been
performed by the owners, without the guardians being driven to the
necessity of causing the requisite lime-whiting and cleansing to be
done. The medical officer had frequently complained of the condition
of the places into which the cleansing had been carried. Those places
had for years been in the filthiest and most unwholesome condition: in
some courts and alleys the pavements were covered with an accumulation
of the most offensive matter, including the carcases of dead animals,
such as dogs and cats, which the scavengers said formed no part of
their contract to remove: their contract was only to cleanse the
carriage ways. Some of these courts and alleys abound in the principal
thoroughfares in the metropolis. The public, in passing through a
thoroughfare like the Strand, would scarcely imagine that an evil of
so much magnitude was close at hand.
The powers conferred by the clause in question appears to be
restricted to the cleansing of the houses and the passages within the
cartilage. What proceedings did the guardians take with relation to
these external passages?
They directed the condition of the places to be represented to the
Commissioners for paving and cleansing the district, who caused the
filth complained of to be removed. The cleansing of the footways,
however, forms no part of the duty of the Commissioners of Pavement,
nor of their surveyor, nor of the scavenger appointed by them; and
what was done was done extra-officially.
It cannot, therefore, be relied upon for the future?
No; and it is to be observed that the Metropolitan Paving Act
evidently contemplates that the cleansing of the footways shall be
done by the inmates of the houses. In the poorer districts, however,
this is entirely omitted to be done; in addition to which these courts
and alleys are frequently made, on account of their obscurity, a
depository for most offensive matter. In the better neighbourhoods,
the service of cleansing is performed by the servants; but the poor
people, who rise before daylight, go to their work, and return at a
late hour, have no time to cleanse their courts, and their earnings
are too scanty to allow payment to others for the performance of the
duty. In the better neighbourhoods, the cleansing does not always take
place. The medical officers report, that there is a better average
health in the streets that are well cleansed than in others where the
people are otherwise in the same condition of life.
What are the main defects you have experienced in respect to the
provision of the Metropolitan Police Act, empowering the guardians to
take measures for cleansing houses?
First, the delay which must take place before the provisions of the
Act can be put in operation. The medical officer has first to make his
report to the Board of Guardians; several days elapse before the Board
meets: then guardians have to inspect the premises in conjunction with
the medical officer previously to certifying as to the state thereof:
then application is made to the magistrate, who issues his summons,
returnable in seven days; at the expiration of which, if the cleansing
be not performed, the guardians are empowered to cause it to be done;
but they must first obtain a magistrate’s warrant for the purpose. All
this engenders delay; in addition to which our guardians have, in the
first instance, caused the landlord to be written to with a view to
prevent further proceedings, which in some instances have been
successful; but when it is not successful, it creates a further delay,
during which disease may rapidly increase and spread. The second
defect of the provision is, that the owners are not liable for the
expenses incurred; and the occupiers are mostly of the poorest class,
who have no effects on which a distraint could be made. With all these
difficulties, however, this provision has been very beneficial in its
operation; and it is very much to be desired that larger facilities
should be afforded for carrying its intention more fully into effect.
It may be added, that the medical officer should have remuneration for
the trouble he entails upon himself, by a report, in attending before
magistrates, until the object is effected.
_Mr. John Smith_, the clerk to the Whitechapel union:—
Have you taken any proceedings under the 41st clause of the
Metropolitan Police Act?
We have issued notifications to every house in the union of the
necessity of cleansing the houses by whitewashing them inside and out,
and that the owners and occupiers were amenable for any neglect. The
relieving officers report to me, that these notifications have already
been productive of very good effects, and that whitewashing has been
actively practised. The relieving officers were instructed, wherever
they found a case of neglect, to threaten the landlord that he would
be proceeded against unless the tenement was duly cleansed. But as yet
we have taken no legal proceedings, because we have advised with the
magistrates, who do not consider that the owners can be proceeded
against in the first instance, and the occupiers of the tenements,
which are liable to be proceeded against, are most of them paupers and
persons in extreme poverty.
With respect to the remedies, I find that the personal inconvenience
to which the clause subjects the guardians of visiting the spot is a
provision which will greatly obstruct its operations, and will at all
events greatly delay proceedings from time to time. The guardians who,
in our union, are men of business, consider that their time is fully
occupied at the Board, and they object to any attendance out of the
Board, and would give it reluctantly. If the cases are taken before
the magistrate, it appears desirable that the medical officer should
not be compelled to attend unless it were absolutely requisite, and
that the relieving officer should be allowed to prove the facts as to
the state of the dwellings recited in the medical officer’s
certificate, which could rarely be disputed. If the point were
disputed by the owner, then the medical officer or other witnesses
might be forthcoming.
What is the number of houses in the union?—About 8000.
How many cases on the average do your medical officers visit in the
year?—About 4000.
Those visits of course are sometimes to different rooms of the same
tenement?—No doubt of that, and very frequently to the inmates of the
same room.
Are the visits of the relieving officers to the dwellings of the
labouring classes more extensive than the visits of the medical
officers?—I should say more extensive.
Between the two, are any class of the poorer and otherwise neglected
residences that would probably escape visitation?—I should say that
they must visit every spot within the district.
Within such districts as that of Whitechapel, do you think the three
present medical officers and the relieving officers would suffice to
carry out sanitary measures actively and efficiently?—I think that for
efficiency additional strength would be required; perhaps one officer,
whose especial duty it should be to attend to the duties connected
with sanitary measures, supposing them carried out by the agency of
the existing establishments.
From the consideration of such practical evidence, it will be seen that
the ordinary duties of the relieving officer in the first instance, and
of the medical officer afterwards, ensure domiciliary inspection of
large districts to an extent and with a degree of certainty that could
scarcely be ensured or expected of any agents or members of a board of
health unconnected with positive administrative duties. The inspection
of these officers of the boards of guardians more than supplies the
external inspection of inquests or of the leets; and it is submitted
that in their position these boards may most beneficially exercise the
functions of the leet in reclaiming the execution of the law, as against
acts of omission and of commission, by which the poorest of the
labouring classes are injured and the ratepayers burdened.
It may therefore be submitted as an eligible preliminary general
arrangement, that it shall be required of the medical officer as an
extra duty, for the due performance of which he should be fairly
remunerated, that on visiting any person at that person’s dwelling, on
an order for medical relief, he shall, after having given such needful
immediate relief as the case may require, examine or cause to be
examined any such physical and removable causes as may have produced
disease or acted as a predisposing cause to it; that he shall make out a
particular statement of them, wherein he will specify any things that
may be and are urgently required to be immediately removed. This
statement should be given to the relieving officer, who should thereupon
take measures for the removal of the nuisance at the expense of the
owner of the tenement, unless he, upon notice which shall be given to
him, forthwith proceed to direct their removal. Except in the way of
appeal by the owner against the proceedings of either officer, or where
a higher expense than 5_l._, or a year’s rent of the tenement, were
involved by the alterations directed by the medical officer, it appears
to be recommended that no application to the Board of Guardians or the
magistrates should be required in the first instance, as it frequently
happens that the delay of a day in the adoption of measures may occasion
the loss of life and the wide spread of contagious disease; and an
application to the Board of Guardians or to the petty sessions would
usually incur delay of a week or a fortnight. To repeat the words of
Blackstone,—“The security of the lives and property may sometimes
require so speedy a remedy, as not to allow time to call on the person
on whose property the mischief has arisen to remedy it.” When any
tenement is in a condition to endanger life from disease, as it comes
within the principle of the law, so it should be included within its
provisions, and should be placed in the same condition as a tenement
condemned as being ruinous and endangering life from falling.
The instances above given of the working of the provisions of the
Metropolitan Police Act for the cleansing of filthy tenements are,
however, instances of zealous proceedings taken by competent officers in
unions, where the attention of the guardians was specially called to the
subject, and where there were no opposing interests. But several other
instances might be presented, where the execution of the law is as much
needed, but where it is already as dead as any of the older laws for the
public protection, and the reason assigned is, that the local officers
will not, for the sake of principle and without manifest compulsion,
enter into conflicts by which their personal interests may be
prejudiced. Medical officers, as private practitioners, are often
dependent for their important private practice, and even for their
office, on persons whom its strict performance might subject to expense
or place in the position of defendants. Under such circumstances it is
not unfrequent to hear the expression of a wash from these officers,
that some person unconnected with the district may be sent to examine
the afflicted place, and initiate the proper proceedings. The working of
the provisions of the Factory Act for the limitation of the hours of
labour of children has been much impeded by the difficulty of obtaining
correct certificates of age and bodily strength from private medical
practitioners. On this topic a large mass of evidence might be adduced,
showing the unreasonableness of expecting private practitioners to
compromise their own interests by conflicts for the public protection
with persons on whom they are dependant.
Cases of difficulty requiring superior medical experience and skill
occur frequently amongst the paupers. For general supervision as well as
for the elucidation of particular questions, the Board have proved the
practicability of obtaining for the public service the highest medical
skill and science. They have availed themselves of more various
acquirements than would be found in any standing _conseil de salubrité_.
On questions respecting fever they have availed themselves of the
services of the physician of the London Fever Hospital; on questions of
vaccination they have consulted the Vaccine Board of London, and the
authorities on the same question in Scotland. On questions as to
ventilation they have availed themselves of the services of Dr. Arnott;
and on the general questions affecting the sanitary condition of the
population they have consulted that gentleman and Dr. Kay, and Dr.
Southwood Smith, and others who could be found to have given special
attention to the subject. When serious epidemics have broken out in
particular unions the central Board has dispatched physicians to their
aid, or suggested to the guardians that they should have recourse to the
services of physicians in the neighbourhoods. The services of Dr.
Arnott, Dr. Kay, and Dr. Southwood Smith were thus directed in aid of
the medical officers of the eastern districts of the metropolis; and
their reports first developed to the public and the legislature the
evils which form the subject of the extended inquiry, and that might
otherwise have continued without chance of notice, or mitigation or
removal, to have depressed the condition of the labouring classes of the
population. But the results of such occasional visits appear to prove
the necessity and economy of an increase of the permanent local medical
service, and to establish a case for the appointment of a superior
medical man for a wider district than an ordinary medical officer, for
the special aid and supervision of the established medical relief.
It will frequently be found that there is the like need of immediate
local inspection of the medical treatment of the destitute that there is
of a grade of inspecting surgeons for the military hospitals. It cannot
be otherwise than that amidst a numerous body of men there must be much
error and neglect in the treatment of the destitute, in the absence of
immediate securities against, neglect. The most able of the guardians
would confess that if they are not entirely incompetent to supervise
medical service, they are at the best but imperfectly qualified for such
a task, and the medical officers would act with more satisfaction to
themselves from the supervision of officers from whom they might derive
aid and confidence.
But besides the medical treatment of the inmates of the workhouses and
prisons, there are other cases within most districts which need the
preventive service of a superior medical officer for the protection of
the public health.
First, in the cases where the poorer classes are assembled in such
numbers as to make the assemblages _quasi_ public, and afford facilities
for medical inspection, as in schools.
Secondly, also in places of work and in workmen’s lodging-houses. The
occasional visits of a district officer, for the prevention of disease
would lead to the maintenance of due ventilation, and to the protection
of the workpeople on such points as are already specified as injurious
to the health, and that arise simply from ignorance, and are not
essential to the processes. An examination of such places, if only
quarterly, would lead to the most beneficial results.
So far as I have observed the working of the Factory Act, it appears to
me that the duties now performed by the sub-inspectors of factories
might be more advantageously performed by superior medical officers, of
the rank of army surgeons, who are independent of private practice.
I am confirmed in this view by the following evidence of _Mr. Baker_,
surgeon of Leeds, the only factory inspector who has such
qualifications:—
“Have you, as a surgeon, whilst visiting the factories as an
inspector, had occasion to exercise your professional
knowledge?—Frequently; during my service I have turned out great
numbers of children with scald-heads, which they were apt to propagate
amongst the rest of the children; some with phthisis, whose subsequent
death was more than probable; some with scrofulous ulcers; a great
many with extreme cases of ophthalmia; probably I may have removed a
thousand of these cases altogether. I rarely go to a mill where I do
not see a case of scald-head.
“Have you ever had occasion to interpose in respect to
ventilation?—Frequently in extreme cases of variable temperature, also
in cases of offensive privies, which I find attended by dysenteric
affections; and also where there has been offensive water from
neglected sewers. I have also endeavoured to enforce personal
cleanliness on the children through the instrumentality of overlookers
and parents. One practice amongst the children in all kinds of mills
is to wear handkerchiefs on the head, by which the neglect of personal
cleanliness was concealed. Under these handkerchiefs were most of the
cases of scald-head, in a state of filthiness not easily describable.
I have assured the operatives that by the Act I had the power to
direct measures for the protection of their health as well as labour;
and I have established in many places the rule that the children shall
come with the faces clean, and the hair combed, and without
handkerchiefs whilst at work.”
By such inspection of workpeople in the places of work do you conceive
it would be practicable to influence largely the sanitary condition of
the labouring population without inspection of the private
houses?—Yes; for the ill health which was occasioned by the state of
their houses or other places, would of course be visible on such
inspection. If they were removed from their places of employment on
the presentation of such appearances, the inattention which had
occasioned it would be removed too.
“What length of time do you find such inspection would require each
time, say in a mill of about 1000 persons, and how frequent should
such inspection be?—On the average about two hours; to a practised eye
the symptoms of indisposition are discernable almost in walking
through a room. Under some circumstances an inspection of once in
three months would suffice.
“Are there masters in your district who are aware of the interest they
have in the health of their workpeople?—Yes; there are many who pay
particular attention. I might mention two where a surgeon is specially
employed to take care of their workpeople. When persons are ill, they
are listless and sleepy, and negligent; there is also more waste made
in the processes of manufacture.”
The superior economy of preventive services by such inspection as that
above displayed will scarcely need elucidation.
From a consideration of such opportunities of inspection it will be
perceived that the enforcement of sanitary regulations on such
inspection by superior and independent officers, qualified by previous
examination, as in the army, would be a wise economy. By such
arrangements efficient medical superintendence would be provided for the
independent labourer employed in crowded manufactures, as well as for
the soldier and the sailor, not to speak of the pauper or the criminal.
One such officer would be able so to inspect and keep under sanitary
regulations the places of work, the schools and all the public
establishments of such a town as Leeds, which would bring under view
perhaps the greater proportion of the lower classes of the population.
There would still remain, however, those of the labouring classes who do
not work or lodge in large numbers, or work in a quasi-public manner, to
bring them within the means of convenient inspection. There would also
remain without protection the cases of persons of the middle classes.
To meet these cases, I would suggest that the information brought to the
superintendent registrar as to the cause of death, imperfect and hearsay
as it yet is, may serve as the most accurate index to the direction of
the labours of a district officer appointed to investigate the means of
protecting the health of all classes. Having suggested the registration
of the causes of death (under medical superintendence), a head of
information not contained in the original draught of the Deaths’
Registration Bill, I would guard against an over-estimate of the
importance of that provision; but I feel confident it would be found,
when properly enforced, one of the most important, means of guiding
preventive services in an efficient direction. For example, wherever, on
the examination of these registries, deaths from fever or other
epidemics were found to recur regularly, and in numbers closely
clustered together, there will be found, on examination, to be some
common and generally removable cause in active operation within the
locality. Amongst whatsoever class of persons engaged in the same
occupation deaths from one disease occur in disproportionately high
numbers or at low ages, the cause of that disease will generally be
found to be removable, and not essential to the occupation itself. The
cases of the tailors, miners, and dressmakers, and the removable
circumstances which are found to govern the prevalence of consumption
amongst them, I adduce, as examples of the importance of the practical
suggestions to be gained from correct and trustworthy registries of the
causes of death occurring in particular occupations as well as in
particular places. When a death from fever or consumption occurs in a
single family, in the state of isolation in which much of the population
live in crowded neighbourhoods, they have rarely any means of knowing
that it is not a death arising from some cause peculiar to the
individual. Even medical practitioners who are not in very extensive
practice may have only a few cases, and may be equally unable to see in
them, in connexion with others, the operation of an extensive cause or a
serious epidemic. The registration of the causes of death, however,
presents to view the extent, to which deaths, from the same disease, are
common at the same age, at the same time, or at the same place, or in
the same occupation.
One of the most important services, therefore, of a superior medical
officer of a district would be to ensure the entries of the causes of
death with the care proportioned to the important uses to be derived
from them. The public should be taught to regard correct registration as
being frequently of as much importance for the protection of the
survivors as a post-mortem examination is often found to be.
The mortuary registries and the registration of the causes of death are
not only valuable as necessary initiatives to the investigation of
particular cases, but as checks for the performance of the duty. The
system of registration in use at Geneva, combining the certificate and
explanation of the private practitioners and the district physician,
corresponds with a recommendation originally made for the organization
of the mortuary registries in England, and the experience of that
country might, perhaps, be advantageously consulted.
It would be found that the appointment of a superior medical officer
independent of private practice, to superintend these various duties,
would also be a measure of sound pecuniary economy.
The experience of the navy and the army and the prisons may be referred
to for exemplifications of the economy in money, as well as in health
and life, of such an arrangement. A portion only of the saving from an
expensive and oppressive collection of the local rates would abundantly
suffice to ensure for the public protection against common evils the
science of a district physician, as well as the science of a district
engineer. Indeed, the money now spent in comparatively fragmentations
and unsystematized local medical service for the public, would, if
combined as it might be without disturbance on the occurrence of
vacancies, afford advantages at each step of the combination. We have in
the same towns public medical officers as inspectors of prisons, medical
officers for the inspection of lunatic asylums, medical officers of the
new unions, medical inspectors of recruits, medical service for the
granting certificates for children under the provisions of the Factory
Act, medical service for the post-mortem examinations of bodies, the
subject of coroners’ inquests, which it appears from the mortuary
registries of violent deaths in England amount to between 11,000 and
12,000 annually, for which a fee of a guinea each is given. These and
other services are divided in such portions as only to afford
remuneration in such sums as 40_l._, 50_l._, 60_l._, or 80_l._ each; and
many smaller and few larger amounts.
Whatever may be yet required for placing the union medical officers on a
completely satisfactory footing, the combination of the services of
several parish doctors in the service of fewer union medical officers
will be found to be advances in a beneficial direction. The
multiplication or the maintenance of such fragmentitious professional
services is injurious to the public and the profession. It is injurious
to the profession by multiplying poor, ill-paid, and ill-conditioned
professional men.[48] Although each may be highly paid in comparison
with the service rendered, the portions of service do not suffice for
the maintenance of an officer without the aid of private practice; they
only suffice, therefore, to sustain needy competitors for practice in
narrow fields. Out of such competition the public derive no improvements
in medical science, for science comes out of wide opportunities of
knowledge and study, which are inconsistent with the study to make
interests and the hunt for business in poor neighbourhoods.
A medical man who is restricted to the observation of only one
establishment may be said to be excluded from an efficient knowledge
even of that one. Medical men so restricted are generally found to
possess an accurate knowledge of the morbid appearances, or of the
effects amongst the people of the one establishment, but they are
frequently found to be destitute of any knowledge of the pervading cause
in which they are themselves enveloped, and have by familiarity lost the
perception of it. Thus it was formerly in the navy that medical officers
on board ship, amidst the causes of disease, the filth, and bad
ventilation, and bad diet, were referring all the epidemic disease
experienced exclusively to contagion from some one of the crew who was
discovered to have been in a prison. We have seen that local reports
present similar examples of similar conclusions from the observation of
single establishments in towns, in which reports effects are attributed
as essential to labour, of which effects that same labour is entirely
divested in establishments in the county, or under other circumstances
which the practitioners have had no means of observing and estimating.
The various contradictory opinions on diet, and the older views on the
innocuousness of miasma, are commonly referable to the circumstances
under which the medical observers were placed; and examples abound in
every district of the errors incidental to narrow ranges of observation
in cases perplexed by idiosyncracies, and by numerous and varying
antecedents. It should be understood by the public that the value of
hospital and dispensary practice consists in the range of observation
they give; and that the extent of observation or opportunities of
medical knowledge are influenced or governed by administrative
arrangements. In several of the medical schools of the metropolis,
however, the opportunities of knowledge are dependent on the cases which
may chance to arise there. Fortunate administrative arrangements have,
in Paris, greatly advanced medical knowledge, by bringing large classes
of cases under single observation. The most important discoveries made
with respect to consumption, those made by M. Louis, were based on the
results of the post-mortem examinations of nearly 1300 cases by that one
practitioner. Nearly all the important conclusions deduced from this
extensive range of observations were at variance with his own previous
opinions and the opinions that had prevailed for centuries. The later
and better knowledge of the real nature of fever cases has been obtained
by a similar range of observation gained from the cases in fever
hospitals. Applications have been several times made to the
Commissioners by medical men engaged in particular researches to aid
them in the removal of the impediments to extended inquiry, by
collecting the information to be derived—from the sick-wards of the
workhouses and the out-door medical relief lists.
The highest medical authorities would agree that, whatsoever
administrative arrangements sustain narrow districts, and narrow
practice, sustain at a great public expense, barriers against the
extension of knowledge by which the public would benefit, and that any
arrangements by which such districts or confined practice is newly
created, will aggravate existing evils. An examination of the state of
medical practice divided amongst poor practitioners in the thinly
populated districts shows that, but for the examinations, imperfect
though they be, as arrangements which sustain skill and respectability,
a large part of the population would be in the hands of ignorant
bone-setters.
On a full examination of the duties which are suggested for a district
physician, or officer of public health, that which will appear to be
most serious is not the extent of new duties suggested, but the extent
of the neglect of duties existing. The wants, however, which it is a
duty to represent and repeat, as the most immediate and pressing, for
the relief of the labouring population, are those of drainage,
cleansing, and the exercise of the business of an engineer, connected
with commissions of sewers, to which the services of a board of health
would be auxiliary. The business of a district physician connects him
more immediately with the boards of guardians, which, as having the
distribution of medical relief, and the services of medical officers, I
would submit, maybe made, with additional aid, to do more than can be
done by any local boards of health of the description given, separated
from any executive authority or self-acting means of bringing
information before them.
I have submitted the chief grounds on which it appears to me that
whatever additional force may be needed for the protection of the public
health it would everywhere be obtained more economically with unity, and
efficiency, and promptitude, by a single securely-qualified and
well-appointed responsible local officer than by any new establishment
applied in the creation of new local boards. Including, as sanitary
measures, those for drainage and cleansing, and supplies of water as
well as medical appliances, I would cite the remarks on provisions for
the protection of the public health, made by Dr. Wilson at the
conclusion of a report on the sanitary condition of the labouring
population of Kelso. After having noted some particular improvements
which had taken place, as it were, by chance, and independently of any
particular aids of science directed to their furtherance, he remarks
that “it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that much more might
still be accomplished, could we be induced, to profit by a gradually
extending knowledge, so as to found upon it a more wisely directed
practice. When man shall be brought to acknowledge (as truth must
finally constrain him to acknowledge) that it is by his own hand,
through his neglect of a few obvious rules, that the seeds of disease
are most lavishly sown within his frame, and diffused over communities;
when he shall have required of medical science to occupy itself rather
with the prevention of maladies than with their cure; when governments
shall be induced to consider the preservation of a nation’s health an
object as important as the promotion of its commerce or the maintenance
of its conquests, we may hope then to see the approach of those times
when, after a life spent almost without sickness, we shall close the
term of an unharassed existence by a peaceful euthanasia.”
VIII.—COMMON LODGING-HOUSES.
A town may be highly advanced in its own internal administration, its
general drainage, and its arrangements for house and street-cleansing
may be perfect, and they may be in complete action, and yet if the
police of the common lodging-houses be neglected, it will be liable to
the continued importation, if not the generation, of epidemic disease by
the vagrant population who frequent them. I have reserved the evidence
respecting them in order to submit it for separate considerations,
because they may apparently be better considered independently of the
administrative arrangements which affect the resident population of the
labouring classes.
From almost every town from whence sanitary reports have been received
that have been the results of careful examinations, the common
lodging-houses are pointed out as _foci_ of contagious disease within
the district. These houses are stages for the various orders of tramps
and mendicants who traverse the country from one end to the other, and
spread physical pestilence, as well as moral depravation. The evidence
everywhere received distinguishes them prominently as the subjects of
immediate and decidedly strong legislative interference for the public
protection.
The following extract from the Report of _Mr. E. W. Baines_, the medical
officer of the Barnet union, is submitted as an example of the
information received respecting them from the rural unions:
“The lodging-houses for trampers are a prolific source of disease, and
productive of enormous expense to the parish in which they may be
situate; from one I have within this week sent into the union
workhouse six cases, namely, two of fever, three of itch and
destitution, and one of inflammatory dropsy. These unhappy beings are
boarded and bedded in an atmosphere of gin, brimstone, onions, and
disease, until their last penny be spent, and their clothes pledged to
the keeper of the house, when they are kicked out and left to the
mercy of the relieving officer.”
The committee of physicians and surgeons, who have made a sanitary
report on the condition of the labouring population in Birmingham, give
the following account of the lodging-houses in that town:—
“Lodging-houses for the lowest class of persons abound in Birmingham.
They principally exist near the centre of the town, many of them in
courts; but great numbers of front houses, in some of the old streets,
are entirely occupied as lodging-houses. They are generally in a very
filthy condition; and, being the resort of the most abandoned
characters, they are sources of extreme misery and vice. These houses
may be divided into three kinds,—mendicants’ lodging-house,
lodging-houses where Irish resort, and houses in which prostitutes
live, or which they frequent.
“We find it stated in Mr. Burgess’s return, that in 47 of these the
sexes indiscriminately sleep together. In the day time the doors of
these houses are generally thronged with dirty, half-dressed women and
children; and if visited in an evening, the inmates are found to be
eating, drinking, and smoking. Such houses are, for the most part,
occupied by beggars and trampers, but many of them are the resort of
thieves. Some idea may be formed of the description of persons who
frequent some of these abodes, by stating that in two of them, one of
which was situate in John-street and the other in Thomas-street, a
chain, fastened at one end by a staple and at the other secured by a
padlock, was placed on the outside of the door, at the foot of the
staircase which led to the sleeping apartments. Upon asking the
mistress of the house for what purpose that was required, she stated
that she employed it to lock in the lodgers until she released them in
the morning, as they would otherwise decamp, and take away whatever
furniture or moveables they could carry with them. Some of these
houses are occupied exclusively by foreigners. In a court in
Park-street we visited one which was inhabited by Italians, men and
women, with their stock of musical instruments, monkeys, and other
small animals. We are informed that there is another Italian
lodging-house in Lichfield-street, as well as one which is frequented
only by the Flemish or German broom-girls.”
In whatever part of the kingdom these receptacles are examined they
exhibit common characteristics. _Dr. Jenks_, in his report on the
sanitary condition of the labouring classes in Brighton, gives the
following account of the lodging-houses:—
“Nottingham-street is the well-known haunt of tramps and beggars;
Egremont-street of the lowest prostitutes and thieves. Both streets
are on elevated ground, with good surface drainage, sufficiently wide
and commodious, and might easily be preserved in a decent state; but
all manner of disgusting refuse is thrown out of doors, and but seldom
removed by the scavengers. In Nottingham-street there are eight or
nine lodging-houses. Lodging-keepers have commonly three or four
houses, for each of which they pay 2_s._ 6_d._ per week. The following
is a description of one of them, and may serve as an _instar
omnium_:—The keeper of the lodging-house rented four of these small
tenements. One room, common to the whole of the inmates, who amounted
to 30, including the children, served both as kitchen and
sitting-room. This room was crowded when I visited it in company with
the chief police-officer, Mr. Solomons, with not less than 17 people
covered with filth and rags. In the largest of the sleeping-rooms, 16
feet by 10 feet, by 7 feet high, there were six beds, five on
bedsteads and one on the floor, to accommodate twelve people of both
sexes, besides children. Each person paid 3_d._ per night. Those who
could afford more could be accommodated with a small room with one
bed. * * * In a word, the streets in this neighbourhood have for many
years been an intolerable nuisance to the town at large. They are the
resort of tramps, begging impostors, thieves, and prostitutes of the
lowest description, who daily and nightly take their rounds through
the town.”
The following account of the lodging-houses in Manchester is from the
report of _Dr. Baron Howard_:—
“The pernicious effects resulting from the vitiation of the atmosphere
by the congregation of many persons in a confined space are lamentably
illustrated in the common _lodging-houses_ of the poor; the crowded,
dirty, and ill-ventilated state of which is, I conceive, without doubt
one of the most prolific sources of fever in Manchester. To those who
have not visited them, no description can convey anything like an
accurate idea of the abominable state of these dens of filth, disease,
and wretchedness.
“The great prevalence of fever in these houses during the severe
epidemic of 1837–38 attracted the especial notice of the Board of the
House of Recovery, who passed and transmitted the following resolution
to the churchwardens on the 3d of January, 1838:—‘It appearing that a
great number of cases of fever originates in the common lodging-houses
of the poor of the town, the Board begs to suggest to the
churchwardens and sidesmen the desirableness of appointing proper
persons to inspect the same, in order to prevent, as far as possible,
by cleanliness and ventilation, the increase and spread of this
malady.’ In consequence of this suggestion the parochial authorities
did immediately cause some of the most filthy of these establishments
to be cleansed and whitewashed; but it is evident that temporary
exertions of this kind, however praiseworthy, are quite inadequate to
effect much permanent improvement.
“In some of these houses as many as six or eight beds are contained in
a single room; in others, where the rooms are smaller, the number is
necessarily less; but it seems to be the invariable practice in these
‘keepers of fever beds,’ as the proprietors were styled by Dr.
Ferriar, to cram as many beds into each room as it can possibly be
made to hold; and they are often placed so close to each other that
there is scarcely room to pass between them. The scene which these
places present at night is one of the most lamentable description; the
crowded state of the beds, filled promiscuously with men, women, and
children; the floor covered over with the filthy and ragged clothes
they have just put off, and with their various bundles and packages,
containing all the property they possess, mark the depraved and
blunted state of their feelings, and the moral and social disorder
which exists. The suffocating stench and heat of the atmosphere are
almost intolerable to a person coming from the open air, and plainly
indicate its insalubrity. Even if the place be inspected during the
day, the state of things is not much better. Several persons will very
commonly be found in bed; one is probably sick, a second is perhaps
sleeping away the effects of the previous night’s debauch, while
another is possibly dozing away his time because he has no employment,
or is taking his rest now because he obtains his living by some night
work. In consequence of this occupation of the room during the day,
the windows are kept constantly closed, ventilation is entirely
neglected, and the vitiated atmosphere is ever ready to communicate
its poisonous influence to the first fresh comer whom habit has not
yet rendered insensible to its effects, an exemption which seems to be
in some degree acquired by habitual exposure, and which accounts for
the immunity frequently enjoyed by the keepers themselves of these
houses, whilst their lodgers are attacked in succession. This
circumstance, which was particularly noticed by Dr. Ferriar, I have
often observed. Where cellars are occupied as lodging-houses, the back
room is generally used as the sleeping apartment; and as this has
often no window, and can only receive air and light through the door
opening into the front room, the utter impossibility of ventilation
renders the ravages of infectious fevers particularly destructive when
they once find entrance.
“The beds and bedding, being seldom washed or changed, are generally
in the most filthy condition, and consisting usually of those porous
materials to which contagious vapours are especially liable to attach
themselves, the danger of sleeping in them may be well conceived. Even
if a bed has been occupied by a fever patient who has died, or been
removed, it is often immediately used by fresh lodgers, without having
undergone any purification.
“The disgraceful state of these lodging-houses has been dwelt upon at
some length, because I consider their evils of a most serious and
extensive nature, and I feel quite satisfied they are the most
malignant _foci_ of infectious fevers in Manchester. Indeed it is my
decided opinion that the vitiation of the atmosphere by the living is
much more injurious to the constitution than its impregnation with the
effluvia from dead organic matter; and certainly all I have observed
in Manchester induces me to consider the ‘human miasms’ generated in
overcrowded and ill-ventilated rooms as a far more frequent and
efficient cause of fever than the malaria arising from collections of
refuse and want of drainage. I have been led to this conclusion from
having remarked that fever has generally prevailed more extensively in
those houses where the greatest numbers were crowded together, and
where ventilation was most deficient, although the streets in which
they are situated maybe well paved, drained, and tolerably free from
filth, than in those where there was less crowding, notwithstanding
their location in the midst of nuisances giving rise to malaria. This
inference is also supported by the fact of the higher relative
proportion of fever to other diseases which has been shown to exist in
the collegiate church district, where the number of crowded
lodging-houses and confined courts, the closely compacted state of the
buildings, the narrowness of the streets, and consequent density of
the population and absence of ventilations, are most remarkable.”
_Mr. John Rayner_, medical officer of the Stockport union, gives the
following account of the lodging-houses in that town:—
“The lodging-houses in these districts, which are principally occupied
by the Irish labourers, are for the most part very much crowded, and
are in a remarkably filthy states. The beds and bedding are not only
loathsome to the sight but are extremely offensive to the smell, and
are so closely packed that several families may occupy the same room,
each bed containing several persons. In such places the married and
single often repose together, and the beds are so arranged, that in
some instances there is not room for a person to walk between them. I
have seen seven persons in the same bed, and last week removed to the
infirmary a case of rheumatic fever, with translation of the disease
to the heart, from a bed which every night contains _eight_ persons. I
have generally found that the lower order of Irish labourers occupy
the most filthy districts, and that wherever they _colonize_, misery
and wretchedness is sure to abound. They are the most common
applicants for medical relief at our charity.”
“I lately had a case of inflammation of the absorbments of the legs,
from a trifling injury to the foot, in an Irish boy, who was living in
a dark, damp cellar, about four yards square, in which were two beds.
The height of the ceiling was not more than six feet, and yet _seven_
persons laid in it, together with a few rabbits. One of the beds had
to be removed from the wall on account of its extreme dampness, and so
dark was the dwelling at mid-day, that I had to make use of a candle
whilst inspecting him.”
The following is the description of the lodging-houses at the next
stage, by the relieving officer of the Macclesfield union:—
_Mr. James Bland_, medical officer of the Macclesfield union,—
“I beg to observe that the lodging-houses are a fruitful source of
fever. The persons renting these tenements showed greater resistance
than others in having their houses properly whitewashed at the time
the epidemic cholera appeared. The vagrants who visit these houses are
frequently attacked with fever: exposed during the day to the
inclemency of the seasons, with their imperfect covering, ragged
clothes, and naked feet, at night thrust into a room perhaps of 16 or
20 square yards, having perhaps five or six beds and three individuals
in a bed, married and single, male and female, to all appearance
indiscriminately lodged. When a case of illness occurs, the
lodging-house keeper is most importunate and clamorous in demanding
relief from the town; and when obtained, it is quite a question
whether it will really be applied to the wants of the sufferer. I have
never any confidence that the remedies given will be administered to
the patient.”
The further stages of the lodging-houses on the northern roads are thus
described in the reports:—
_Mr. Nicholas Oliver_, the medical officer of Durham, thus describes the
lodging-houses in that town:—
“One fruitful source of generating and propagating contagious diseases
is to be found in those common lodging-houses where vagrants and
mendicants, or any one whatever, whether healthy or diseased, are for
a trifling sum provided with lodgings. I have known 40 persons half
clothed, lodged in one of those wretched dwellings, three or four
lying in one bed upon straw, and only a single counterpane to cover
them, which is never changed. Excrementitious matter was allowed to
accumulate and be about the rooms in all directions, the stench being
most revolting. In the beginning of summer fever of a typhoid type
occurred in this house and affected a number of the inmates, but being
in the other district, they came under the care of the other medical
attendant.”
The medical officer of the Teesdale union gives the following
description of the houses in that stage:—
“In this court there are eight common lodging-houses, and the number
of lodgers sometimes amounts to 100; at this time it is 50: eight or
ten sleeping in a room, upon the most unwholesome straw. The buildings
are in general good; but the wretched and filthy state of the houses
can scarcely be conceived. From this part many of our applications
arise. It is, indeed, a source of physical and moral disease.”
_Mr. Gilbert Ward_, the medical officer of the Tynemouth union,
describes the lodging-houses there as sources of disease, of which one
example may suffice:—
“In a low, damp, dirty, ill-ventilated, miserable hovel, kept by the
most filthy people I ever beheld, containing four beds seldom changed,
and which I have witnessed filled with beggars of the lowest
description, there have been the following cases:—A son and daughter
died, another son and daughter had the disease, and the mother had two
attacks, all within a period of 18 months. This family, in consequence
of their filthy habits, was removed to the workhouse, but could not be
induced to remain; and they again returned to their old quarters, and
were afflicted as above described.
“The constable has several times visited these houses, to endeavour to
prevent the nuisance of so many congregating in them; but his efforts
have hitherto been ineffectual.”
_Sir John Walsham_ thus exemplifies the descriptions he has received of
the lodging-houses in Newcastle:—
“There is a considerable number of lodging-houses in Newcastle, some
of the rooms of which are frequently occupied by from 15 to 20 persons
each. In these houses the most deplorable scenes of profligacy and
depravity are met with, both sexes being crowded together in a manner
injurious to both health and morals.
“A medical gentleman told me, in Stockton, this morning, that in the
common lodging-houses where travelling vagrants are frequently
attacked with fever, &c., and in many cases die, the beds are the very
next night occupied by fresh inmates, who of course are infected with
the same disorder.”
And one of the relieving officers for the same town says:—
“I have frequently had occasion to complain to the magistrates against
the lodging-houses taking in so many lodgers; but the law in this
respect is so defective that they could render me no assistance. On a
Sunday last July, I went to see a man (a travelling musician) who was
very ill of the small-pox, and died a few days afterwards. The house
contained four small rooms, and was situated in a back yard, in a very
narrow, confined, dirty lane. There were 40 people in the house, and
they were not all in that lodged there. Four months ago I went into a
room in the same yard; the room was very dirty; it was 9 feet broad by
15 feet long, and contained four beds, in which slept two men, four
women, and thirteen children. I found in one of the beds two children
very ill of scarlet fever; in another, a child ill of the measles; in
another, a child that had died of the measles the day before; and in a
fourth, a woman and her infant, born two days before; and the only
space between the four beds was occupied by a tinker, hard at work.”
The lodging-houses in Scotland are similarly characterized. _Dr. Scott
Alison_ states that,—
“There are many regular lodging-houses in Tranent, perhaps from 15 to
20, in which paupers, vagrants, and a few labouring people live. The
people reside there for a considerable time. I have known colliers in
employment to live in these houses. They are crowded at all hours, but
more especially at night. Men, women, and children live and sleep in
the same apartment. In one of them I have seen an apartment, about 18
feet long and 10 feet wide, which contained four beds made up
constantly; and when the house was ‘throng,’ another was added to the
number. 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.”
In the report of _Mr. James Cameron_, surgeon of Tain, there occurs the
following description of the lodging-houses in that part of Scotland:—
“There are three lodging-houses in Tain, which are chiefly occupied by
beggars and hawkers. These places are kept in the filthiest condition
imaginable: I have been credibly informed that the bed-clothes used in
one of these houses have not been washed for the last five years!
Summer being the season when these people are generally abroad, these
low lodgings are then often crowded to excess. During the week-days
the beggars and hawkers perambulate the country, returning on Saturday
night. They frequently, especially when collected in large numbers,
drink to excess; and their conduct on such occasions is riotous and
disgusting in the extreme. The general charge for such lodgings is
2_d._ per head for the night, with an ample allowance of whisky to the
landlords by way of perquisite. These individuals are unfortunately
the means of introducing infectious diseases, such as fever,
small-pox, measles, &c.”
In Edinburgh and Glasgow, as the confluence of vagrants, and especially
of Irish vagrants, becomes greater, such receptacles become more
numerous and crowded, and the evils attendant upon them more intense.
The injury done to the health of the public in general, and to the
health of portions of the operative classes, by the generation or
propagation of disease in such places, forms only one part of the evils
which call for interference by preventive measures. These evils appear
to require for their correction powers to be put in operation by the
concurrent exertions of the officers charged with sanitary measures, or
the prevention of disease; of the officers charged with the
administration of relief to destitution and the prevention of mendicity,
and of the officers charged with the protection of the public peace and
the prevention of crime. Further, to complete the view of the chief
evils arising from these receptacles, we may refer to the report and
evidence for the state of them, collected by my colleagues and myself,
on the inquiry as to the state of crime, under the Constabulary Force
Commission on the state of the lodging-houses in respect to crime:—
Ҥ35. We found only few of the magisterial divisions from which we
obtained information that were not seriously afflicted by the
existence of such receptacles, and in any arrangements for the
prevention of crime within the rural districts the means of
suppressing or controlling the common lodging-house must have a
prominent place. The trampers’ lodging-house is distinct from the
beer-shop or the public-house, or any licensed place of public
accommodation: it is not only the place of resort of the mendicant,
but of the common thief; it is the ‘flash-house’ of the rural
district; it is the receiving-house for stolen goods; it is the most
extensively-established school for juvenile delinquency, and commonly
at the same time the most infamous brothel in the district.
The magistrates of the division of Warwick state—
“‘That in the borough of Warwick such houses are both numerous and a
very general receptacle of petty offenders. Here the common vagrants
and trading beggars assemble in great numbers at nightfall, or take up
their quarters for very many days, making the lodging-house the common
centre from whence they issue in the morning, traverse their several
beats, and return at night. It is not unfrequent for such vagrants to
make the immediate neighbourhood their regular walk even for some
weeks, changing their beats, which are carefully arranged among
themselves, and only quitting their quarters to avoid detection in
some petty pilfering, or because, from becoming too well known, they
can no longer successfully impose on the public in the quarter they
have so long frequented.’
“The magistrates of the Chelmsford division state:—
“‘There are several lodging-houses in the town of Chelmsford where in
the course of the year it is supposed upwards of 2000 trampers or
vagrants resort. The greater number of these persons shelter
themselves from apprehension and punishment under the Vagrant Act, by
professing to be match-sellers. This is made a cloak for begging alms,
and the pretext for going from house to house, and pilfering, as
opportunity offers. The lodging-houses at Chelmsford are made the
centre of a kind of circuit which these people make almost
periodically.
“‘The system of lodging-houses for travellers, otherwise trampers,
requires to be altogether revised: at present they are in the practice
of lodging all the worst characters unquestioned, and are subject to
no other control than an occasional visit of inspection from the
parish officers, accompanied by the constables, whose power of
interference, if they have a legal right of entry, does not extend to
some of the most objectionable points connected with those houses, as
they can merely take into custody such persons as they find in
commission of some offence. The state in which those houses are found
on the occasion of such visit proves how much they require
interference. The houses are small, and yet as many as thirty
travellers, or even thirty-five, have been found in one house; fifteen
have been found sleeping in one room, three or four in one bed, men,
women, and children promiscuously. Beds have been found occupied in a
cellar. It is not necessary to urge the many opportunities of
preparing for crime which such a state of things presents, or the
actual evils arising from such a mode of harbouring crowds of low and
vicious persons.’”
In our First Report we observed, that—“The mischiefs of these migratory
streams of depredators and vagrants, and other bad characters, is not
confined to the crimes which they commit, though those must be extremely
extensive to furnish such numerous hordes with the means of subsistence;
these characters, experienced in the crimes and vices of the criminal
associations of the larger towns from whence they sally forth, form such
large proportions of the population of the gaols in the rural districts,
as are stated in the return of prisoners in Knutsford gaol. The other
portion of the inmates of the gaol, chiefly agricultural labourers,
natives of the country, confined for misdemeanours, may in such
receptacles be considered pupils in these normal schools of crime, to
learn and carry back to the rural villages the knowledge and the
incitement to felonious practices.”
It appears that, on the several grounds of public expediency, for the
preservation of the public health, and for the preservation of the
public peace, all common lodging-houses,—all places which are open for
the reception of strangers, travellers, and wayfarers by the night, and
houses laid out and provided for numbers of lodgers, should be subjected
to regulations for the protection of the inmates as well as the public
at large. This appears, indeed, to be consistent with the ancient police
of the country. By narrowing the definition of the places for which
licences were rendered necessary to those where spirits or fermented
liquors are sold to be drunk on the premises, (as if a revenue were the
only proper object of their government,) it appears that there has been
a mischievous dereliction of the ancient and sound policy of the law
which subjects the “victualler” as well as the keeper of the hostel,
inn, or lodging-house to responsibilities for the protection of the
inmates, and the convenience of the inhabitants in the neighbourhood
where such houses may be situate. The common lodging-house keeper is in
fact an inferior victualler, but evading the licence and the
responsibilities of the victualler, by sending out for the fermented
liquors which are consumed by the lodgers.
It appears, from various portions of evidence, that the occupation of a
lodging-house keeper is a profitable one: instances are given from
various parts of the country where the keepers of such houses have
accumulated property; and whilst the keepers of public-houses, however
small, or of beer-shops, are subjected to the necessity of taking out
licences, there is no apparent reason for the exemption of lodging-house
keepers from that charge by reason of poverty; neither should I consider
that it would be a disadvantage, but the contrary, if the proper
regulation of such houses were effected at some increase of the price of
the lodgings. On examination of the description of persons accommodated
in such houses, (whilst there is a public provision for those who are
really in a state of destitution, and means are provided for removing
them to their places of settlement when it is necessary,) I find no
class whose migration is entitled to any encouragement by any diminution
of the charge of providing proper lodgings. Another topic of
consideration in connexion with houses of this class, is the tendency of
the degraded accommodation to degrade the classes of the population who
have recourse to it. I would therefore submit for consideration, whether
all common lodging-houses should not be required by law to take out
licences in the same manner as public-houses; and that, as the condition
of holding such licences, they be subjected to inspection by the medical
officers of the union (or the district medical officer), and bound to
conform to such sanitary regulations in respect to cleanliness,
ventilation, and numbers proportioned to the space, as he may be
authorized to prescribe for the protection of the health of the inmates:
and also that all such lodging-houses shall be subjected to the
regulations of the magistrates, and shall be open to the visits and
inspection of the police, for the enforcement of duly authorized
regulations, without any search-warrant or other authority than that
necessary for their entrance into any house belonging to a licensed
victualler.
It may further be submitted for consideration that, by the beneficial
progress made in the habits of temperance in some districts, the disuse
of spirituous or fermented liquors may enable the proprietors of houses
of a higher order of resort than those in question to convert them into
coffee-houses or victualling-houses, and at the same time dispense with
the expense of the licence, and avoid also the responsibilities for the
protection of the public which the law has attached to licensed houses
of resort for travellers.
From the reports received from the more populous towns, it would appear
that there are few houses which are let for the accommodation of large
numbers of regular lodgers which might not be benefited by the
inspection of a medical officer. I believe it would be more beneficial
to the public to extend than to narrow the definition of the places
which should be subjected to regulations as lodging-houses; and that a
discretion as to the description of house which shall be included might
be safely confided to the magistrates who have local charge of the
public peace and the public economy of the towns.
The report received from _Mr. Charles R. Baird_, on the state of the law
applicable to the sanitary regulation of Glasgow, and the condition of
the labouring classes, as affected by the incompleteness or absence of
such regulations, affords evidence of the practical effect of measures
such as those recommended. Powers for the execution of such measures
have been already obtained and put into operation by the magistrates and
authorities of that city.
“The lodging-houses,” said Dr. Cowan, “are the media through which the
newly-arrived immigrants find their way to the fever hospital; and it
is remarkable how many of the inmates of that hospital, coming from
lodging-houses, have not been six months in the city.” He might have
added, these lodging-houses are the great _foci_ of poverty, vice, and
crime, as well as of disease. These houses are generally of a very
wretched description, in low, unwholesome situations, exceedingly
dirty and ill-ventilated, and are frequently crowded to excess, it
being no uncommon thing to find 8, 10, and 12 persons in one small
apartment, as 9 feet by 8, or 11 by 8. Some of them also have no beds
whatever in them, the inmates lying on the bare floor, or with a few
shavings below them, with their clothes on. A more particular
description of them will be got in Captain Miller’s Papers on Crime in
the City Proper, Mr. Rutherglen’s (one of the magistrates) on Calton,
and Mr. Richardson on the Barony of Gorbals. It would appear from
these published documents, and from what I have been able to learn
otherwise, that the lodging-houses in the City Proper are decidedly of
the worst description; but I am aware that the authorities are
adopting means to have them in better order in future. In the burgh of
Anderston they have for some time been under the surveillance of the
police; and a record is kept of all lodging-houses for the
accommodation of casual visitors in Gorbals (by which it appears that
there were lately 92—50 kept by males, and 42 by females; only 25 of
them entertain the lowest class of poor), so that they may be properly
regulated. It is only in Calton, however, that they are attended to
with that strict care which is requisite, and fortunately the last
Police Act for that burgh gives ample powers for that purpose. It
provides, by section 20, That no keeper of lodging-houses of an
inferior description, for the accommodation of mendicant strangers and
others, shall receive lodgers without the house having been inspected
and approved of by the superintendent of police, and the
superintendent is authorized to fix the number of lodgers who may be
accommodated, and to order a ticket containing the number of lodgers
for which each house is registered; and any rules or instructions of
the commissioners of police regarding health, cleanliness, and
ventilation, to be placed in a conspicuous part of each room in which
lodgers are received. It also provides that the keepers of such
lodgings offending against these regulations shall be liable in
penalties. Section 21 enacts, That in the event of any person in such
houses becoming ill of fever or other disease, the keepers shall be
bound to give intimation thereof to the superintendent of police or
inspector, so that the disease may be inquired into and treated, and
the magistrates are authorized to order such persons to be removed.
And section 22 further enacts, That on any contagious or infectious
disease occurring in any such lodging-houses, or in any house or
apartment in any house, or apartment in any common tenement, &c.,
where there is reasonable apprehension of such diseases spreading, the
magistrates may cause the remaining lodgers to be removed, and
measures to be taken for the disinfecting and cleaning of the houses
and apartments, and for the washing and purifying of the persons and
clothes of the inhabitants.
“In addition to these excellent provisions, the magistrates of Calton,
in virtue of the powers in their police Acts, have issued the
following rules and instructions to be observed by all keepers of
lodging-houses, viz.—1st. The floors are to be washed at least twice
in each week, viz., on Wednesday and Saturday. 2nd. The walls are to
be whitewashed, and the houses thoroughly cleaned, on the 1st day of
each of the months of June, August, November and March, or on the
following day if any of these days fall on Sunday. And, 3rd. The
blankets used in all lodging-houses are to be thoroughly cleaned and
scoured on the 8th day of each of the months of June, August,
November, and March, or on the following day if any of these days fall
on Sunday; and if any person or persons in such house shall be
affected with fever or other infectious disease, the blankets and bed
clothes used by such person or persons shall be thoroughly cleaned and
scoured immediately after the removal of the diseased, and the bedding
used by persons affected with contagious disease fumigated immediately
after the removal of such person or persons. And where the bedding
used is shavings or straw, the same shall be burnt immediately after
such removal.
“These provisions and regulations have been very judiciously enforced
by the magistrates of Calton and their superintendent of police, and
have been productive of most beneficial results. In addition to what
was formerly stated by Bailie Rutherglen, I have now before me a
distinct statement, by Mr. Smart, regarding the lodging-houses and
state of fever in Calton, which enables me to give the following
information:—Between 1st September, 1840, and 1st February last, 319
persons were brought before the magistrates of Calton for keeping
unregistered lodging-houses. Of these 216 were ordered to desist from
keeping lodgers till houses registered, &c.; 91 were fined and
ordained not to keep lodgers; 12 cases were dismissed. Of the 307
convicted for keeping unregistered lodging-houses, 90 got their houses
inspected and registered, 30 removed from the burgh, and 189 gave over
keeping lodgers, and were refused registration—refused principally on
account of the want of proper accommodation, and a few for harbouring
disreputable characters. Mr. Smart also informs me that several
hundreds of the worst houses of the poorer classes have been
whitewashed with Irish lime, and the lodging-houses having been put
under wholesome regulations, a marked improvement has taken place. In
Whisky-close, New-street, for several years past, as many as 30 cases
of fever occurred annually. Lime-washed in September last, and the
vagrants removed; only one case of fever has been known: and Mr. Smart
concludes, “I believe there are 1000 fever cases less in Calton this
day than there were on 1st September last.” Why should not the same
measures that have been so successfully enforced in Calton be
introduced into the City Proper and the other suburban districts?”
It were only a statement of the concurrent opinion of the commissioners
of police, of magistrates, of medical officers, and of the guardians
charged with the administration of the poor’s rates, to represent the
urgent necessity of legislative provisions for the general adoption of
similar measures throughout the country.
IX.—RECAPITULATION OF CONCLUSIONS.
The last cited instance of the practical operation of measures for the
abatement of the nuisances attendant on common lodging-houses may also
be submitted as an instance of the advantages derivable from the
extension of such fields of inquiries as the present. On each of the
chief points included in it there would have been a loss of what I hope
will be deemed valuable corroborative information, had the inquiry been
confined either to England or to Scotland. The observation of the
important productive use of the refuse of the city of Edinburgh would
have been of comparatively little value as evidence leading to practical
applications, apart from the observation of what is accomplished by the
practical application of science to sewerage and drainage for the
immediate and cheapest removal of all the refuse of towns by water
through closed drains afforded by the operation in the Holborn and
Finsbury division of the metropolis. It may be stated confidently that,
if the inquiry could conveniently have had still further extension as to
time and place, the information would have been strengthened and
rendered more complete. From incidental facts I have met with, I am led
to believe that the whole of the effects which are the subject of the
present report would have been still more strikingly displayed in many
parts of Ireland.
After as careful an examination of the evidence collected as I have been
enabled to make, I beg leave to recapitulate the chief conclusions which
that evidence appears to me to establish.
_First, as to the extent and operation of the evils which are the
subject of the inquiry_:—
That the various forms of epidemic, endemic, and other disease caused,
or aggravated, or propagated chiefly amongst the labouring classes by
atmospheric impurities produced by decomposing animal and vegetable
substances, by damp and filth, and close and overcrowded dwellings
prevail amongst the population in every part of the kingdom, whether
dwelling in separate houses, in rural villages, in small towns, in the
larger towns—as they have been found to prevail in the lowest, districts
of the metropolis.
That such disease, wherever its attacks are frequent, is always found in
connexion with the physical circumstances above specified, and that
where those circumstances are removed by drainage, proper cleansing,
better ventilation, and other means of diminishing atmospheric impurity,
the frequency and intensity of such disease is abated; and where the
removal of the noxious agencies appears to be complete, such disease
almost entirely disappears.
That high prosperity in respect to employment and wages, and various and
abundant food, have afforded to the labouring classes no exemptions from
attacks of epidemic disease, which have been as frequent and as fatal in
periods of commercial and manufacturing prosperity as in any others.
That the formation of all habits of cleanliness is obstructed by
defective supplies of water.
That the annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation are greater
than the loss from death or wounds in any wars in which the country has
been engaged in modern times.
That of the 43,000 cases of widowhood, and 112,000 cases of destitute
orphanage relieved from the poor’s rates in England and Wales alone, it
appears that the greatest proportion of deaths of the heads of families
occurred from the above specified and other removable causes; that their
ages were under 45 years; that is to say, 13 years below the natural
probabilities of life as shown by the experience of the whole population
of Sweden.
That the public loss from the premature deaths of the heads of families
is greater than can be represented by any enumeration of the pecuniary
burdens consequent upon their sickness and death.
That, measuring the loss of working ability amongst large classes by the
instances of gain, even from incomplete arrangements for the removal of
noxious influences from places of work or from abodes, that this loss
cannot be less than eight or ten years.
That the ravages of epidemics and other diseases do not diminish but
tend to increase the pressure of population.
That in the districts where the mortality is the greatest the births are
not only sufficient to replace the numbers removed by death, but to add
to the population.
That the younger population, bred up under noxious physical agencies, is
inferior in physical organization and general health to a population
preserved from the presence of such agencies.
That the population so exposed is less susceptible of moral influences,
and the effects of education are more transient than with a healthy
population.
That these adverse circumstances tend to produce an adult population
short-lived, improvident, reckless, and intemperate, and with habitual
avidity for sensual gratifications.
That these habits lead to the abandonment of all the conveniences and
decencies of life, and especially lead to the overcrowding of their
homes, which is destructive to the morality as well as the health of
large classes of both sexes.
That defective town cleansing fosters habits of the most abject
degradation and tends to the demoralization of large numbers of human
beings, who subsist by means of what they find amidst the noxious filth
accumulated in neglected streets and bye-places.
That the expenses of local public works are in general unequally and
unfairly assessed, oppressively and uneconomically collected, by
separate collections, wastefully expended in separate and inefficient
operations by unskilled and practically irresponsible officers.
That the existing law for the protection of the public health and the
constitutional machinery for reclaiming its execution, such as the
Courts Leet, have fallen into desuetude, and are in the state indicated
by the prevalence of the evils they were intended to prevent.
_Secondly. As to the means by which the present sanitary condition of
the labouring classes may be improved_:—
The primary and most important measures, and at the same time the most
practicable, and within the recognized province of public
administration, are drainage, the removal of all refuse of habitations,
streets, and roads, and the improvement of the supplies of water.
That the chief obstacles to the immediate removal of decomposing refuse
of towns and habitations have been the expense and annoyance of the hand
labour and cartage requisite for the purpose.
That this expense may be reduced to one-twentieth or to one-thirtieth,
or rendered inconsiderable, by the use of water and self-acting means of
removal by improved and cheaper sewers and drains.
That refuse when thus held in suspension in water may be most cheaply
and innoxiously conveyed to any distance out of towns, and also in the
best form for productive use, and that the loss and injury by the
pollution of natural streams may be avoided. That for all these
purposes, as well as for domestic use, better supplies of water are
absolutely necessary.
That for successful and economical drainage the adoption of geological
areas as the basis of operations is requisite.
That appropriate scientific arrangements for public drainage would
afford important facilities for private land-drainage, which is
important for the health as well as sustenance of the labouring classes.
That the expense of public drainage, of supplies of water laid on in
houses, and of means of improved cleansing would be a pecuniary gain, by
diminishing the existing charges attendant on sickness and premature
mortality.
That for the protection of the labouring classes and of the ratepayers
against inefficiency and waste in all new structural arrangements for
the protection of the public health, and to ensure public confidence
that the expenditure will be beneficial, securities should be taken that
all new local public works are devised and conducted by responsible
officers qualified by the possession of the science and skill of civil
engineers.
That the oppressiveness and injustice of levies for the whole immediate
outlay on such works upon persons who have only short interests in the
benefits may be avoided by care in spreading the expense over periods
coincident with the benefits.
That by appropriate arrangements, 10 or 15 per cent. on the ordinary
outlay for drainage might be saved, which on an estimate of the expense
of the necessary structural alterations of one-third only of the
existing tenements would be a saving of one million and a half sterling,
besides the reduction of the future expenses of management.
That for the prevention of the disease occasioned by defective
ventilation, and other causes of impurity in places of work and other
places where large numbers are assembled, and for the general promotion
of the means necessary to prevent disease, that it would be good economy
to appoint a district medical officer independent of private practice,
and with the securities of special qualifications and responsibilities
to initiate sanitary measures and reclaim the execution of the law.
That by the combinations of all these arrangements, it is probable that
the full ensurable period of life indicated by the Swedish tables; that
is, an increase of 13 years at least, may be extended to the whole of
the labouring classes.
That the attainment of these and the other collateral advantages of
reducing existing charges and expenditure are within the power of the
legislature, and are dependent mainly on the securities taken for the
application of practical science, skill, and economy in the direction of
local public works.
And that the removal of noxious physical circumstances, and the
promotion of civic, household, and personal cleanliness, are necessary
to the improvement of the moral condition of the population; for that
sound morality and refinement in manners and health are not long found
co-existant with filthy habits amongst any class of the community.
I beg leave further to suggest, that the principles of amendment deduced
from the inquiry will be found as applicable to Scotland as to England;
and if so, it may be submitted for attention whether it might not be
represented that the structural arrangements for drainage would be most
conveniently carried out in the same form as in England, that is by
commissions, of the nature of commissions of sewers adapted, as regards
jurisdiction to natural or geological areas, and including in them the
chief elected officers of municipalities, and other authorities now
charged with the care of the streets and roads or connected with local
public works.
The advantages of uniformity in legislation and in the executive
machinery, and of doing the same things in the same way (choosing the
best), and calling the same officers, proceedings, and things by the
same names, will only be appreciated by those who have observed the
extensive public loss occasioned by the legislation for towns which
makes them independent of beneficent, as of what perhaps might have been
deemed formerly aggressive legislation. There are various sanitary
regulations, and especially those for cleansing, directed to be observed
in “every town except Berwick and Carlisle;” a course of legislation
which, had it been efficient for England, would have left Berwick and
Carlisle distinguished by the oppression of common evils intended to be
remedied. It was the subject, of public complaint, at Glasgow and in
other parts of Scotland, that independence and separation in the form of
general legislation separated the people from their share of the
greatest amount of legislative attention, or excluded them from common
interest and from the common advantages of protective measures. It was,
for example, the subject of particular complaint, that whilst the
labouring population of England and Ireland had received the advantages
of public legislative provision for a general vaccination, the labouring
classes in Scotland were still left exposed to the ravages of the
small-pox. It was also complained by Dr. Cowan and other members of the
medical profession, that Scotland had not been included in the
provisions for the registration of the causes of death which they
considered might, with improvements, be made highly conducive to the
advancement of medical science and the means of protecting the public
health.
I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
EDWIN CHADWICK.
APPENDIX.
1.—_Evidence of_ MR. JOHN ROE, _Civil Engineer, on the Practical
Improvement in Sewerage and Drainage tried in the Holborn and Finsbury
Divisions of the Metropolis_.
You are the surveyor to the Holborn and Finsbury Commission of
Sewers?—Yes, I am.
By profession you are an engineer?—Yes; I have been engaged as an
engineer in the formation of canals and railways, and in the drainage
incident to such works.
How long have you acted as surveyor to this branch of sewerage in the
metropolis?—Nearly four years.
Have you observed the general state of the sewerage of the metropolis?—I
have only seen some of the sewers of other divisions, but I am generally
acquainted with the principle of their construction.
Is it generally the same as that in which you found the sewers in the
Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—Yes, except that the forms differ in a
degree; some are flat-bottomed sewers, others segment-bottomed. For a
long time the Holborn and Finsbury divisions have used bottoms of a
semicircular form.
The effect of a flat-bottomed sewer, it is to be presumed, when the
water is shallow and the flow slow, is to leave a larger quantity of
deposit?—Yes; it flows sometimes in a channel, leaving a deposit on each
side; sometimes the water flows on one side, leaving a deposit on the
other; but in all cases the flat-bottomed sewers occasion a larger
amount of deposit with the same flow of water: it is more than one-half
difference of the deposit which is left.
What proportion of the sewerage of the metropolis do you believe to be
flat-bottomed?—I have not examined the other divisions, but I believe
the greater proportion of the sewerage to be flat-bottomed. In the City
they have built some of their sewers in a form nearly similar to those
adopted in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions; that is, approaching to
semicircular. In the Westminster division the invert is a segment of a
circle, whose chord being three feet the versed sine is six inches. Most
new sewers are making an approach to the better form by having segments.
Is it not the fact that in proportion as the bottom approaches a plane
it approaches to the inconvenience of the flat-bottomed sewers, and
weakens the force of the current?—Yes, in a degree, it does.
Are there any practical inconveniences, or is there any material
increase of expense in building semicircular bottoms?—None; and if the
sides are curved also it forms the stronger sewer for the same expense.
How are the sides of the sewers generally built?—As far as I am
informed, they are built with upright walls. I know none but the new
sewers in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions that are built with curved
sides, though I have no doubt that if any new sewers are built under the
superintendence of Mr. Walker, who is president of the Engineers’
Society, he would build them with curved sides.
What are the disadvantages of the flat-sided sewers?—They are not
calculated to afford the greatest strength. In clayey or slippery
ground, where there is a pressure on the sides, they are more easily
forced in. I have myself seen instances where expensive sewers have been
forced in at the sides. The curved side gives the strength of an arch in
resisting such pressure.
Is there any addition of expense in the construction of such forms of
sewers as you describe?—Less expense; there is less brick-work required.
As compared with some upright sewers with footings, the difference will
be two shillings in first size sewers, and four shillings per foot
lineal in sewers of the second size, in favour of the curved sewers.
In respect to the levels, how have you found the sewers?—They appear to
have been entirely constructed with reference to the locality, to drain
to the nearest outlet, and not on an extended view for the whole
district, or with any view to sewerage on a large scale. In the Holborn
and Finsbury divisions the Commissioners now adopt a series of levels
suited from the lowest outlets to the surrounding districts.
Have you heard of any alterations made in the surrounding districts on
the same principle?—I have heard of none as adopted generally. The City
have lowered several of their outlets; and Mr. Donaldson, on the
Westminster, has had the subject under consideration for some time.
What are the chief effects of the piecemeal town drainage without
reference to extended levels?—Chiefly that when new lines of houses are
built and require new sewers, either the old sewers must be taken up and
re-constructed at a great expense, to adjust them to a new and effective
sewerage, or the new sewers, if they are adjusted to the old ones, are
deficient in fall, and they have greater deposits.
Does the existing form or system of sewerage answer fully and at the
least expense the chief objects of sewerage in house and street
cleansing, and the removal of noxious substances?—No, it does not,
except where the outlets have been lowered, and the sewers continued at
a proper level; great accumulations of deposit are occasioned in the
sewers, and from their containing the refuse that was at one time
deposited in the cesspools, the deposit is more noxious than formerly;
the gas is more considerable, it escapes more extensively into streets
and into the houses, where the drains are not well trapped. My opinion
is that the general health of the men who work and have been accustomed
to the sewers, has become still worse; they are more pale and thin, and
lower in general health than formerly. The effect of the noxious gases
upon men working in these places is to lower the general health. Since I
have had the superintendence of the sewers, the men have encountered
about half a dozen accidents by explosions of gas.
But is the health of these men who work in the sewers to be taken as a
criterion of the health of persons who are not accustomed to such
places?—I have had no means of forming a comparison, though I am of
opinion that gases which they encounter without any immediate injury
would be very injurious to the health of susceptible persons, or of any
persons not habituated to it.
The first prejudicial effect of the defective system, then, is to
occasion these noxious accumulations; how are they removed?—Formerly, in
the Holborn and Finsbury sewers, and at present, I believe, in all other
sewers, the streets were opened at a great expense and obstruction (they
are so now, I believe, elsewhere); men descend, scoop up the deposit
into pails, which are raised by a windlass to the surface, and laid
there until the carts come; it is laid there until it is carted away,
sometimes for several hours, to the public annoyance and prejudice. The
contract price for removal from the old sewers without man-holes was
11_s._ per cubic yard of slop removed; where they have man-holes it was
6_s._ 10_d._ per cubic yard. This practice also involves injury and
expense as respects the pavement; a street may be well paved when it is
broken up for the cleansing of the sewers, but the portions of pavements
so disturbed are never so well put down again; neither can accidents be
effectually guarded against.
By what means may these effects be obviated?—In the Holborn and Finsbury
divisions I suggested a plan of flushing the sewers, and of carrying off
all the refuse by water. This plan has been adopted, and it is now in
operation. The breaking up of the streets is avoided by the formation of
side entrances; cast-iron flushing gates are fixed in the sewers; the
ordinary flow of water in the sewers accumulates at these gates; the
gates are opened, and the force of the water is sufficient to sweep off
the deposit; and the system may be further extended.
What is the comparative difference in the expense of construction?—The
cost of side entrances and flood-gates, as compared with the cost of
man-holes, is from 6_d._ to 1_s._ less per foot lineal of the length of
new sewers.
What other expense is attendant on this improved practice?—The main
expense is the attendance of a man to shut and open the flood-gates.
The structural expense being lower, is the ultimate expense of cleansing
lower also?—Yes; the expense of cleansing the sewers is about 50 per
cent. less than the prevalent mode. Our expense of cleansing the sewers
was about 1200_l._ per annum; we save 600_l._ of that, and expect to
save more; but to this must be added the saving to the public of the
cleansing of the private drains, formerly choked by the accumulations in
the sewers. This saving, on a moderate calculation, is found to be
upwards of 300_l._ per annum. There is also the diminution of the
escapes of gas from the old and continued accumulations.
During what intervals are deposits allowed to remain on the old
mode?—The average is in one set of sewers about five years, and in
another about ten years.
During which time the public are subjected to all the escapes of gas
from the decomposing accumulation?—Exactly so. It could not, however, go
on so long but for heavy falls of rain or snow, which occasion partial
clearances.
What is the effect of these accumulations upon the private
drainage?—That the drains to the private houses are stopped: the first
intimation of the foul state of the main sewer arises from complaints of
individuals whose drains are affected; the accumulations in the private
drains also occasion an expense to the individuals and much annoyance.
By flushing the sewers this expense might be, and in the Holborn and
Finsbury division it is, avoided.
Might not the price of sewers be reduced even below those you have now
in use, the egg-shaped sewers?—With the radiated bricks, I think that
the same capacity of sewerage may be secured with less thickness of
brick-work. I have given in an estimate of second-class sewers at 10_s._
6_d._ per foot lineal; which is 7_s._ 6_d._ per foot less than the
common flat-bottomed sewer with footing.
In these main drains a man may go up to examine them. Admitting them to
be necessary for the large towns, might not a smaller and less expensive
drainage suffice for small towns and villages?—There are situations in
courts, alleys, and small streets, where a less expensive form of
drainage would suffice. In fact 18–inch drains for short lengths,
costing, if made of radiated bricks, 4_s._ 6_d._ per foot, would
suffice; they would act well in proportion to the goodness of the falls.
Have you found the system of cleansing the large drains by flushing with
proper supplies of water equally applicable to small drains?—Yes,
equally applicable. A gentleman has tried it on a private drain of
18–inch capacity, and 1200 feet length, and it answers equally well. It
is cleansed by the collection of refuse water from 30 or 40 houses.
Might not the drains from private houses be also cleansed in the same
mode?—Yes, they might have a small and cheap apparatus for carrying away
all ordinary refuse. If in the small drain a brick fell in, it could not
be removed by the force of the small quantity of water which could be
obtained in such a situation. In our large sewers the heads of water are
in some cases strong enough to sweep away loose bricks.
Would it not be of advantage to the occupier, if the private drains were
under the same general superintendence?—I conceive it would in
management. They are frequently put to great expense by getting persons
to attend to them who really do not understand them. They are often now
obliged to have recourse to the contractor’s men. Private property is
often drained through other private property, and when the drains are
choked, if the parties are not on good terms they will not allow each
other facilities for cleansing. Under the Finsbury local Act there is a
power to enforce the cleansing of private drains, and by way of appeal
that power is sometimes resorted to by private individuals.
May we not presume that the same principles of hydraulics, as to the
advantages of a flow over a semi circular bottom, are as applicable to
small drains as to large ones?—More so from the flow of water being
smaller; the greater necessity for keeping it in a body to enable it to
carry away the common deposit.
Then there is a proportionate loss in having the private drainage made
with flat-bottomed bricks or boards?—Yes, there is proportionate loss
from the extra cost of cleansing. Semicircular drains of tiles would be
better, and cheaper than brick, for private houses.
Are there any other defects you have, as an engineer, noticed in the
prevalent mode of constructing the sewers?—Yes, the prevalent practice
is to join sewers at angles, frequently at right angles; this occasions
eddies and deposits of sediment that would otherwise pass off with the
water; it injures the capacity of the main sewers by obstructing the
current of water along them: I ascertained by experiment that the time
occupied in the passage of an equal quantity of water, along similar
lengths of sewer with equal falls, was—
Seconds.
Along a straight line 90
With a true curve 100
With a turn at right angles 140
The Commissioners of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions agreed to
require that the curves in sewers, passing from one street to another,
shall be formed with a radius of not less than 20 feet; it is also
required that the inclination or fall shall be increased at the
junction, in order to preserve an equal capacity for the passage of
water, and of effect in sweeping away the deposit.
When by heavy falls of snow or otherwise the refuse of the streets is
carried into such sewers, is there any difficulty in sweeping it
away?—None whatsoever.
How are the gully-holes or entrances to the drains affected by such
deposits?—Under the prevalent system the gullies and shoots are formed
so as to retain deposit, on the principle that it is cheaper to get the
deposit out of those than out of the sewers. The Commissioners in
Holborn and Finsbury, having adopted the flushing principle, have also
adopted a new description of gully and shoot, which I proposed to them
for the purpose of conveying the whole of the deposit into the sewers;
it is then washed away by the flushing.
In what number of years would the saving in cleansing sewers by flushing
repay the expense of applying the apparatus to the existing sewers in
the Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—In seven years.
What would be the expense of the construction of chimneys to remove the
foul air from sewers?—The expense would depend upon the sort and form of
chimney that might be used. A suggestion of Mr. Stable, one of the chief
clerks of the Holborn and Finsbury commission, appears to meet the case
at the least expense. He suggests that the pipes used to carry off the
rain-water from the roofs of houses should be connected with the crown
of the sewers; thus forming a chimney for carrying off the effluvia from
the sewers, and also a conveyance for the rain-water into the sewers.
The cost of connecting one such pipe with a sewer would, on an average,
be about 3_l._ 16_s._ 2_d._
Have you any doubt of the practicability of carrying all the surface
cleansing of the streets into the sewers, and removing it by conveyance
in water, as was proposed at Paris, instead of by hand labour and
cartage?—I entertain no doubt whatever that it might be done, where
there is a good sewer and proper gully-holes and shoots; with a good
supply of water these would carry away rapidly all the surface refuse;
the experience of the sewerage in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions
prove it.
How does it prove it?—At every opportunity the street-sweepers sweep all
they can into the gully-holes, and it is swept away without
inconvenience.
One practical witness states that the expense of the cartage alone of
the refuse from a Macadamised street of half a mile, in the winter time
in the metropolis, is 5_l._ weekly. What would be the comparative
expense of carrying it away by the sewers?—It would save the whole
expense of the cartage; it would be less than the present expense of
sweeping and filling into the carts, and if there were a sufficient
supply of water on the surface, the work might be conducted with great
rapidity.
You are aware that one inconvenience of the existing mode of street
cleansing, independently of the great expense, is the length of time
during which the wet refuse remains to the public annoyance on the
surface, until removed by the slow process of sweeping and cartage?—Yes;
and the men would appear to delay for the purpose of the dirt being
removed, by being washed by rain into the sewers.
Do you conceive that all the business of street cleansing and house
draining might be consolidated advantageously to the public?—Yes,
clearly so, and with great economy.
Have you, as an engineer, had experience in road construction?—Yes, I
have, having taken the levels and surveys preparatory to an Act of
Parliament being obtained for lowering the Long Compton Hills in
Warwickshire; I afterwards constructed the new line of road on Mr.
Telford’s principle.
Considering the drainage of a new district: the under-drainage of the
roads and houses and the surface cleansing, would not the public gain by
putting the drainage, the road-construction, repair and maintenance of
the roads, under the same management?—Yes, the public would get it done
much better by one surveyor and one Board than by two. In the old
districts, besides the double expense of officers, inconveniences arise
from the want of unity between the contractors for the paving and the
contractors for the drainage; there is always conflicting interests
between the two, and the work is not in many cases done with the economy
and expedition which would be practicable.
If the public, who may be ignorant of the science of sewerage and of
what it may accomplish, make no complaints, and do not agitate for the
adoption of any improved system, in how long a time do you think the
improvements demonstrated in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions would
reach the other end of the metropolis by the force of imitation and
voluntary adoption?—From the apathy shown and prejudice against anything
new, however valuable it may be as an improvement, and the various
interests affected, such as the contractors for cleansing, I do not
expect that they would become general in the metropolis during my
life-time. The public are passive, and the adverse interests are active.
You know the description of persons engaged as surveyors of various
descriptions in the rural districts and in the smaller towns?—Yes, I do.
Unless care be taken, is it to be apprehended that any new expenditure
will be made on imperfect and unwholesome drains with flat bottoms and
on false principles at a disproportionate expense?—Undoubtedly, except
they have to act on rule, it will certainly be so throughout the
country. The drainage that I have seen in the country districts is worse
than in the metropolis.
Have you found the sewerage produce any effect in the drainage of the
surrounding land?—Yes, we have found it lower the water in the wells,
often at great distances. For instance, in forming a sewer in the City
Road we found that it lowered by four feet a well nearly a quarter of a
mile distance. The only remedy we could advise to the parties was to
lower the well: they did so. We afterwards had occasion to lower the
same sewer three feet, when the well was lowered again in proportion; so
that the construction of the sewer, in this instance, drained an area of
40 or 50 acres on that side, and perhaps further. The water is sometimes
in such quantities and so strong in the land springs as to require
openings to be left in the side of the sewer for its passage.
Are there any fees taken in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—None.
Do you think the system of the payment of officers by fees
objectionable?—Yes, highly so.
“Have you met with instances where the drains have not acted, owing to
the inadequacy of the supplies of water?—I have not had my attention
called particularly to any private drain, so as to notice whether it did
not act owing to an inadequate supply of water, but taking the question
on the broad principle of the effect of a sufficient supply of water to
drains or sewers as beneficial in keeping them free from deposit, I beg
to state that I have noticed the effect on sewers of the same form and
having the same fall or inclination, and I have found that where there
has been an adequate supply of water no deposit has remained in them,
whereas where the supply of water was inadequate, deposit has
accumulated so much as to render cleansing necessary in a few years: the
effect must be the same in private drains.”
[Figure 1 is a representation of the form of the common sewers built in
the Westminster division. It is a transverse section, representing, on a
scale of a quarter of an inch to a foot, a sewer of the larger sort, the
greatest height being five feet six inches and the width three feet. The
smaller sewers are made of the same form, but only five feet high and
two feet six inches wide. It chiefly differs from the more common form
of sewers in not having a perfectly flat bottom.
[Illustration:
_Fig. 1._
]
The following figures, 1, 2, are representations of the sewers in the
Holborn and Finsbury division of the metropolis, on the same scale as
the above. The part in which the joints are marked in the cut is,
according to the directions, to be worked in blocks with cement.
[Illustration:
_Fig. 1._
]
[Illustration:
_Fig. 2._
]
The sides of these sewers form the curves of large radii struck from the
centres on the lines _a_ _a_, the radius for the larger size being about
13 feet, and that for the smaller size in proportion.
The spaciousness of the sewerage in the Westminster division of the
metropolis has been an object of pride; and it is stated that the
commissioners have walked in procession down one main sewer prepared for
the purpose. It was the glory of Rome that some of its cloacæ were so
large that boats and chariots might pass through them. All this,
however, appears to have been mistaken in principle, and in ignorance of
the mischiefs of the generation of gases and of the principles of
hydraulics, and their application for the attainment of the objects in
question. Mr. Smith, of Deanston, who has introduced the greatest
improvements in land drainage, advances the general principle, that the
size of sewers should be so adjusted as to have them always as full as
possible, with a quick flow; and he contends that the drainage of a city
might and should be so constructed as to give rise to as little occasion
for men to go through the main drains as there is for men to go through
the main pipes for conveying supplies of water. He would make the drains
narrow. “Their transverse section should exhibit an oval or egg-shape,
having the vertical diameter at least double the length of the
horizontal. The bricks used should be made on purpose, with radiating
sides.” “Care should be taken to make the building water-tight and
air-tight, and to prevent the foul water and effluvia passing into the
contiguous soil. Where land drainage is to be received, special openings
can be made at intervals to receive it. All private drainage should pass
into the sewers under ground by well-secured channels or pipes. Strong
clay pipes, of an oval section, hard burned, and with a good arrangement
for secure jointing, might be cheaply procured for the purpose.” It may
be said that there is scarcely any drainage, even in the opulent
districts, that at present meets these conditions. E. C.]
2.—_Evidence of_ MR. JOHN DARKE, _Contractor for Cleansing, as to the
Obstacles to Cleansing, and the Conversion of the Refuse of the
Metropolis to Productive Use_.
What are the practical difficulties you find in the way of the cheap
cleansing of the streets and houses of the metropolis?—The great
difficulty of the cleansing of the metropolis arises from the want of
proper receptacles for the filth. There is no filth in the metropolis
that now, as a general rule, will pay the expense of collection and
removal by cart, except the ashes from the houses and the soap lees from
the soap-boilers; and some of the night-soil from the east end of the
town, where there happen to be in the immediate vicinity some
market-gardens, where it can be used at once, without distant or
expensive cartage. The charge for removing night-soil from the poorest
tenements may be about 1_l._ per tenement. One house with another, the
expense may be said to be in London about 10_s._ per year, as the
cesspools may be emptied once in two years. One house with another they
will not produce more than a load of refuse from the cesspools, which,
not being composed, there is great absorption of the liquid refuse. I
have given away thousands of loads of night-soil; as we have no means of
disposing of it, we know not what to do with it.
What is the distance from the metropolis at which refuse is used?—The
expense of cartage of course increases with the distance. The average
extent of use of it as deposit does not exceed three miles from the
Post-office district in the city of London. Some night-soil has been
dried, packed up in the returned sugar hogsheads, and sent to the West
Indies for use as manure.
Is it not conveyed away from London by canal?—We do not at present, but
it might be. There is a penalty in the local Act of 5_l._, for
depositing it on the wharf.
Cannot you convey such manure by railway?—No, there is no mode of
conveyance provided. The charge, I believe, is a halfpenny per mile, but
that is for the use of the rails only; and the company do not favour the
transit of manure, and the farmer or contractor who would convey it must
provide engines for himself, which again would not pay. Night soil has
not yet been used systematically, and there are no places provided for
its reception.
Might not the refuse be disposed of to better advantage than it now
is?—The refuse of a great portion of the metropolis might be disposed of
to immense advantage, but it must be by operations on a scale beyond the
power of private capitalists. The sweepings of the paved streets is good
as manure: on grassland it is nearly equal to horse-dung; but it
contains so much seed that it scarcely does on ploughed land for
immediate use. It produces great quantities of herbage; every year,
however, it improves, because the weed is lost from it and the manure is
left. When the streets are dry, and it will pay for transit, we sell a
few loads. The sweepings from the Macadamized roads consist so much of
granite that it is of very little use indeed; and in general the
street-sweepings are mixed up with other manure for sale.
3.—_Evidence of_ MR. JOHN TREBLE, _Contractor for Cleansing, as to the
Obstacles to Cleansing, and the Conversion of the Refuse of the
Metropolis to Productive Uses_.
You have been engaged in the cleansing of the metropolis, have you
not?—Yes; I have been engaged, and my father before me, in the general
cartage of materials, and also in extensive business as a nightman, but
I have now retired from business.
What is the usual expense of emptying cesspools?—The full price to
respectable private houses is 15_s._ per load, but the contract price is
about 10_s._ per load. The period of emptying is dependent on whether
there is any drainage from the cesspool, or whether there are any
land-springs. Some would require to be emptied twice or three times
a-year, whilst others would go two or three years without being filled.
About 1_l._ per annum per tenement would perhaps be the expense one with
another.
Where the cesspools are relieved, is not the ground about
saturated?—Yes, it is; in digging the foundations of old houses for new
buildings, the earth is found to be saturated. We have frequently to
empty one person’s place because it is found that the soil has
penetrated through to the neighbours’ houses.
Does not this moisture affect the condition of the house?—Yes, and it
would be good economy for the sake of the house, and keeping a dry
foundation, to have water-closets and good drainage from the house to
the sewers.
By having the water-closets, the expense of the removal of the soil,
annually or otherwise, would be saved?—Yes; and the expense of the
dearest water-closets bears no proportion to the annual expense of
cleansing, though water-closets I think might be constructed at a less
expense, on a more simple plan, than they now are. They might be
constructed on a principle to receive the rain-water and all the liquid
refuse from the houses, which would increase the cleansing.
To effect cleansing on this principle, it will of course be necessary to
have the water laid on in the house?—Of course it will. It would greatly
assist the cleansing, if the water-companies were required to draw their
plugs once at least in the fortnight. It would cleanse their own pipes,
and assist in the cleansing of the sewers. The company would say that
that would be a great waste of water, but a sufficient body of water
might be obtained for the purpose in a quarter of an hour.
Does not the soil bear any value as a manure?—In general it bears no
value to the nightman as a manure. One hinderance to any removal to a
distance is, that, by the police regulations, cesspools can only be
emptied in the night within certain hours. This prevents cartage to any
great distance, and cartage is very dear. Some nightmen have paid 6_d._
per load for the liberty of depositing it. The object of the nightmen is
to get rid of the soil early, and return with the cart to complete the
emptying in one night. Formerly, before the new police were so much
about, the men would empty the cart in any bye street or place where
they could; they would, when it was in a liquid state, empty it down the
sewers; they do so now when they have an opportunity, and return to
complete the job. Formerly the site of the New London University was a
place in which the refuse was deposited; so was the site of the new row
of grand houses in Hyde Park Gardens. I think the site of Belgrave
Square was another place of deposit; but those places being built over,
there is now much difficulty in getting rid of the refuse.
What is the expense of cartage in London?—As a contractor, for the use
of a cart, a man, and horse a-day, I used to charge 9_s._ the day for
carting stone and rubbish. My successor did it for 7_s._, but I saw his
name yesterday in the Gazette. The cost of the man’s work and the horse
will amount to 6_s._ or 7_s._ in London.
What distance do your carts in full work travel in London?—A good day’s
work to send a load out and return empty would be about ten miles; over
hilly parts not so far.
Is the street refuse of the paved streets valuable as manure?—Yes it is;
but it is only worth removal when it can be easily carted, that is, when
it is in a dry state. The contractor being obliged to cleanse the
streets in a given time, it would not pay to have such a number of carts
as to complete the cleansing within the time and carry the refuse to a
distance. They get rid of the refuse at the nearest place of deposit. In
dry weather they have less to do and can turn their carts to account.
The refuse is then dry, and it rides well, and may be sold to an
advantage, and it sometimes fetches half-a-crown a load.
At what distance from the place of work would it be delivered at that
price?—At about three miles distance; not exceeding that.
Is none of the refuse of the metropolis carried further as manure?—Yes;
some of the farmers who bring produce to market return with their carts
loaded with dung to greater distances.
Is not canal conveyance used?—Much of the street cleansing is taken down
the canals.
Do the contractors in general pay for the deposit of the refuse of
streets?—They would pay if they could get places of deposit near their
work; but all the places out to the outskirts, where any refuse whatever
could be deposited, are built upon.
Do not the men sometimes get rid of the surface sweepings into the
sewers?—Yes; they do when it is in a liquid state, and when they are not
watched.
Do you happen to know what is the expense of cleansing a street of a
given length?—I once contracted to remove the stuff from Bond-street
away; each cleansing took four teams and two stands, as it is called; or
two teams and one stand, that is, two two horse carts, and one single
horse cart standing to be loaded two days in the winter time. The cost
of cartage in the winter season for cleansing that street was about
5_l._ for each cleansing. It was cleansed less frequently than weekly:
that street is Macadamised. In the summer-time the expense would be less
than one-half. The expense of cleansing the whole of Marylebone, that
is, the expense of cartage, is about 2,200_l._ per annum, the parish
finding the sweepers.
4.—_Extract from the Report of_ FOURCROY _and others, showing the
Calculation of the Extent of Pollution of the Seine from the Discharge
of the Refuse of the Streets of Paris_.
“Not to neglect the details into which the Ministry desire us to enter,
we observe that the maximum of daily street-sweepings is, in winter, 684
cubic metres; the minimum is 410; the average is 547.
“On the other hand, the velocity of the waters of the Seine, measured at
their lowest level, being 6 decimetres 5 centimetres a second, and the
profile of the Seine, measured also at low water, at the bridge of the
Revolution, being 118 metres, we observe that there results, supposing
an uniform velocity in the whole mass, a flow of water of 76 cubic
metres a second; and in one day a flow of water 9,600 times greater at
low water than the most considerable volume of the street-sweepings of
Paris for the same space of time. This volume of water would be 16,015
times greater than that of the street-sweepings, if compared with the
minimum of these last; that is to say, with the sweepings in summer, or
the time at which the waters of the Seine are lowest. Any error in the
calculation, arising from the inequality of the velocity in the
different parts of the column formed by the current, is too amply
compensated by other circumstances to need our consideration.
“To this is to be added, that the season when the street-sweepings are
greatest, necessarily accords, all other things being equal, with the
period when the water is highest and most rapid, as the period of low
water answers to that when the refuse is least; and admitting the
preceding calculations, the volume of water would be more than 16,000
times greater than the street-sweepings; and this proportion would
increase considerably when the water is highest, by reason of the double
proportion of height and velocity.
“It is to be further considered, that a great portion of these sweepings
being insoluble in the water, would become precipitated, and unite with
the mud; that a larger portion still, deposited unequally on the two
banks, would never reach the bleaching-grounds, or the places where the
water is drawn, and that consequently their possible relation to the
water used in the city, reduces itself to a quantity excessively small,
and absolutely inappreciable.”
5.—_Communication from_ CAPTAIN VETCH, _of the Royal Engineers, on the
Structural Arrangements of New Buildings, and Protection of the Public
Health_.
DEAR SIR,—Agreeable to promise, I forward the following observations on
the improvement of large towns, as affecting the health, economy, and
comfort of the inhabitants, and so far as these depend on structural
arrangement.
The points requiring the attention of the engineer and architect may be
stated as follows:—_complete ventilation_, _complete drainage_, ample
sewerage, ample supply of water, and lastly, a ready and good
communication between the various portions of the town.
I should have commenced my observations with the subject of drainage as
the first in point of order were a new district or town to be built, but
as both drainage, and ventilation, and communication, &c., depend so
much on the arrangement of the streets, it may not be superfluous to
premise something on that head. It will be sufficiently obvious that
where towns are constructed on a regular plan with straight streets, the
communication, ventilation, and drainage is comparatively easy, and far
more effectual than under contrary circumstances; but it unfortunately
happens that our large towns contain many narrow, crooked streets, with
little or no arrangement, and though it may not be practicable
materially to mend what we now find so bad, we cannot fail to perceive
that a little timeous system and arrangement would have avoided many
evils we now complain of, with a less structural expense and a much
improved value of property to the owners.
Many or most of the towns, both in British and Spanish America, are
formed on regular plans, commencing with a square as a nucleus, to the
faces of which the streets (as they rise) are made parallel, so that
whatever may be the extent of the town the increments take place in
regular order, until stopped by some natural obstruction; and though it
may be true we cannot now enjoy the good effect of any such original
precaution, yet as respects the extension or future increments of our
cities and towns, much benefit may still be derived by resorting to
system; and though we cannot now remodel what has been built by
proceeding regularly from a central point to the circumference, yet we
may adopt an external line or periphery as a basis of operation for the
construction of the future extension of the town on a regular plan or
system.
It is fortunate for the metropolis that there existed some large
landowners in its vicinity, as the families of Bedford, Grosvenor, and
Portman, whose taste and spirit corresponded with their means, and that
large portions of the increments of London consequently possess all the
advantages that a well-considered system of utility could require; and
the benefit of such a circumstance will be best felt by contemplating
what effects a contrary proceeding would have produced; and further, the
plans pursued by the above-named families have not only been highly
beneficial in themselves, but they have served to stimulate the small
proprietors in their vicinity to the same useful ends; and what seems to
be wanted from the authority of the state is the means of ensuring such
beneficial measures in all cases, or at least protection against
antagonist or vicious proceedings in the owners of land adjoining towns.
It will not fail to be remarked that the increments of London just
alluded to have been constructed chiefly for the abodes of the wealthy,
who can generally protect themselves, and remove from any noxious
neighbourhood. But the state, as the natural guardian of the poor, is
the more called upon to interfere with its authority to see that the
streets and houses intended for the labouring classes are constructed on
comfortable and sanitary principles.
Most of our large towns have increased upon small, irregular nuclei, and
received their increments chiefly from buildings erected along the roads
branching into the country, presenting so many main streets radiating
from a centre, but leaving the intervening spaces to be irregularly and
imperfectly filled up at subsequent periods as chance or necessity
directed, and in this manner has arisen the great defect (to be
generally observed) of a good lateral connexion between the great
radiating streets.
So great indeed is the above defect that it is often difficult to pass
from one site in the skirts of a town to an adjacent one without passing
towards the centre of the town by one radiating street and returning by
another; this defective construction of towns is the natural result when
they extend without any reference to a general plan or public
convenience, and the mode which, in my opinion, would best restore the
condition of a town so constructed to a commodious and useful state
would be as follows:
I would propose, in the first instance, to connect all the radiating
streets of the town by straight lines drawn as near to the mass of
buildings in the town as the vacant or unbuilt ground would admit of;
this operation would have the effect of inclosing the town in an
irregular polygon, upon each side of which, as a normal line, I would
propose to lay out the future streets, one series of which would be
parallel to the normal lines, and another series would be perpendicular
to them, and in this manner the future increments of the town would
proceed on a fixed and uniform system, and would render the lateral
lines of communication as effective as the others, and would afford at
the same time increased facilities for ventilation and sewerage, and for
the supplies of water, gas, &c.; and proceeding on this system, it may
fully be anticipated that the building sites would become much more
valuable to their owners than if they remained to be laid out by
individual caprice on a disjointed plan. It would be valuable in most
cases that the normal polygon should be formed into a series of streets
of ample dimensions, fit for the reception of public buildings,
particularly schools; and occurring (as it would do) as the nearest
great lateral line of communication to the irregular mass of the town,
it would serve to do much of the duty in way of communication and
ventilation which the interior mass had left undone, and was unable to
effect, and might answer as the great respiratory of the town, and would
be well adapted to serve, if wide enough, and planted, for alamedas, or
public walks.
In London, the line of the New Road and City Road furnishes almost the
only sample the metropolis possesses of polygon lines of communication,
and the utility of the sample is duly felt and appreciated. In Paris the
line of the Boulevards presents a favourable specimen of the convenience
and comfort of such a construction of streets.
The advantage of adhering to system in laying out new towns, or
additions to old towns, will be much enhanced when we take into
consideration the means of supplying water, gas, &c. to the houses; and
as the application of science and machinery becomes more extended in
administering to the comforts of towns, it is manifest the more regular
the field of their action the more efficacious and economical will be
the results. On the score of ventilation, as well as for other
conveniences, it is important the streets should intersect and not abut
on each other, that the currents of air may have free escape.[49]
One of the greatest evils arising from towns extending at caprice,
without reference to any general plan, is the vast expense that
subsequently arises when necessity demands communications to be made
through crowded masses of buildings; such events are of frequent
occurrence in the metropolis and other large towns, and so great is the
outlay to remedy what might have been avoided, that no measures proposed
for the improvement of towns merit such deep attention as these; and it
has sometimes occurred to me, that instead of applying the funds to
enlarging the leading thoroughfares, the object would in many cases be
better served by forming entirely new communications through the worst
constructed and less costly sites. In this manner we should have two
good communications instead of one; we should open the means of
communication, ventilation, and sewerage to places where at present they
exist most imperfectly, and we should expunge from the map of the town a
number of noxious, ill-ventilated ruinous buildings, the seats of dirt,
disease, and demoralization.
Annexed is a plan of the town of Birmingham, on which is traced a study
or design for the future increments of that town on the principles above
proposed, which will serve to illustrate the views of the writer. The
figure P P P P represents the normal polygon.
_Increments._—It is hardly to be expected that any very uniform plan of
building can be rigidly adhered to; moral as well as physical
difficulties may demand departure from regularity in the construction of
the future increments of a town, particularly where the field to be
occupied is extensive; but so long as the general principles are adhered
to, and the new streets proceeded with, upon a general preconceived and
authorized plan, all the needful objects may be attained; and it has
occurred to me that the mode most likely to give satisfaction to the
inhabitants would be for the municipal authorities to offer a premium
for the best design for the extension of the town, and of leaving the
selection to the majority of the ratepayers.
TOWN OF BIRMINGHAM,
_To illustrate the mode proposed for constructing the future increments
of an irregular Town, upon principles of general convenience and
utility._
[Illustration: _Standidge & Co. Litho. London_]
Proprietors of large spaces of ground, or a combination of small ones,
might also claim and be authorized to form and execute their own plans,
provided always that they were previously submitted to examination and
approval by properly constituted authorities.
It has been omitted to mention, that towns built on a regular plan, and
upon sanitary and commodious principles, are much less liable to the
accidents of fire, and the consequent loss of life and property; and
when such do occur, the facility of extinguishing them is much greater;
and one might also venture to predict that it will be found that the new
town of Edinburgh has suffered less from fire than any other town in
Great Britain.
Prevention against fire is a subject well meriting consideration when
treating of the improvement of towns. It would seem that fires more
particularly occur in large public and private buildings, as for
instance, the Albion Mills, the theatres of Drury-lane and
Covent-garden, the Houses of Parliament, the Great Armoury in the Tower,
Royal Exchange, &c.; and it would be well to provide that all such
buildings should be detached, as well as manufactories and all buildings
containing steam-engines: but previous to legislating on the subject it
would be desirable to collect the statistics of conflagration, which
might readily be obtained from the fire-insurance offices.
_Ventilation._—In new towns, or the increments of old towns, good
ventilation will be best secured by attending to the principles laid
down for the construction of such.
The noxious ingredients which must exist more or less in the atmospheres
of all large towns may be dissipated by currents of air, or diluted by
access to large open spaces, while the origin of the evil may be much
reduced by a good system of sewerage.
For the removal of noxious vapours existing in crowded towns the
following points deserve attention:—
1. The conversion of blind alleys into thoroughfares.
2. The continuation of leading streets through blocks of houses on which
at present they abut.
3. The opening of wide and straight streets through the meanest, most
complex, and crowded parts of cities; this will prove the most important
measure for meeting the object in view; and what merits the next
consideration is the preservation of such good and healthy avenues as
already exist free from encroachments: for it has happened in the
metropolis while exertions were making in some districts to open wide
streets, in other districts a contrary system was at work. The New and
City Roads, the most commodious avenue in the vicinity of London for
length, width, useful and healthy communication, is in a constant
process of invasion, as may be noted more particularly in the vicinities
of Tottenham-court Road and King’s-cross; and unless some measures are
taken to preserve this noble respiratory of the metropolis, it is to be
feared in a short time its character will be entirely changed.
4. Another mode of improving the air of towns is to open squares, or
public walks, or gardens, by the removal of some of the buildings, by
which means a reservoir of pure air is created, and in this manner the
city of Seville was essentially benefited; the streets are there
numerous, narrow, and dirty, but the city, abounding in large convents,
the removal of some of them, and the conversion of their ample sites
into piazzas or squares, afforded the air and space so much required for
the public health.
In London there are some institutions that might be advantageously
removed to the suburbs or skirts of the town, such as the Charter-house
School and the Fleet Prison, and their sites converted into open
squares; but if such operations are too costly and difficult, we may at
least guard against the converse operation, viz., the covering of open
sites with masses of buildings. Thus we have seen in recent times the
gardens of Lincoln’s-inn and Gray’s-inn invaded; and we had lately a
proposition to convert Lincoln’s-inn-square into piles of buildings, and
to demolish what no art can supply, the finest reservoir of air which
the metropolis offers to a crowded neighbourhood.
5. The circulation of pure air would be much increased by pulling down
all dead walls, and by substituting iron railings in their stead; and
too much credit cannot be given for what has already been effected in
this respect in the neighbourhood of Knightsbridge, &c.
6. The prohibition of all burials in the metropolis and other large
towns, and the consequent diffusion of unwholesome effluvia.
_Drainage and Sewerage._—As towns become more crowded, the value of good
drainage and sewerage as a sanitary measure becomes the more apparent;
and as the means of draining the site of a town above and below the
surface is to be effected in part by the same means as the sewerage or
removal of the liquid filth, the subject becomes of great importance,
and second only to the choice of the site of the town and distribution
of its streets; and if a _due regard to system_ has been shown to be so
desirable in the one case, it is no less so in the other, and before any
buildings are commenced the plan of drainage should be matured.
In order to arrive at a good system of drainage for a piece of ground
intended to be built upon, or in a town where the sewerage requires
improvement, a necessary step in the process would be to add to the plan
of the town lines of equal altitudes, drawn at every two or three feet
of elevation, which would present at one view the means of comparing the
levels over the whole extent of the town; they would show the deepest
valleys where the main sewers would most conveniently run, and the most
efficient mode of combining the several classes of drains, so that the
declivities might be turned to the best account; in addition, the plan
should be so far geological as to show the boundaries of the strata, as
a body of marl or clay often upholds a quantity of water which might
prove injurious as a building site if not previously tapped.
A notorious instance of this nature occurred at the village of Moseley,
near Birmingham. Preliminary to carrying the Gloucester Railway through
the village, in deep cutting, it had been ascertained by trial shafts
that the bottom consisted of quicksand, which rendered it difficult
either to construct a tunnel or to support the slopes in open cutting
until the water was removed; and for this object a drift or level was
brought up from a distance of a quarter of a mile through a bed of marl;
the miners proceeded for some distance perfectly dry until they reached
the quicksand, when the water flowed into the drift at the rate of 253
cubic feet per hour, or 77½ gallons per minute, and the wells in the
village in a short time were laid dry, and had to be deepened at the
expense of the Railway company. It so happened in this instance that the
level of the quicksand was so deep that the surface of the land had not
been affected by the pending up of the water below; but if it had been
otherwise, the measure resorted to would have proved as useful to the
land as it was to the Railway.
In laying out a plan of drainage and sewerage when a river or brook
passes through or alongside of a town, it will naturally become the main
drain of the place, and be the normal line from whence the second-class
sewers would diverge; but it not unfrequently happens when such a brook
is small and becomes the _cloaca maxima_, that, being left open, and
insufficiently supplied with water in the summer season, it constitutes,
instead of a benefit, a serious nuisance to the inhabitants; instances
of this kind may be observed at Edinburgh, Birmingham, Coventry,
Camberwell, &c., &c. It also happens at many towns that a stream passing
through or by them is dammed up to turn a mill just above or below the
town, or even in the middle of it, by which means the current useful to
clear away the filth is diverted, the water in the bed of the stream
into which sewers are discharged is left stagnant, while the vicinity of
the town is rendered wet and unwholesome from the pent up water.
At Birmingham the Rea Brook is dammed up in its course through the town
to supply a mill. In the very excellent sanitary report of the town by
Dr. Hodgson and other medical gentlemen, it is stated that “the river
Rea may be considered the cloaca or main sewer of the town, but that its
condition is very bad;” the report also states, “that the stream is
sluggish, and the quantity of water which it supplies is not sufficient
to dilute and wash away the refuse which it receives in passing through
the town, and that in hot weather it is consequently very offensive; and
in some situations in these seasons is covered with a thick scum of
decomposing matters; and this filthy condition of the river near the
railway stations is a subject of constant and merited animadversions,
and that it requires especial attention lest it should become a source
of disease, &c.”
The _cloaca maxima_ of Birmingham differs from that of ancient Rome;
that whereas in the latter art was employed to effect what nature had
left undone, here art has been employed to obstruct the useful course of
nature. I quite agree with the sanitary report as to the present noxious
state of the brook; and even those who travel on the railway may at
times be very sensible of the effluvia when crossing it.
I am inclined to differ from the sanitary report as to insufficiency of
the water of the Rea for cleansing its own bed; but that report has not
adverted to the fact of the abstraction and diversion of the water of
the Rea from its natural bed to turn a mill, a fact which will amply
account for the deficiency and sluggishness of the current in the very
places where the contrary condition is most wanted.
From my inspection of the locality, I am inclined to believe that the
descent of the Rea and its quantity of water in passing through the town
of Birmingham is sufficient under good arrangements for the efficient
and wholesome sewerage of its bed.
If we take a distance of half a mile above the weir and half a mile
below it, that is, nearly from Morley-street to Lawley-street, I
consider I shall be justified in saying there is a descent of about 14
feet, for I find a slight weir in Floodgate-street; at the dam itself
the fall is about eight feet, and from thence for a considerable
distance downwards the fall is considerable.
Above the weir the stream for a short distance is sluggish from want of
declivity, and the water being pent up, keeps the houses there wet or
damp, while below the weir the bed of the Rea being left nearly dry, the
filth from the sewers which discharge there must stagnate, while at the
same time the water of the Rea passing through the mill-race with a good
body and current, applies to no act of cleansing.
The mill-pool is extensive but shallow, and there the filth from above
accumulates. When the pool is filled with water it is worked off by the
mill, but the gratings prevent dead dogs and such like matter from
passing, and are there left to fester at low water.
The remedy is as easy as the evil is great; all obstruction being
removed from the course of the brook and the water restored to its
original bed, the object would be effected; as to the value of the
mill-power which would thus be subverted, it cannot be a matter of much
amount in a place where coals and steam-engines are so cheap, and where
the constant and regular work of the mill must be an object of some
importance.
In applying a remedy to the great evil under notice, the engineer should
not be content by merely restoring matters to their original and natural
state, but in so populous a town should apply all the aid which art can
bestow to assist natural circumstances. The bed of the Rea should be
formed with an uniform descent through the town and for some distance
below it, by dredging in some places and filling it in others with
coarse gravel or broken stones; or, better still, if funds will afford
it, by forming an inverted arch of stone or blue bricks to give full
effect to the scour of the stream; further, the engineer would render
the course of the brook through the town as straight as circumstances
would permit by cutting off loops and sinuosities. In this manner, and
by reserving the whole body of the water of the Rea for cleansing its
own bed, I have no doubt that this main sewer of Birmingham would become
as conspicuous for its wholesome and efficient action as it is now for
the contrary.
About a mile above the town of Birmingham, there is another mill which I
am disposed to think would act rather beneficially than otherwise, in
removing the filth from the bed of the brook in its course through the
town; for in summer weather when the stream is scanty, by pooling it up
and letting the water down with force at intervals, the effect is much
increased. Whether the stream of the Rea be so deficient in summer as to
require this process, I would not now give a positive opinion, but there
are many somewhat analogous cases where the stream in summer is not
sufficient and where the pooling up and flushing off at intervals could
not but prove of great utility; and if I have now brought the case of
Birmingham into considerable detail, it is owing to the circumstance of
its exemplifying certain conditions that are common to a great number of
towns, and which, in a sanitary point of view, and more especially in
regard to the poorer classes of the community, are the most urgent for
remedy of any that have fallen under my observation.
In the town of Haddington, a mill-dam crosses the river Tyne in its
passage through the place and into the mill-pool; the main sewer is
discharged with a diminished and sluggish descent; and on occasion of
floods in the river, the water passes up the sewers and occasionally
lays the lowest part of the town under water. It would not be difficult
to direct the main sewer into the bed of the river below the dam or
weir, and by the additional declivity give some current to the water of
the sewer, which from the pending up of the river at its present outlet
has rendered it almost stagnant, so much so, that in hot weather, and
where it is not covered over, the exhalations are very offensive; but
was the sewer improved by the alteration mentioned, still the pooling up
of the river for the mill keeps the lower part of the town damp, and
even subjects it to partial inundations.
One of the medical officers reports, that when “fever has been at any
time prevalent in the town, it has been most so in a portion of it
called the Nungate,[50] lying close by the river, when during the summer
and autumn it is occasionally almost stagnant, and where there is a
considerable decomposition of vegetable matter.”
Another medical gentleman, speaking of the main sewer, says, “this small
burn is a receptacle of the privies and refuse of vegetable matters from
the houses near which it passes; and in those parts where it is
uncovered, it forms an excellent index of the weather; previous to rain
the smell is intolerable.”
The same gentleman proposes as a remedy that another small burn, having
a parallel course at a short distance, should be turned into the sewer
to aid the sewerage. From my knowledge of the locality, the
recommendation, I should say, is judicious, but in this manner, though
the supply of water would be increased, the declivity or rather want of
declivity of the sewer would remain the same, and could only be improved
by removing the mill-dam, or directing the sewer into the bed of the
river below it, as already mentioned. Unquestionably from the pending up
of the river, the lower part of the town is at present very ill drained,
and it is somewhat remarkable that it was the first site in Scotland
visited by the Asiatic cholera.
In reference to the two cases cited and to others of a similar nature,
it should be remarked, that the vicinities of the nuisances are chiefly
inhabited by the poorer classes, and who from want of influence in their
own parts are the more necessarily thrown under the protection of state
regulations.
The sewers of a city or town may be conveniently divided into four
classes:—First, the main drain or sewer, and this, whether natural or
artificial, being fixed, becomes the basis of the system, and upon it
the second drains or district class will be directed: these again will
receive the third class or street drains; and lastly, the house or
fourth class drains, will be discharged into the street drains. In small
towns, only the third and fourth class drains will be required; in large
towns, three classes of drains may be necessary; and in great cities,
all the four classes will be required.
PLAN OF SEWERAGE
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
STREET SEWERS (_o._ _p._)
]
[Illustration:
DISTRICT SEWERS (_c._ _d._)
]
[Illustration:
MAIN SEWERS (A. B.)
]
[Illustration:
_Fig. 1._
]
[Illustration:
_Fig. 2._
]
With respect to the form of the drains, when bricks are used as building
materials, the bottoms of the drains will be best formed of inverted
arches of blue bricks, as forming a cheap, hard, and durable surface,
and giving every facility from the form, for the scouring force of the
water to remove the filth brought into the drain; but whether the curve
of the bottom shall be a semicircle or a segment will, I apprehend,
depend on the size of the drain. For very small drains a circular form
would be the cheapest and best; the next size would be more
advantageously constructed of an oval or egg shape, but still of bricks.
Drains of a still larger size, viz. the second class, may be
conveniently made either of brick or stone, arched and counter-arched at
top and bottom with battered sides, either straight or curved; the
counter-arches or curved bottoms will conveniently become flatter as the
drains increase in capacity to afford greater room for the accumulated
water to pass without rising and flooding back into the feeders. The
first and second-class sewers must be deep seated to receive their
respective tributaries or feeders, with some overfall; and though a
sufficient width for large drains may generally be procured, it is
difficult in many cases to command enough of depth, another circumstance
that can best be obviated by flattening the arches both at top and
bottom; but in large drains, where there is a body of water, the
scourage will be sufficient, without resorting to deeply curved bottoms.
When bricks abound as a building material, they are particularly
convenient for the construction of deep sewers and drains, from the
facility of handling in confined spaces; but it is important their
quality should be of the best, since if they scale and decay, great
expense must be involved in the repair of the drain. The Tipton, or blue
brick, is the best for the facework of drains.
In parts of the country where stone abounds, bricks are often little
known, and the resources of the district must be made use of; where the
blue lias limestone occurs, I have found it a cheap and excellent
material for forming culverts and drains of all sizes; and it was used
largely for that purpose on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway.
Annexed is a sketch of the sections of drains varying in form according
to their size. The batter which I found most useful and convenient for
wall-sided drains was 1 in 9, either curved or straight; the first is
the best form in theory, but in small works I found the bricklayers’ and
masons’ work more accurately to the straight batter; and the last is,
from its simplicity, better adapted to receive any sluices or
flush-gates that may be necessary.
Annexed is also a sketch to show the distribution of drains in a town
supposed to be built on a regular plan, with a pretty uniform descent
towards an axis, which constitutes the site of the main drain; each
class of drains consisting of several sizes, it would be most useful as
well as economical that the drain of a particular class (if large)
should commence with the smaller size, and discharge or terminate with
the greater size, a plan that would aid the sewerage of the water.
In a system of drainage, it is necessary to consider that the greater
the body of water, or in other words, the class of the drain, the less
declivity is sufficient; and the converse, the less the body of water,
or class of drain, the greater declivity is required; in the first case,
the hydraulic depth compensates for the want of declivity; and in the
second case, the declivity compensates for the want of hydraulic depth;
the multiplication of these qualities being a function of the velocity
or force of the current, due attention to the above is important in
economizing or turning to the best account the declivity for the
drainage of a large town.
Having arranged the system of sewerage for a town, the next object will
be to render it as extensively useful as practice will admit of; and
from the experiments and practice of Mr. Roe, the surveyor to the
Holborn and Finsbury Commission of Sewers, we are warranted in the
belief that a good system of sewerage, aided by a sufficient supply of
water, will, in most localities, be sufficient to remove all the dirt
which arises in the streets, without the necessity of cartage, and also
all the filth of private dwellings which is at present led through
drains or pipes, or which by the aid of water may be practised more
extensively in future.
We have first to consider the conveyance or discharge of the street dirt
into the main sewers, and the discontinuance of the present expense, and
annoyance of using carts for that purpose, at least with some few
exceptions.
It is pretty obvious, that if the mud of London, like water, could be
made to flow through the drains much trouble and expense of cartage
would be saved; and it does happen that the street-dirt of London is so
diffusible with water, that with a little arrangement such a mode of
cleansing maybe followed; indeed it is highly probable that at present
more than one-half of the whole mud is carried off by the rains in that
manner.
The mud of London, and other great towns in England, may be assumed in
wet weather[51] to arise, in three-fourths of its amount, from the
grinding or abrasion of the paving-stones, the remaining one-fourth part
consisting of soot, shop-sweepings, and cattle dung.
The dirt arising from the detritus of the stones may be obviated in two
ways; 1st, by substituting for the green-stone forming the carriage-way,
quartz-rock, or quartzose stones. The green-stones contain hornblende
and felspar, which grind, like all argillaceous stones, into fine mud or
powder mixable in water, whereas quartz rock retains when ground the
form of clean sand, neither soiling nor capable of forming mud in
itself. The Lickey Hills in Worcestershire are composed of quartz rock,
and the roads in their vicinity show its excellence as a material for
road making. The quartz rock, however, of the island of Jura is much
purer, and that island contains an inexhaustible supply already broken
by nature into sizes nearly fit for laying on the roads; and Small’s Bay
in the island of Jura would form a convenient loading place, and by
means of a jetty and tram-way vessels might be laden at a small expense,
and much of the country supplied with the best of all materials for
road-making. The substance of the stone is hard and durable, and
consequently suffering little by abrasion; and it would be well worth
while to try the experiment of Macadamizing one of the leading streets
of London with this material, as the means of forming a good road, and
at the same avoiding the creating of a great quantity of street dirt.
The other mode of avoiding the formation of mud is the substitution of
wooden pavements; of the success of these I have little doubt, though
for the present many failures have occurred, either from The foundation
not having been truly and firmly laid, or from the blocks of wood not
being massive enough. The greatest objection to wood pavements at
present is the slipping of the horses, but this I believe might be
obviated.
The question, however, at present is to get rid of the street dirt, such
as it is; and for that purpose I apprehend it would only be necessary in
wet weather during rains that the street-cleaner should sweep the dirt
into the kennels, and aid the water by stirring the mud, to carry off
the material in a state of diffusion; in dry weather, the opening of
pipes with hose attached would serve the same purpose as the rains, and
at the same time aid the sewerage at the time most required. After a
short but heavy fall of rain, the cleansing effect of the water is fully
perceived: and if any means could be devised of saving the rain-water
that falls on the houses and in the streets, so as to apply it in
considerable quantities at intervals, it is probable that the rain-water
would be amply sufficient for all the purposes in question.
I have heard of the plan pursued by the West Middlesex Water Company for
cleansing their reservoir at Kensington, at little expense, by diffusing
the muddy deposit in water, and allowing it to run off in pipes.
In the city of Guanaxuato in Mexico, a similar mode of cleansing has
been long practised; a splendid tank of ample dimensions contains the
water used by the inhabitants; the tank is supplied by mountain
torrents, which bring down a considerable quantity of mud or silt, and
which makes a deposit in the bottom of the tank, which is formed by a
fine dam of masonry crossing a narrow valley, and provided with sluices.
The rainy season commences in the latter part of June, and a short time
previous the ceremony of emptying and cleansing the tank is gone
through; a kind of fair and holiday is held on the ground, to which most
of the inhabitants resort; the sluices are opened, and as the water
recedes, the watermen, boys, and all those who relish the fun, get into
the tank and keep stirring up the silt with sticks and spades, &c., and
in this manner the mud is annually carried off by the remaining water of
the past season, a subsidiary tank serving for use until the principal
one is replenished.
By some sort of a similar process it is alleged that much of the
mud-banks of the Thames above the bridges have been removed, viz., by
the action of the paddle-wheels of the numerous steam-boats running
there. Some of the effect observed must be owing to the greater scour of
the tides since the removal of Old London-bridge, though some part may
also be due to the steam-boats.
For the purpose of giving more aid to the surface-water in cleansing the
streets, and at the same time for keeping the footways and houses drier
and more free from mud, I should propose (at least as an experiment) a
different structure of the carriage-way, viz., to make it incline to a
centre kennel, instead of to two side ones. At present, in many places,
the centre of the carriage-way is elevated above the level of the shop
doors, and at the same time we often find the footway but three inches
higher than the kennel; and it is pretty obvious from this arrangement,
in dry weather, the dust will blow from the more elevated carriage-way
on to the footways, and into the shops and areas; and in wet weather the
water and mud being chiefly accumulated in the side gutters, the
carriage wheels and horses’ feet will distribute it plentifully on the
footways, and not unfrequently on the passengers, and all tending to
keep the houses damp and dirty, whereas it is obvious that, was the
descent constant from the houses[52] on either side to the centre of the
street, these evils would be avoided, and it will be no less evident
that all the surface-water flowing to one common channel would possess
more force and convenience for running the street dirt into the sewers.
I am inclined to believe that the carriage-ways are getting gradually
elevated above their proper level, from the contractors for paving not
excavating deep enough for the foundation of the pavement.
Annexed is a sketch, showing in juxta-position the form of the
street-ways as at present, and as proposed to be; the street is supposed
to be a shop-street, 90 feet wide, having two areas of three feet each,
two footways of 12 feet, and 60 feet of carriage-way; on the section of
the proposed plan a fall of six inches, or 1 in 30, is given from the
shop door to the edge of the pavement; there is then a descent by two
steps of six inches each to the carriage way; and lastly, a descent of 1
in 30, or of one foot to the kennel in the centre of the carriage-way.
The kennel may either be open or covered; if the latter, it must have
many gratings. In the city of Mexico the kennel is chiefly in the centre
of the street, and covered by large flat stones.
On the proposed plan, if we suppose a step from the foot pavement to the
floor of the shop or house, the latter will be elevated about 3 feet
above the gutter, whereas at present we often find it not more than six
inches, and it will readily be admitted that such a difference in the
disposal of the surface-water cannot but keep the houses much drier and
more cleanly.
By having one gutter in the centre of the streets instead of two, (one
at each side,) we remove two sluggish and inefficient kennels, which are
the source of damp to the pavement and to the houses, and we create one
which is at a distance and doubly effective.
The subject of street pavements having been introduced as the means of
surface-drainage, it may be remarked how difficult it must ever be to
keep them in good order so long as they are liable to be broken up
whenever water or gas-pipes require altering or repairing, besides the
extreme annoyance occasioned during that operation; and though it may
not be possible to obviate the inconvenience in all cases, yet I
conceive the evil may be reduced to very narrow limits by resorting to
system, and I would suggest that under the foot pavements passages
should be formed, lined with brick-work or masonry, as a common
receptacle for all the water and gas-pipes, having the flagging over the
passage so laid as to be easily lifted in case of need, and being
provided at intervals with side entrances for inspection and all such
repairs as could be effected without raising the flagging. The position
of the gas-pipes under the foot-pavement would be convenient for the
street and shop lights, and the water-pipes would be then equally so for
the use of the houses. But in respect to the sewer of the street, I
should propose to place it near the centre of the carriage-way, as more
distant from the dwellings, but as equally convenient to both sides of
the street. (See the section for new form of carriage-way.)
Having noticed the subject of diminishing the amount of street mud, and
of conveying the same into the sewers, as well as that portion of the
house filth which it may be practicable to discharge into them, we have
next to notice the mode of further disposing of the matter thus lodged
in the sewers. The practice has hitherto been (in a great degree) to
accumulate the filth in cesspools, and at intervals of five to ten years
to open the sewers by breaking into them, or to get access by man-holes
left for that purpose, and then drawing out the semiliquid contents of
the cesspool by means of a windlass and buckets; but in the Finsbury
division the surveyor, Mr. Roe, has had the merit of introducing a very
superior, less expensive, and less offensive mode of operation. Finding
that the surface-water did not generally enter the sewer in sufficient
quantity and with sufficient force to carry off the more solid contents,
he contrived, by sluices or flush-gates, to dam up the water to a
certain height, and then, by opening the same, to obtain a force of
water sufficient for the purpose; and the working of this new plan is
said to be highly satisfactory, the filth being prevented accumulating
in the sewers, and, as a necessary consequence, then choaking their
feeders, the house drains; and in this manner also the filth is removed
at less expense, and without any annoyance and noxious effluvia which
attend the old practice.
Mr. Roe has adopted also side entrances to the sewers instead of
man-holes, for the inspection and repair of the flushing apparatus. The
chief expense beyond the first cost of Mr. Roe’s plan is the attendance
of a person to open the flush-gates; but it is probable that some
contrivance may be found by which the pent-up water on reaching a
certain point may be able to open its own gate. It has, however,
occurred to me, in respect to this mode of flushing off the filth, that,
instead of damming up the water in the sewers, and forming them into
reservoirs, the purpose might be more easily and more effectually
performed by accumulating the surface-water from the gutters into
reservoirs before entering the street or district drains; a greater
head, or force of water, might thus be obtained, while the sewers
themselves would always be open and free from the obstruction of the
sluices and pent-up water.
In respect to the final deposit of the filth of London and other great
towns, it does seem a pity that so much valuable manure should be lost
to the land, and be discharged into rivers to their contamination and
obstruction, if any practicable and innocuous plan can be hit upon to
avoid the alternative.
One plan has been suggested of receiving the contents of the sewers into
pits, and then by means of steam-power and a sufficient supply of water,
forcing the matter of the sewers in a diluted state through iron pipes
into the country, and then applying it to irrigate the land in the same
liquid state. It would require much calculation to form an accurate
estimate of the cost and profit of such an undertaking; but there can be
no doubt if the matter was so applied it would prove exceedingly
valuable in enriching the land to which it was applied, as we may judge
from what has occurred in the vicinity of Edinburgh from a similar kind
of irrigation.
At Edinburgh, however, the liquid manure being conveyed from the town
for a distance in open ditches or sewers exposed to the sun and
atmosphere, it undergoes such a fœtid decomposition as to render the
operation no common nuisance to the public. But such effects would not
occur (at least, to the same extent) if the matter was conveyed in close
pipes with a plentiful effusion of water; and it is known that animal
carcases, when kept constantly exposed to fresh supplies of water, do
not suffer corrupt decomposition, but are changed into a fatty matter.
It seems necessary also that a certain degree of heat and exposure of
surface should be present to originate and promote fœtid decomposition,
as it is well known that in the pits in Paris, where so many dead bodies
were thrown, the result was not a fœtid decomposition, but a change of
the animal matter into adipocire, a comparatively inoffensive substance;
we may therefore expect that the discharge of the contents of the sewers
in pipes, excluded (as they would be) from heat, and copiously charged
with water, would be comparatively free from noxious exhalations.
Another plan of reserving the contents of sewers for the purpose of
manure would be to continue the sewers to some distance from the town,
and then to discharge them into a series of covered catch-pits, allowing
the water to filter off after depositing the solid particles; when the
first series of pits were deemed sufficiently charged, the sewers might
then be discharged into a subsidiary series, until the matter in the
first had become sufficiently consistent for cartage. Upon the first
plan of proceeding, the liquid manure could only be applied to land
quite near at hand, and fit for irrigation; on the second plan the
manure might be conveyed to a distance and applied to arable land.
It will be evident the great importance of applying such quantities of
manure as the sewers supply to useful purposes, but it is no less
evident that no system can be introduced to effect the object until
preceded by satisfactory experiments of cost, profit, and efficiency.
Some localities might offer facilities for one mode of action, and some
for another; and it is much to be desired that parties may be induced to
make experiments on both plans; and it is to be noted that though the
expense of raising the liquid manure from pits or tanks would be
necessary in some cases, yet in many situations no such operation would
be necessary.
On the subject of purifying the air of sewers, and of preventing the
escape of foul air by any crevices or chinks, I have heard of the
ingenious contrivance of erecting a tall chimney and connecting it by a
pipe with the crown of a sewer, for the purpose of creating such a draft
up the chimney as would occasion an indraft at any leak that might occur
in the ramified mass of drains of the district to which the chimney
belonged. It appears to me that there are some objections to this plan;
but not being acquainted with all the details, I shall avoid entering
into any controversy on the subject, further than stating that I should
rather propose an opposite process for purifying the air of sewers. I
would recommend that they should be kept excluded as much as possible
from external heat and ascending columns of air; but at the same time I
would endeavour by all means to send down as copious a flow of water as
practicable; and in London, though the Thames water may not be proper
for domestic purposes, it would be sufficiently pure for watering the
streets and cleansing the drains; and the supply being inexhaustible,
its application would only be limited by the cost, of steam power and
iron pipes.
In conclusion, I have to express my obligations to yourself for the
useful hints you have afforded me on several of the subjects above
treated of, and to say I shall be happy if any of the observations I
have submitted should prove conducive to the ends in view.
I remain, dear Sir,
Yours truly,
JAMES VETCH.
_Edwin Chadwick, Esq.,
&c. &c. &c._
London, 1st March, 1842.
6.—_Evidence of_ GEORGE GUTCH, Esq., _District Surveyor, on Shifting and
Building of Inferior Tenements in the Suburbs to avoid the Provisions of
the Metropolis Building Act_.
Is there any distinction in the character of the buildings built out of
the limits of the Metropolitan Building Act, or out of the limits of
your own district as surveyor?—Yes; there is a less expensive
description of buildings built out of these limits. In the adjoining
parish of Kensington, there are tenements run up four stories in height
with only a nine-inch wall from the top to the bottom, whereas in any
parish under the Building Act the walls of the same description of
houses would be required to be 18 inches thick in the basement and 14
inches upwards: this, however, is not a sized house for the occupation
of the poorer classes. At the Potteries, Notting Dale, Kensington,
however, there is a nest of houses huddled together without party-walls
and without drainage; many of them are built of wood and four-inch work,
and of such materials as would not be permitted where the Building Act
is in force. This is with reference to houses which are contiguous to
each other.
Have you not seen instances where sewers are made and drains in action
where the state of the premises is nevertheless dangerous?—Yes; only
recently the parochial officers of Paddington inspected the workhouses
and buildings belonging to the Kensington union, when we found the
drains formed but not trapped, and the inmates exposed to the foul air
from the drains themselves. I have read Mr. Oldfield’s statement, and I
think it very true and very important.
7.—_Estimate by_ MR. HOWELL, _of the Cost of Structural Arrangements of
Sewerage, Drainage, Water-tank, and means of House Cleansing for
Labourers’ Tenements in the Metropolis_.
FEET £ _s._ _d._
55. Drain and digging, with pantile bottom, three
courses high, arched over and cemented 4 2 6
10. Small drain from water pipe 0 10 0
46. Sup. slate slab cistern, 4 ft. by 3 ft. 9, and 2
ft. deep, holding 150 gallons 4 12 0
62. Three-quarter pipe to serve cistern, including
joints and fixing 3 2 0
12. Three-quarter pipe to serve yard, including joints
and fixing 0 12 0
Two three-quarter cocks—10_s._; one cock-ball and
boss—8_s._ 0 18 0
7. Inch standing and under waste 0 10 6
1¾ washer and waste 0 2 6
Pan closet, with basin, &c., complete 3 10 0
Strong D. trap—20_s._, service box—10_s._ 6_d._ 1 10 6
Cover to cistern 0 15 0
—— —— —
20 5 0
Deduct 7½ per cent. if done at contract prices. 1 10 0
—— —— —
18 15 0
From the above estimate the following items should be deducted, as
appertaining to the present objectionable system:—
£. _s._ _d._
Cesspool 1 0 0
Root of privy and ceiling 0 15 0
Drain, say 65 ft. 3 5 0
Water butt and stand 1 5 0
Service pipe, 40 ft. 2 0 0
Cock and ball—8_s._; waste pipe—7_s._ 0 15 0
—— —— —
9 0 0
Less 7½ per cent. 0 13 6
—— —— —
8 6 6
—— —— —
13 8 6
—— —— —
8.—_Description or Specification of_ MR. LOUDON’s _Agriculturist Model
Cottage_.
The plan and elevation which I have given are intended for an
Agricultural labourer in the north of England or in Scotland, where it
is customary to have the sleeping room on the ground floor. The walls
are supposed to be 18 inches thick, and the roof thatched, as being the
warmest covering in a cold bleak country. The front entrance is by a
porch, which contains a step-ladder to the garrets, which, being lighted
by windows in the gable ends, may be used as sleeping places for
grown-up children, while the younger children may sleep below in the
same room with their parents. _a_, is the kitchen; _b_, the sleeping
room; _c_, the back kitchen; _d_, the pantry; _e_, the dairy, if the
occupant should have a cow, which is generally the case with
agricultural labourers in Scotland; and _f_, a place for fuel, for
poultry, or for a furnace to heat a flue passing under the floors of the
two rooms in the direction of the dotted line _g_, the smoke escaping by
the upright flue _h_. The highest point of the sleeping-room floor is at
_g_, and of the kitchen floor at _i_; the highest point of the pantry
floor is at _d_, and of the dairy floor at _e_, and from these four
points the floors gradually slope at the rate of 1 inch to 7 feet to the
sill of the back kitchen door at _m_, so that no water can stand in any
part of these floors; and hence, when they are being washed with a mop
in the direction of the slope the water will readily flow towards the
back door.
A place for wood or other fuel, or for a pig or rabbits, according to
the taste or circumstances of the occupant, is shown at _n_; a privy at
_o_; a tank for liquid manure, communicating with the privy, at _p_; and
a pit for ashes and solid manure at _q_. Both these pits may have
movable roofs.
The surface of the yard slopes from the entrance door _r_, to the liquid
manure tank _s_. The back kitchen is entered by one step; the terrace in
front at _t_ is entered by three steps, and the door of the porch by a
half-step.
The garden is only partially shown, the portion omitted being a
parallelogram of sufficient length to constitute the contents of the
whole ground allotted to the cottage, one-sixth of an acre. It is
surrounded by a hedge, which may be shown architecturally to give an
appearance of design and taste on the part of the occupant.
The slope of the terrace may be covered with grass or flowers,
strawberries or ivy. The narrow border next the hedge may be planted
with flowers, and the larger compartments in front of the porch with
gooseberries, raspberries, currants, and dwarf apples. The culinary
crops are supposed to be grown in the back compartment, only a portion
of which is shown at _w_.
_A B_, is the elevation of the front hedge.
_C D_, a part of the side hedge.
_E F_, a section on the dotted line _E F_, to a double scale.
_G H_, a section on the dotted line _G H_.
The upper part of the drawing is an isometrical view.
9.—_Statement of the Requisites of Cottage Architecture, by_ J. C.
LOUDON, _Esq._
The _essential requisites_ of a comfortable labourer’s cottage may be
thus summed up:—
1. The cottage should be placed alongside a public road, as being more
cheerful than a solitary situation; and in order that the cottager may
enjoy the applause of the public when he has his garden in good order
and keeping.
2. The cottage should be so placed that the sun may shine on every side
of it every day throughout the year, when he is visible. For this
reason, the front of the cottage can only be parallel to the public road
in the case of roads in the direction of north-east, south-west,
north-west, and south-east; in all other cases the front must be placed
obliquely to the road, which, as we have previously shown, is greatly
preferable to having the front parallel to the road.
3. Every cottage ought to have the floor elevated, that it may be dry;
the walls double or hollow, or battened, or not less than eighteen
inches thick, that they may retain heat; with a course of slate or
flagstone, or tiles bedded in cement, six inches above the surface, to
prevent the rising of damp; the roof thick, or double, for the sake of
warmth; and projecting eighteen inches or two feet at the eaves, in
order to keep the walls dry, and to check the radiation of heat from
their exterior surface.
4. In general, every cottage ought to be two stories high, so that the
sleeping-rooms may not be on the ground floor; and the ground floor
ought to be from six inches to one foot above the outer surface.
5. The minimum of accommodation ought to be a kitchen or living-room, a
back kitchen or wash-house, and a pantry, on the ground floor, with
three bed-rooms over; or two rooms and a wash-house on the ground floor,
and two bed-rooms over.
6. Every cottage, including its garden, yard, &c., ought to occupy not
less than one-sixth of an acre; and the garden ought to surround the
cottage, or at all events to extend both before and behind. In general,
there ought to be a front garden and a back yard, the latter being
entered from the back kitchen, and containing a privy, liquid-manure
tank, place for dust and ashes, and place for fuel.
[Illustration]
7. If practicable, every cottage ought to stand singly, and surrounded
by its garden, or, at all events, not more than two cottages ought to be
joined together. Among other important arguments in favour of this
arrangement, it may be mentioned, that it is the only one by which the
sun can shine every day on every side of the cottage. When cottages are
joined together in a row, unless that row is in a diagonal direction,
with reference to a south and north line, the sun will shine chiefly on
one side. By having cottages singly or in pairs, they may always be
placed along any road in such a manner that the sun may shine on every
side of them, provided the point be given up of having the front
parallel to the road; a point which, in our opinion, ought not for a
moment to be put in competition with the advantages of an equal
diffusion of sunshine.
8. Every cottage ought to have an entrance-porch for containing the
labourer’s tools, and into which, if possible, the stairs ought to open,
in order that the bed-rooms may be communicated with without passing
through the front or back kitchen. This, in the case of sickness, is
very desirable, and also in the case of deaths, as the remains may be
carried down stairs while the family are in the front room.
9. The door to the front kitchen or best room should open from the
porch, and not from the back kitchen, which, as it contains the cooking
utensils and washing apparatus, can never be fit for being passed
through by a stranger, or even the master of the family, where proper
regard is had by the mistress to cleanliness and delicacy.
10. When there is not a supply of clear water from a spring adjoining
the cottage, or from some other efficient source, then there ought to be
a well or tank, partly under the floor of the back kitchen, supplied
from the roof, with a pump in the back kitchen for drawing it up for
use, as hereafter described in detail. The advantages of having the tank
or well under the back kitchen are, that it will secure from frost, and
that the labour of carrying water will be avoided.
11. The privy should always be separated from the dwelling, unless it is
a proper water-closet, with a soil-pipe communicating with a distant
liquid-manure tank or cesspool. When detached, the privy should be over
or adjoining a liquid-manure tank, in which a straight tube from the
bottom of the basin ought to terminate; by which means the soil basin
may always be kept clean by pouring down the common slops of the house.
No surface being left from which smell can arise, except that of the
area of the pipe, the double flap, to be hereafter described, will
prevent the escape of the evaporation from this small surface, and also
ensure a dry and clean seat.
12. The situation of the liquid-manure tank should be, as far as
possible, from that of the filtered-water tank or clear-water well. It
should be covered by an air-tight cover of flagstone, and have a narrow
well adjoining, into which the liquid should filter through a grating,
so as to be pumped up or taken away without grosser impurities, and in
this state applied to the soil about growing crops.
13. In general, proprietors ought not to entrust the erection of
labourers’ cottages on their estates to the farmers, as it is chiefly
owing to this practice that so many wretched hovels exist in the
best-cultivated districts of Scotland and in Northumberland.
14. No landed proprietor, as we think, ought to charge more for the land
on which cottages are built than he would receive for it from a farmer,
if let as part of a farm; and no more rent ought to be charged for the
cost of building the cottage and enclosing the garden than the same sum
would yield if invested in land, or, at all events, not more than can be
obtained by government securities.
15. “Most of these conditions are laid down on the supposition that the
intended builder of the cottage is actuated more by feelings of human
sympathy than by a desire to make money; and hence they are addressed to
the wealthy, and especially to the proprietors of land and extensive
manufactories or mines.”
The following is the view of a double mechanic’s cottage, from Mr.
Loudon’s collection, similar to the agricultural labourer’s model
cottage, of which a view has already been given.
[Illustration]
Besides the details of construction, such as are exemplified in the
report, that appear deserving of attention, there are details in the
furniture of cottages, and particular descriptions of furniture by which
it appears that much improvement may be effected. For example, an
important improvement in the box bedsteads used in Scotch cottages has
been suggested by Dr. Wilson, of Kelso. It consists of a curtain-rod and
curtains, which may be drawn out about three feet from the front of the
bed, so as to form sufficient space between the curtain and the bed to
serve as a dressing-room. It is observed by Mr. Loudon, that some of the
Leith and London steamers had the berths in the ladies’ cabins fitted up
in this mode some years ago; and it is a principle applicable, and, it
is unnecessary to say. necessary for the preservation of decency in
double-bedded rooms, as well as in those cottages where the box bedstead
is used. The following is a copy of the plan of the improvement given by
Mr. Loudon.
[Illustration: 2309]
Another part of Dr. Wilson’s improvements in these beds consists of the
hinging a part of the roof of the bed, so that it may be opened like a
trap-door at pleasure for ventilation, and the hinging of the boards at
the foot and at the back for the same object, and for giving access to a
medical attendant. Mr. Loudon expresses a hope that these improvements
form one step to getting rid of box bedsteads altogether. They are
noticed here as exemplifications of the moral ends which may be gained
in structural arrangements, which incur inconsiderable expense, and only
a little care at the outset. Other detailed improvements may be made
subservient to structural economy. The following is an exemplification
thus described by Mr. Loudon:—“It is a matter of some difficulty, in
small cottages, to place the shutters to the windows on the ground floor
in such a manner as to answer the purpose, and yet be out of the way.
The following plan has been adopted in some buildings of that
description, which have been lately erected. The shutters are hung on
hinges in such a manner as to fall down into a recess below the window
during the day-time; and consequently they are quite out of the way when
not wanted for shutting up the house, or for temporary purposes. The
idea suggested itself that shutters be occasionally used as a table or
ironing-board; and to effect this end, two movable bars as supports were
let into mortices in the floor, and made to abut against similar
mortices made in the ledges on the under side of the shutters. The two
cornices were slightly rounded, and the upper surface was left plain
without paint. Two swing iron or wooden brackets might be used instead
of the wooden bars, as they could be folded back into the recess also.”
[Illustration: 2308]
10.—_Specification of the Cost of Erection, Weekly Rents, Interest on
the Capital invested, and, the Numbers of Tenements and Cottages
occupied by the Poor and Labourers; taken from Returns made by the
Relieving Officers of their respective Districts, in 24 Unions in the
Counties of Cheshire, Stafford, Derby, and Lancaster._
┌─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│ │ No. 1. Lowest Class of │
│ │ Cottages, average 1_s._ │
│ │3_d._ per Week, or £3. 5_s._│
│ │ per Year, allowing for │
│ │ Repairs, &c. │
├─────────────────────┼─────────┬────────┬─────────┤
│ │ │Average │Interest │
│ │Number of│Cost of │ on the │
│ │Tenements│erecting│Outlay or│
│ │ or │ each │ Capital │
│ │Cottages.│Cottage.│invested.│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│ │ │ £. │Per Cent.│
│Congleton │ 1,168│ 47│ 7│
│Macclesfield │ 2,481│ 38│ 8½│
│Stockport │ 3,457│ 28│ 11‑12/20│
│Altrincham │ 1,200│ 49│ 6‑13/20│
│Northwich │ 1,615│ 52│ 6¼│
│Nantwich │ 1,994│ 47│ 7│
│Lichfield │ 1,281│ 34│ 9‑11/20│
│Newcastle │ 1,502│ 57│ 5‑14/20│
│Stoke-upon-Trent │ 2,181│ 45│ 7‑4/20│
│Woolstanton and │ │ │ │
│ Burslem │ 2,292│ 50│ 6½│
│Tamworth │ 1,278│ 47│ 7│
│Cheadle │ 1,438│ 40│ 8‑3/20│
│Uttoxeter │ 672│ 29│ 11‑4/20│
│Burton-upon-Trent │ 2,100│ 40│ 8‑3/20│
│Leek │ 1,281│ 47│ 7│
│Chapel-en-le-Frith │ 713│ 60│ 5‑8/20│
│Hayfield │ 270│ 50│ 6½│
│Glossop │ 142│ 60│ 5‑8/20│
│Bakewell │ 2,519│ 58│ 5‑12/20│
│Chesterfield │ 1,969│ 45│ 7‑4/20│
│Belper │ 3,324│ 40│ 8‑1/20│
│Derby │ 1,035│ 45│ 7‑4/20│
│Salford │ 680│ 53│ 6‑1/20│
│Chorlton-upon-Medlock│ 527│ 44│ 7‑8/20│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│ │ 37,119│ 40[53]│ 8│
└─────────────────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────┘
┌─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│ │ No. 2. Second Class of │
│ │ Cottages, average 2_s._ │
│ │ 3_d._ per Week, or £5. │
│ │ 15_s._ per Year, allowing │
│ │ for Repairs, &c. │
├─────────────────────┼─────────┬────────┬─────────┤
│ │ │Average │Interest │
│ │Number of│Cost of │ on the │
│ │Tenements│erecting│Outlay or│
│ │ or │ each │ Capital │
│ │Cottages.│Cottage.│invested.│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│ │ │ £. │Per Cent.│
│Congleton │ 2,035│ 66│ 8‑11/20│
│Macclesfield │ 3,864│ 60│ 9‑11/20│
│Stockport │ 5,032│ 53│ 10‑17/20│
│Altrincham │ 1,352│ 79│ 7‑6/20│
│Northwich │ 2,121│ 75│ 7‑11/20│
│Nantwich │ 1,158│ 74│ 7¾│
│Lichfield │ 1,227│ 68│ 8‑9/20│
│Newcastle │ 1,135│ 78│ 7‑7/20│
│Stoke-upon-Trent │ 5,610│ 60│ 9‑11/20│
│Woolstanton and │ │ │ │
│ Burslem │ 2,993│ 90│ 6‑8/20│
│Tamworth │ 376│ 69│ 8‑7/20│
│Cheadle │ 805│ 67│ 8‑12/20│
│Uttoxeter │ 471│ 40│ 14‑8/20│
│Burton-upon-Trent │ 1,270│ 90│ 6‑8/20│
│Leek │ 650│ 63│ 9‑1/20│
│Chapel-en-le-Frith │ 215│ 79│ 7‑6/20│
│Hayfield │ 534│ 80│ 7‑4/20│
│Glossop │ 559│ 80│ 7‑4/20│
│Bakewell │ 424│ 87│ 6‑12/20│
│Chesterfield │ 2,618│ 70│ 8‑4/20│
│Belper │ 2,542│ 67│ 8‑12/20│
│Derby │ 2,855│ 75│ 7‑11/20│
│Salford │ 3,741│ 46│ 12½│
│Chorlton-upon-Medlock│ 2,463│ 54│ 10‑11/20│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│ │ 46,050│ 65│ 8¾│
└─────────────────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────┘
┌─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────╥───────────┐
│ │ No. 3. Third Class of ║ │
│ │ Cottages, average 3_s._ ║ │
│ │6_d._ per Week, or £9. 2_s._║ │
│ │ per Year, allowing for ║ │
│ │ Repairs, &c. ║Population.│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┬────────┬─────────╫───────────┤
│ │ │Average │Interest ║ │
│ │Number of│Cost of │ on the ║ │
│ │Tenements│erecting│Outlay or║ │
│ │ or │ each │ Capital ║ │
│ │Cottages.│Cottage.│invested.║ │
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────╫───────────┤
│ │ │ £. │Per Cent.║ │
│Congleton │ 395│ 94│ 9‑14/20║ 26,377│
│Macclesfield │ 2,657│ 84│ 10‑17/20║ 50,639│
│Stockport │ 6,436│ 98│ 9‑6/20║ 68,906│
│Altrincham │ 540│ 101│ 9║ 30,139│
│Northwich │ 212│ 89│ 10‑4/20║ 26,906│
│Nantwich │ 471│ 108│ 8‑9/20║ 30,992│
│Lichfield │ 320│ 148│ 6‑1/20║ 22,749│
│Newcastle │ 251│ 136│ 6‑14/20║ 16,476│
│Stoke-upon-Trent │ 946│ 90│ 10‑2/20║ 37,220│
│Woolstanton and │ │ │ ║ │
│ Burslem │ 295│ 150│ 6‑1/20║ 23,567│
│Tamworth │ 134│ 117│ 7‑16/20║ 12,175│
│Cheadle │ 169│ 101│ 9║ 14,473│
│Uttoxeter │ │ │ ║ 12,837│
│Burton-upon-Trent │ 125│ 115│ 7‑17/20║ 24,667│
│Leek │ 104│ 86│ 10‑12/20║ 18,387│
│Chapel-en-le-Frith │ 95│ 123│ 7‑8/20║ 10,448│
│Hayfield │ 627│ 140│ 6½║ 9,493│
│Glossop │ 1,050│ 90│ 10‑2/20║ 9,631│
│Bakewell │ 74│ 146│ 6¼║ 25,879│
│Chesterfield │ 128│ 105│ 8‑11/20║ 34,246│
│Belper │ 661│ 107│ 8½║ 33,388│
│Derby │ 1,026│ 155│ 5‑17/20║ 25,484│
│Salford │ 5,445│ 75│ 12‑1/20║ 52,366│
│Chorlton-upon-Medlock│ 4,261│ 83│ 10‑10/20║ 46,465│
├─────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────╫───────────┤
│ │ 26,322│ 92│ 9¾║ 663,890│
└─────────────────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────╨───────────┘
11.—_Tables of the Expense of building Cottages, and Repairs, in England
and Scotland._
┌───────────────┬────────────────────────┬────────┐
│ ENGLAND. │ Cost of Erection of │Cost of │
│ │ Cottages. │Repairs.│
├───────────────┼───────────┬────────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │Two-roomed.│Four-roomed.│ │
├───────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼────────┤
│Norfolk, 22 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │4 to 40 │
│ │ 40_l._ to │ 60_l._ to │ per │
│ │ 80_l._ │ 150_l._ │ cent. │
│Suffolk, 15 │ │ │2 to 20 │
│ Unions │ 30_l._ to │ 60_l._ to │ per │
│ │ 125_l._ │ 180_l._ │ cent. │
│Chester, 5 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │10 to 30│
│ │ 20_l._ to │ 25_l._ to │ per │
│ │ 80_l._ │ 120_l._ │ cent. │
│Derby, 7 Unions│ │ │2½ to 20│
│ │ 20_l._ to │ 40_l._ to │ per │
│ │ 100_l._ │ 120_l._ │ cent. │
│Lancashire, 2 │ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ Unions │ 30_l._ to │ 30_l._ to │ to │
│ │ 50_l._ │ 55_l._ │ 40_s._ │
│Stafford, 9 │ 20_l._ to │ 40_l._ to │4_s._ to│
│ Unions │ 80_l._ │ 100_l._ │ 40_s._ │
│Gloucester, 3 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ About │ │ │
│ │ 62_l._ │ │ 10_s._ │
│Hereford, 1 │ About │ │ │
│ Union │ 62_l._ │ │ │
│Monmouth, 5 │ About │ │ │
│ Unions │ 62_l._ │ │ │
│Worcester, 4 │ About │ │ │
│ Unions │ 65_l._ │ │ │
│Gloucester, 3 │ About │ │ │
│ Unions │ 70_l._ │ │ │
│Hereford, 8 │ About │ │ │
│ Unions │ 45_l._ │ │ │
│Brecknock, 1 │ About │ │ │
│ Union │ 45_l._ │ │ │
│Radnor, 2 │ About │ │ │
│ Unions │ 45_l._ │ │ │
│Salop, 2 Unions│ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ │ 50_l._ to │ │ to │
│ │ 55_l._ │ │ 12_s._ │
│Worcester, 6 │ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ Unions │ 50_l._ to │ │ to │
│ │ 55_l._ │ │ 12_s._ │
│Northumberland,│ │ │ │
│7 Unions │ │ │ │
│ │ 30_l._ to │ │3_s._ to│
│ │ 50_l._ │ │ 5_s._ │
│Durham, 8 │ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ Unions │ 50_l._ to │ │ to │
│ │ 70_l._ │ │ 15_s._ │
│Cumberland, 1 │ │ │ │
│ Union. │ 50_l._ │ │ 3_s._ │
│Durham, 2 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ 45_l._ │ 60_l._ │ │
│Cumberland, 4 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ 30_l._ to │ │ │
│ │ 45_l._ │ │ 7_s._ │
│Bedford, 5 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ 15_l._ to │ 20_l._ to │5_s._ to│
│ │ 60_l._ │ 120_l._ │ 20_s._ │
│Bucks, 1 Union │ 40_l._ to │ │9_s._ to│
│ │ 60_l._ │ │ 10_s._ │
│Hertford, 4 │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 20_s._ │
│ │ 40_l._ to │ 50_l._ to │ to │
│ │ 70_l._ │ 120_l._ │ 30_s._ │
│Northampton, 6 │ 30_l._ to │ 50_l._ to │5_s._ to│
│ Unions │ 100_l._ │ 150_l._ │ 20_s._ │
│Stafford, 5 │ 20_l._ to │ 35_l._ to │7_s._ to│
│ Unions │ 60_l._ │ 100_l._ │ 45_s._ │
│Warwick, 7 │ 20_l._ to │ 50_l._ to │6_s._ to│
│ Unions │ 70_l._ │ 140_l._ │ 40_s._ │
│Worcester, 2 │ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ Unions │ 10_l._ to │ 45_l._ to │ to │
│ │ 50_l._ │ 150_l._ │ 12_s._ │
└───────────────┴───────────┴────────────┴────────┘
┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ENGLAND. │ │
│ │ Rent of Cottages. │
├───────────────┼────────┬────────┬───────────┬────────┤
│ │ │ 2. │ │ │
│ │ │Cottages│ │ │
│ │ │with one│ 3. │ │
│ │ │Room on │Cottages of│ 4. │
│ │ │ or │ the same │Cottages│
│ │ │Bed-room│Description│ with │
│ │ │ the │ or │ four │
│ │ 1. │ Ground │Wash-house │ Rooms, │
│ │Cottages│ Floor, │ as No. 2, │ two │
│ │ with │ and a │ with a │ below, │
│ │only one│ above. │Back-house │and two │
│ │ Room. │Chamber │ annexed. │ above. │
├───────────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼────────┤
│Norfolk, 22 │ │ 1_l._ │ │ │
│ Unions │ 10_s._ │ 10_s._ │ │ 3_l._ │
│ │ to │to 5_l._│ 2_l._ to │5_s._ to│
│ │100_s._ │ 5_s._ │6_l._ 6_s._│ 9_l._ │
│Suffolk, 15 │ 20_s._ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │to 2_l._│2_l._ to│ 3_l._ to │3_l._ to│
│ │ 15_s._ │ 6_l._ │ 6_l._ │ 8_l._ │
│Chester, 5 │ │ 1_s._ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │6_d._ to│ │ │
│ │ 1_s._ │ 2_s._ │2_s._ 6_d._│ │
│ │ 6_d._ │ 6_d._ │ to 4_s._ │ │
│Derby, 7 Unions│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│Lancashire, 2 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│Stafford, 9 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│Gloucester, 3 │ │ │ 5_l._ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 10_s._ to │ │
│ │ │ │ 6_l._ │ │
│Hereford, 1 │ │ │ │ │
│ Union │ │ │ │ │
│Monmouth, 5 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│Worcester, 4 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│Gloucester, 3 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 4_l._ │ │
│Hereford, 8 │ │ │ 3_l._ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 10_s._ │ │
│Brecknock, 1 │ │ │ 3_l._ │ │
│ Union │ │ │ 10_s._ │ │
│Radnor, 2 │ │ │ 3_l._ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 10_s._ │ │
│Salop, 2 Unions│ │ │ 3_l._ │ │
│ │ │ │ 13_s._ │ │
│ │ │ │ 6_d._ │ │
│Worcester, 6 │ │ │ 3_l._ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 13_s._ │ │
│ │ │ │ 6_d._ │ │
│Northumberland,│ │ │ │ │
│7 Unions │ 2_l._ │ │ │ │
│ │5_s._ to│ │ │ │
│ │ 4_l._ │ │ │ │
│Durham, 8 │ │ 2_l._ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ 10_s._ │ │ │
│ │ 4_l._ │to 6_l._│ │ │
│Cumberland, 1 │ │ 3_l._ │ │ │
│ Union. │ │ 5_s._ │ │ │
│Durham, 2 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ 4_l._ │ │
│Cumberland, 4 │ │ 2_l._ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ 12_s._ │ │ │
│ │ │to 3_l._│ │ │
│Bedford, 5 │ │ │ │ 2_l._ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ 10_s._ │
│ │ │ │ │to 4_l._│
│Bucks, 1 Union │ │ │ │ 2_l._ │
│ │ │ │ │ 12_s._ │
│Hertford, 4 │ │ │ │ 2_s._ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ 6_d._ │
│ │ │ │ │ per │
│ │ │ │ │ week. │
│Northampton, 6 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│Stafford, 5 │ │ │ │2_l._ to│
│ Unions │ │ │ │ 4_l._ │
│Warwick, 7 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│Worcester, 2 │ │ │ │ │
│ Unions │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴────────┘
11.—_Tables of the Expense of building Cottages, and Repairs, in England
and Scotland_ - continued.
┌─────────────┬────────────────┬────────┬────────────────┬────────────┐
│ SCOTLAND. │Cost of Erection│Cost of │ Rent of │ Proportion │
│ │ Cottages, &c. │Repairs.│ Cottages. &c. │of Rent paid│
│ │ │ │ per Annum. │by Labourer │
│ │ │ │ │to his total│
│ │ │ │ │Expenditure.│
├─────────────┼────────────────┼────────┼────────────────┼────────────┤
│Aberdeen │Houses for 6 │1_l._ │Garret or │From 8 to 14│
│ │ families, │ per │ cellar, 25_s._│ per cent. │
│ │ 250_l._ to │ year │ to 30_s._; │ │
│ │ 300_l._ │ │ room and │ │
│ │ │ │ closet 50_s._ │ │
│ │ │ │ to 80_s._; two│ │
│ │ │ │ rooms, 5_l._; │ │
│ │ │ │ ditto and │ │
│ │ │ │ closet, 6_l._;│ │
│ │ │ │ cottages, &c.,│ │
│ │ │ │ 4_l._ to 6_l._│ │
│Aberdour │ │ │One or two │About 4½ per│
│ │ │ │ rooms. 1_l._ │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ to 2_l._; │ │
│ │ │ │ cottage, 2_l._│ │
│ │ │ │ to 3_l._ │ │
│Arbroath │60_l._ to 80_l._│2 per │3_l._ to 6_l._; │From 11 to │
│ │ │ cent. │ garrets, │ 16½ per │
│ │ │ │ 20_s._ to │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ 30_s._ │ │
│Alloa │Houses for 3 │ │One apartment, │From 10 to │
│ │ families, │ │ 1_l._ to │ 12½ per │
│ │ 200_l._ to │ │ 3_l._; two │ cent. │
│ │ 300_l._; │ │ ditto, 3_l._ │ │
│ │ Cottage, │ │ to 5_l._; │ │
│ │ 20_l._ to │ │ 1_l._ 10_s._ │ │
│ │ 30_l._ │ │ to 3_l._ │ │
│ │ │ │ cottage. │ │
│Andrews, St. │ │ │1_l._ to 1_l._ │About 8¼ per│
│ │ │ │ 15_s._ each │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ room. │ │
│Ayr │About 30_l._ │ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │About 8¼ per│
│ │ │ │ 4_l._ │ cent. │
│Carluke │Tenement for 2 │½ per │One room and │From 5 to │
│ │ families, │ cent. │ closet, │ 12½ per │
│ │ 60_l._ to │ │ 50_s._; one │ cent. │
│ │ 70_l._ │ │ room and │ │
│ │ │ │ kitchen, │ │
│ │ │ │ 70_s._ to │ │
│ │ │ │ 80_s._ │ │
│Coldstream │40_l._ │ │2_l._ 10_s._ to │About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ 3_l._ │ cent. │
│Cupar, Fife, │30_l._ │ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │About 10 per│
│ &c. │ │ │ 2_l._ 10_s._ │ cent. │
│Douglas │ │ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │ │
│ │ │ │ 2_l._ │ │
│Dundee │60_l._ to 80_l._│5 per │One room, 2_l._ │From 6¼ to │
│ │ │ cent. │ to 2_l._ │ 21¼ per │
│ │ │ │ 10_s._; two │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ rooms, 3_l._ │ │
│ │ │ │ 10_s._ to │ │
│ │ │ │ 5_l._ │ │
│Dunfermline │80_l._ to 90_l._│ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │From 10 to │
│ │ │ │ 6_l._ │ 11 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Earls Ferry │15_l._ to 30_l._│ │1_l._ to 2_l._ │About 5 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Elgin │ │ │1_l._ to 5_l._ │From 12½ to │
│ │ │ │ │ 14 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Cowgate │ │ │2_l._ to 4_l._ │ │
│Edinburgh │ │ │1_l._ to 5_l._ │From 6 to 25│
│ │ │ │ 4_s._; 2_l._ │ per cent. │
│ │ │ │ to 4_l._ for │ │
│ │ │ │ one apartment;│ │
│ │ │ │ one room and │ │
│ │ │ │ kitchen, 3_l._│ │
│ │ │ │ to 5_l._ │ │
│Forfar │70_l._ to │1 per │Two rooms, 2_l._│From 12½ to │
│ │ 110_l._ │ cent. │ 10_s._; ditto │ 14 per │
│ │ │ │ and closet, │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ 3_l._ 15_s._ │ │
│Forres │ │ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │About 12½ │
│ │ │ │ 5_l._ │ per cent. │
│Fraizerburgh │ │ │2_l._ to 3_l._ │From 16½ to │
│ │ │ │ │ 20 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Glasgow │Tenements for 16│ │One room, 2_l._;│From 7½ to │
│ │ families, │ │ room and │ 33 per │
│ │ 800_l._ to │ │ kitchen, 3_l._│ cent. │
│ │ 1200_l._, room│ │ to 7_l._ two │ │
│ │ and kitchen │ │ rooms and │ │
│ │ for each. │ │ kitchen, 6_l._│ │
│ │ │ │ to 9_l._ │ │
│Haddington │ │ │1_l._ to 4_l._ │About 5 per │
│ │ │ │ 10_s._ │ cent. │
│Hoddon │10_l._ to 25_l._│2½ to 6 │About 2_l._ │From 8 to 10│
│ │ │ per │ │ per cent. │
│ │ │ cent. │ │ │
│Inverary │ │ │10_s._ to 5_l._ │From 10 to │
│ │ │ │ │ 20 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Inverkeithing│ │ │2_l._ to 3_l._ │From 6½ to │
│ │ │ │ │ 14 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Inverness │30_l._ to 80_l._│ │From 1_l._ to │About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ 3_l._ a room. │ cent. │
│Irvine │30_l._ to 40_l._│ │2_l._ to 3_l._ │About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Kirkcaldy │Two rooms, │ │One room, 30_s._│From 6 to 10│
│ │ 40_l._ │ │ to 40_s._; two│ per cent. │
│ │ │ │ rooms, 3_l._ │ │
│Kirkwall │50_l._ to 60_l._│ │1_l._ to 2_l._ │From 6 to 16│
│ │ │ │ for one room. │ per cent. │
│Lanark │40_l._ to │ │2_l._ each │About 10 per│
│ │ 50_l._, for │ │ apartment. │ cent. │
│ │ two families. │ │ │ │
│Leith │ │ │2_l._ 10_s._ to │ │
│ │ │ │ 6_l._ │ │
│Lesmahagow │50_l._ to 60_l._│1 per │2_l._ to 3_l._; │From 14 to │
│ │ │ cent. │ attics, from │ 16½ per │
│ │ │ │ 26_s._ to │ cent. │
│ │ │ │ 32_s._ 6_d._ │ │
│Lillisheaf │ │ │1_l._ to 3_l._ │About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Lochmaben │20_l._ to 50_l._│ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │From 8 to │
│ │ │ │ 3_l._ │ 16½ per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Melrose │60_l._ to 80_l._│ │4_l._ │About 16½ │
│ │ │ │ │ per cent. │
│Montrose │30_l._ to 40_l._│ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ 2_l._ │ cent. │
│Portobello │ │ │2_l._ 12_s._ for│About 10 per│
│ │ │ │ a room. │ cent. │
│Queensferry │30_l._ │1¾ per │1_l._ to 1_l._ │From 4 to 5 │
│ │ │ cent. │ 10_s._ │ per cent. │
│Renfrew │Tenement of four│per │6_l._; 2_l._ to │About 14 per│
│ │ houses, │ cent. │ 3_l._ 10_s._ │ cent. │
│ │ 300_l._ │ │ │ │
│Selkirk │60_l._ to │ │2_l._ 10_s._ │From 10 to │
│ │ 70_l._, two │ │ │ 12½ per │
│ │ apartments. │ │ │ cent. │
│Stewarton │House for two or│ │2_l._ to 3_l._ │From 6½ to │
│ │ three │ │ │ 7½ per │
│ │ labourers, │ │ │ cent. │
│ │ 100_l._ to │ │ │ │
│ │ 120_l._ │ │ │ │
│Tain │10_l._ to 20_l._│ │10_s._ to 3_l._ │About 5 per │
│ │ │ │ │ cent. │
│Wigtown │15_l._ │ │1_l._ 10_s._ to │About 7½ per│
│ │ │ │ 2_l._ │ cent. │
└─────────────┴────────────────┴────────┴────────────────┴────────────┘
PLANS OF COTTAGES ERECTED AT EGERTON FOR H. & E. ASHWORTH.
[Illustration]
ELEVATION AND PLANS OF HOUSES IN GREAT RUSSELL STREET,
BIRMINGHAM
[Illustration]
GROUND PLAN OF TWO NEW COURTS OF HOUSES IN BRADFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM
[Illustration]
ELEVATIONS OF HOUSES, IN BRADFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM.
[Illustration]
12.—_Examination of the_ REV. THOMAS WHATELEY, _Cookham, Berks, on
Cottage Allotments, and the keeping of Pigs by Cottagers_.
It appears that a great part of the land of your parish is common, and
that a portion of the population borders upon the common. What is the
state of that population as compared with that which is too far removed
from the commons to enjoy any of their privileges?—The persons who live
in the immediate neighbourhood of the commons are evidently much poorer
than those who live at a distance.
To what do you attribute this?—I attribute it to their depending upon a
precarious and uncertain income; and I am sure, from all the observation
I have been able to make, that a poor man’s best subsistence will always
depend upon constant work and good wages, and that he never works for so
bad a master as when he works for himself. And all employments, such as
attending sheep, geese, &c., besides the precarious nature of the return
made by them, usually impair his habits of steady and patient industry,
and frequently give him a turn for poaching and pilfering, and engender
other irregular and demoralizing habits.
But may not the children of the cottager, while he is engaged in steady
and patient industry, be usefully and profitably employed in taking care
of a pig or geese on the common?—No. The reason which applies against
the father doing so, namely, the bad desultory habits engendered,
applies with greater force against the children doing so. If they are
old enough to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old
enough to be employed in some rural occupation for which wages would be
earned. Many mistakes are prevalent with respect to the profits from
keeping cows, sheep, geese, pigs, &c., for I do not believe that any of
these are really profitable; and though I am glad to see a pig as an
appendage to a cottage (if the cottager’s employer has no reason to be
sorry), because the pig serves as a sort of savings bank to the
labourer; for if the labourer had not the animal, he would not put by,
and out of his reach, from day to day, the money which the pig costs him
in fatting; yet it is notorious that a labouring man pays more dearly
for his bacon than he would do if he purchased it ready prepared to his
hand.[54] Nor would he be the better clothed or cheaper shod if he took
the operation of the Manchester weaver or the Nottingham shoemaker into
his own hands.
But may not a labourer attend to the management of pigs or cows after
the hours of work?—I think not, because a good labourer usually works by
the great, and has done as much as his strength will allow when he
returns home; and because nothing is gained by feeding cattle upon
commons, where the cattle have nothing else to depend upon. The very
worst master a poor man can work for is himself.
You say that the reason which applies against the father attending to
pigs, geese, &c., on commons, applies equally against the children being
so, _i. e._, the idle habits engendered; and that if they are old enough
to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old enough to be
employed in some rural occupation, for which wages would be earned. Now
would not the children be employed by farmers in the same sort of
labour, namely, in looking after cattle; and if so, why is it that the
care of cattle on the common for the other is worse or more demoralizing
than the care of the same sort of things for the farmer?—I conceive that
I have answered this question before. If a farmer sends his pigs or
other cattle into open fields or commons, and requires the assistance of
a child to watch them, they are turned out only for a change, but are
never in this part of the country kept upon the commons.
Do you think allotments of land to the labourer beneficial; and if so,
what quantity may be usefully occupied by him?—I do not think allotments
of land to the poor beneficial. I had rather see the allotments gathered
into one large one, a farm, and the labouring man employed at good
wages, by a superintendent managing the whole at his own risk and for
his own interest, in the share to which his undivided and greater
attention and anxiety justly entitle him, that is, by a thriving farmer.
The poor man must be a poor master, and he had better serve a rich one.
What do you believe would be the consequence of too large allotments of
land being made to the labourers?—That the poor man could not cultivate
it. The wealth of his employer is the poor man’s safeguard against want.
I approve of the practice of a benevolent farmer in my parish, who is
accustomed to give to his labourers a headland of his field as a bonus
to industry. He says he will make it worth the while of his labourers to
be honest and diligent towards him, by letting them feel that they will
have a suitable return from him. If what are called “ample allotments”
are given, it appears to me to be a sort of wholesale almsgiving,
attended with more than the usual mischiefs attendant upon most
almsgiving. The orchard and garden before me might, if cut up into
allotments, serve for six families of young labourers. It may be all
very well to say, “Take these, my good men, and be happy;” but when, in
the progress of population, there arises four times six families to be
fed from the same soil, where will then be the happiness of the
allotments? What, I submit, are small farms but ample allotments, and
what, when stripped of romance, is found by experience to be the
superior condition and power of production of the small farmers? Are
they not, even where they farm their own lands, almost universally
failing (like the small manufacturers against the large ones) in
competition before the more scientific management, economy of labour,
and more powerful application of capital of the large farmer. What is
all Ireland but a country of cottage allotments; and what is there in
that theatre of disorder and wretchedness that should induce the
benevolent (or those who may have in their eyes the immediate temptation
of _Irish rents_) to make trial of any such system in England? Are the
cottiers who possess the fee-simple, the small freeholders of Ireland,
in a superior condition by virtue of their allotments?—Many of the
promoters of allotments doubtless intend well, and act upon the evidence
of immediate benefits and satisfaction derived from them; so, probably,
did the original promoters of the bread-money, scales, and the allowance
system, labour rates, and the train of corrupting palliatives?
Have you had an opportunity of observing experiments in what is termed
spade husbandry?—I have never seen spade husbandry; but I should wish to
see it universally adopted, if the adoption of it would add wealth to
the farmer, for in that case it could not fail to benefit the labourer.
It is said that farmers ought to take the single agricultural labourers
into their houses, and preside at the labourers’ tables as formerly;
what is your opinion as to the practicability of recurring to the old
system?—Those who say so are very ill formed upon the subject. Farmers,
who were (in manners, wealth, and education) but very little better than
their own labourers, might formerly, with comfort to themselves and
advantage to their men, receive their carters into their family, and
dine at their table with them; but the habits of those times are gone
for ever.
Do you think the enclosures of such parishes as Cookham beneficial to
the poor?—Yes I do, inasmuch as they extend the demand for the poor
man’s only marketable commodity—his labour.
[Every position stated in this examination with relation to the
practical operation of the theory of small farm allotments, and of the
pig and cow theories, was corroborated by a large mass of evidence from
every part of the country, where they had been, for any length of time,
in operation.—E. C.]
13.—_Arrangement of Public Walks in Towns; Plan of the Arboretum at
Derby, laid out by_ J. C. LOUDON, _Esq._
When it appeared that a general botanic garden would be too expensive,
both to create and to keep up; that a mere composition of trees and
shrubs with turf, in the manner of a common pleasure-ground, would
become insipid after being seen two or three times; and, in short, that
the most suitable kind of public garden, for all the circumstances
included in the above data, was an arboretum, or collection of trees and
shrubs, foreign and indigenous, which would endure the open air in the
climate of Derby, with the names placed to each. Such a collection will
have all the ordinary beauties of a pleasure-ground viewed as a whole;
and yet, from no tree or shrub occurring twice in the whole collection,
and from the name of every tree and shrub being placed against it, an
inducement is held out for those who walk in the garden to take an
interest in the name and history of each species, its uses in this
country or in other countries, its appearance at different seasons of
the year, and the various associations connected with it.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE DERBY ARBORETUM, 1840.]
[Illustration]
A similar interest might no doubt have been created by a collection of
herbaceous plants; but this collection, to be effective in such a space
of ground, must have amounted to at least 5000 species; and to form such
a collection, and keep it up, would have been much more expensive than
forming the most complete collection of trees and shrubs that can at
present be made in Britain. It is further to be observed respecting a
collection of herbaceous plants, that it would have presented no beauty
or interest whatever during the winter season; whereas, among trees and
shrubs, there are all the evergreen kinds, which are more beautiful in
winter than in summer; while the deciduous kinds, at that season, show
an endless variety in the ramification of their branches and spray, the
colour of their bark, and the colour and form of their buds. Add also,
that trees and shrubs, and especially evergreens, give shelter and
encouragement to singing-birds, to which herbaceous plants offer little
or no shelter or food.
There are yet other arguments in favour of trees and shrubs for a garden
of recreation, which are worth notice. Herbaceous plants are low, small,
and to have any effect must be numerous; while to acquire their names,
and look into their beauties, persons walking in the garden must stand
still, and stoop down, which, when repeated several times, would soon,
instead of a recreation, become very fatiguing. Now trees and shrubs are
large objects, and there is scarcely one of them the beauty of which may
not be seen and enjoyed by the spectator while he is walking past it,
and without standing still at all.
A glance at the plan, _fig. 2_, in p. 6, will show that I have provided
as great an extent of gravel-walk as the space would admit of; the total
length, including the walk round the flower-garden, exceeding a mile.
There is a straight broad walk in the centre, as a main feature from the
principal entrance; an intersecting broad and straight walk to form a
centre to the garden, and to constitute a point of radiation to all the
other walks; and there is a winding walk surrounding the whole. As a
straight walk without a terminating object is felt to be deficient in
meaning, a statute on a pedestal is proposed for the radiating centre
_i._ in _fig. 2_; a pedestal with a vase, urn, or other object, for the
second circle in the straight walk, _fig. 2_, _k_; while the pavilions
_fig. 3_, form terminating objects to the broad cross walk.
As a terminal object gives meaning to a straight walk leading to it, so
it is only by creating artificial obstructions that meaning can be given
to a winding walk over a flat surface. These obstructions may either be
inequalities in the ground, or the occurrence of trees or shrubs in the
line which the walk would otherwise have taken, so as to force it to
bend out of that line. Both these resources have been employed in laying
down the direction of the surrounding walk, though its deviation from a
straight line has chiefly been made in conformity with the varying
position of the trees in the belt already existing. This belt, and also
the trees in the flower-garden, and in other parts of the plan, which
were there previously to commencing operations, and which are left
conformably to Mr. Strutt’s instructions, are shown in the plan, _fig.
4_, p. 75. The point of junction of one walk with another is always
noticeable in an artistical point of view, and affords an excuse for
putting down sculptural or other ornamental objects at these points.
14.—_Boards of Health:—Report on the labours of the “Conseil de
Salubrité” of Paris, from 1829 to 1839._ _By_ M. TREBUCHET.
Before the revolution of 1789, M. Lenoir, one of the last lieutenants of
police of that period, and one of those who most particularly occupied
themselves with the health of the city of Paris, consulted on questions
of health and salubrity two men, _Pia_ and _Cadet de Vaux_, both of them
apothecaries; the last had the title of inspector-general: it was to him
that all matters of health were habitually referred. Later, on the
institution of the prefect of police, in whose hands was vested all that
related to salubrity and the public health, this magistrate consulted
sometimes a physician, sometimes a chemist, sometimes a veterinary
surgeon, according to the nature of the case upon which he had to
determine.
This state of things presented inconveniences so much the more serious
that the number of affairs increasing every day, demanded more unity in
the reports, and more activity in the labours. It was then that the
necessity was felt of establishing a permanent council. Such was the
origin of the “Conseil de Salubrité,” instituted by the prefect of
police, Dubois, the 6th of July, 1802. It was composed of four
members,—Deyeux, Parmentier, Huzard, senior, and Cadet-Gassicourt. In
1803, M. Thouret was called to the council; afterwards, in 1807, Leroux
and Dupuytren; in 1810, M. Pariset replaced M. Thouret, and it was at
the same period that the nomination of Doctor Petit took place. From
that time the men of the greatest consideration sought to have a part in
the labours of the “Conseil de Salubrité.” Thus we see enter
successively M. d’Arcet in 1813; M. Marc in 1815; M. Berard in 1817; the
engineer Girard, and Huzard, junior, in 1819; Pelletier and Juge in
1821; M. Gautier de Claubry and M. Parent Duchâtelet in 1825; MM.
Adelon, Andral, junior, Barruel, and Labarraque, in 1828; Doctor
Esquirol in 1829. The greater part of these men no longer exist. Deyeux,
Parmentier, Huzard, senior, Cadet-Gassicourt, Thouret. Leroux,
Dupuytren, Marc, Girard, Parent-Duchâtelet, Barruel, Esquirol, are no
longer there to direct the labours of the council, to contribute their
long experience and indefatigable activity; but their labours remain to
us, and we can at least draw from them useful instructions, and still
enlighten ourselves by their valuable opinions.
Thus, and with the view to preserve these precious traditions, which
maintain in the council an unity of design so remarkable, the
administration decided from the commencement that their general reports
should be printed.
This publication, which stopped in 1828, and of which the continuance
was greatly desired, has just been resumed by the orders of M. Gabriel
Delessert, prefect of police.
This collection, which is of such general interest, embraces therefore a
period of nearly forty years.
Perhaps we are to congratulate ourselves on the delay which has taken
place in the publication of these reports. In going over these ten years
it becomes more easy to follow the council in the progressive march of
their labours, to perceive that they were all based upon a uniform and
constant jurisprudence; that they had no other end than the preservation
of the public health, the well-devised interest of property and
industry. On this account we have always thought that besides the annual
reports, extremely useful in other respects, but confined within too
narrow a circle, it would be well to publish every ten years a summary,
which, retracing what had been done in that long period, should offer a
wide field of study both to governors and governed.
Since 1829 the reports addressed to the administration, on the numerous
questions which it submitted to the council, amount to 4431. But that of
which there remains no trace are the experiments, often even the
preliminary reports, the trips, and sometimes the journeys, which each
of these reports rendered necessary; labours of which the report is only
a summary, and which impart such great authority to the decisions of the
council.
These decisions relate to three great divisions,—_health_, _salubrity_,
and _industry_. Under _health_ are classed, among other things, the
researches on the adulteration of food, on the vessels used in its
preparation, on the precautions to be taken with respect to the vessels
and utensils of copper, regard being had to the uses for which they are
employed; the experiments on the adulteration of salts, on the
adulteration of bread and of flour by different substances, on the
poisonous substances employed to colour bonbons, liqueurs, &c.; the
examination of the methods employed in preparing pork; the examination
of the water used for drink; the adulteration of the flours of linseed
and mustard; the use of meat of animals who had died of disease; the
researches into the salubrity of dwellings. The head of _salubrity_
comprises the anatomical theatres, their construction, the means of
remedying the causes of the unhealthiness which these establishments
present; the discharge of sulphurous waters from the public baths, the
utility of street fountains, the inspection of barracks, and the
sanitary measures to which they should be subject; the improvements to
be made in the fires of the establishments which employ coals; the
arrangements to be made for the deposit of filth in the rural districts;
the purification of sewers; the supply of water for domestic and
industrial purposes; the steps to be taken in exhumations; the
examination of different contrivances to empty privies, the
ameliorations to be introduced into this portion of service; the
wholesomeness of the markets, the inspection of prisons. The reports
which relate to _industry_ principally treat of the construction of
slaughter-houses; the condensation of the gas and vapours resulting from
the refining of metals; the fabrication, preservation, and sale of
fulminating and lucifer matches; the precautions to be taken in the
construction of fulminating powder-mills, and in the manipulation of the
substances employed there; the measures to be taken for the conveyance
of the fulminate of mercury; the researches into the employment of
bitumens, and the conditions to be prescribed to the makers; the making
wax-candles; the conditions to be imposed on cat-gut factories; the
researches on the fires of wash-houses, and on the necessity of
decomposing the soapy water to prevent putrefaction; the sanitary
measures applicable to white lead manufactories, and the researches on
the diseases of the workmen; the propositions of classification for
different trades, such as the silk-hat factories, the forges, the places
for making and keeping ether; and the beating of carpets.
Thus health, salubrity, industry, offer to the “Conseil de Salubrité” a
vast field of researches and investigations, and we may affirm that
there is no question relating to these three great departments of the
administration which they have not profoundly meditated, and in part
resolved. If now we turn to other subjects we still find important
labours which touch in several points on the different matters of which
we have just spoken, but which have not, like them, a special and
clearly-defined character: such are the reports on epidemics and
small-pox; the measures to be taken to prevent or combat them; the
_epizooties_ that have prevailed at different epochs among several
species of animals, and particularly among milking-cows; the sale of
horses with glanders, and the regulations to which they should be
subject, as well as other animals seized with contagious diseases; the
measures to be taken against mad dogs, and the precautions in case of
bites from these animals; the modelling, examination, and embalming of
corpses; the aids to be afforded to the drowned and suffocated; the
measures to be taken to ascertain the number of these accidents as well
as of suicides; the compilation of a new nosographic table of the
diseases which cause death; the measures to be taken to prevent fires in
theatres, &c. &c.
Such is a general view of the subjects upon which the council has been
called to give their opinions. It now remains to describe the
circumstances which demanded them, and the results they have produced.
One of the objects which more especially engaged the care of the council
was that of bread. It is the thing, it is true, which most directly
interests the people. The quality of bread may be deteriorated by
various ingredients, but no one could have foreseen that noxious
substances would be employed with the view, ostensibly at least, of
improving it. Nevertheless the correctional tribunal of Brussels was
called upon some years since to try some bakers brought before it under
a charge of selling bread adulterated with noxious substances. On the
occasion of this trial the prefect of police inquired of the council if,
as these bakers alleged in their defence, a small quantity of a
substance which they called _blue_ alum, put into the yeast, had the
property of rendering the bread whiter and less heavy.
In order to give their opinion, the council first examined what was the
substance called by the name of _blue_ alum. Some designate by this name
the sulphate of copper, but most people mean by blue alum the rock alum,
(sulphate of alumina and potass,) because this salt in the lump has a
bluish tinge, and, as with all the sulphates, the sulphate of which the
base is alumina is the only one which bears the name of alum, it is to
be presumed that it is this salt, or rock alum, which goes under the
name of _blue alum_, and not the sulphate of copper which is known in
commerce by the name of _blue vitriol_.
It had been long known that alum, by the action of heat equal to that of
a baker’s oven, swells, increases in volume, and becomes a porous mass,
light and very white, which is no longer alum, but a mixture of a great
deal of insoluble sub-sulphate with a small quantity of alum, a
substance astringent, and not poisonous. It is probable that this
property, known to some bakers, determined them to add to bread made of
certain flour a little of this alum, which, without being injurious to
the health, really made the bread whiter, at the same time that the
crust became brown at a less heat.
As to the employment of sulphate of copper (blue vitriol), it is only by
a gross error that it could be supposed capable of making bread white.
Nevertheless a baker of the town of Gand was prosecuted for putting this
poisonous salt into his bread. The commission appointed to examine the
bread not having been able to discover any trace of copper, mixed a
kilogram of flour, to which was added twenty-four grains of sulphate of
copper, and they affirmed that it was impossible to detect in the bread
the least trace of the salt they had introduced.
After such an assertion it became interesting to make some researches on
the subject. In consequence, the delegates of the council who were
entrusted with the inquiry, had four loaves of a kilogram of flour made
under their eyes: in one of these loaves was put twelve grains of
sulphate of copper, in another eight grains, in a third four grains, and
but two grains in the fourth. These loaves rose ill, and although the
flour with which they were made produced bread very beautiful and white,
the four loaves were so heavy as scarcely to present any cavities. The
loaf No. 1 had a green disagreeable colour; the loaf No. 2 was in like
manner green, but of a less deep colour than the preceding; No. 3 was
also greenish; and No. 4, though colourless, could not support a
comparison with the bread made from the same flour pure.
All these loaves were burnt separately in porcelain crucibles to
complete ashes. Those of the loaf No. 1 were a beautiful azure blue;
those of No. 2 a clearer sky-blue; those of No. 3 had a blue tint of a
lighter hue; and those of No. 4 were so slightly coloured that it would
have been impossible to infer that they contained copper. But all these
ashes, when submitted to the action of sulphuric acid diluted with
water, were dissolved, and when tested separately by hydrosulphuric
acid, produced black precipitates of sulphuret of copper, which
precipitates, tested separately in their turn by concentrated nitric
acid, furnished each a quantity of nitrate of copper, equal, within a
few fractions, to the sulphate added to each of the four loaves.
It results, therefore, from the preceding experiments which have been
made with the greatest care,
1. That the sulphate of copper (blue vitriol) cannot be used in making
bread for the purpose of rendering it lighter or whiter, because it
prevents its rising, and gives it a disagreeable colour;
2. That by reducing it to ashes, and employing suitable means, almost
all the salt of copper added to the bread may be collected again.
We should exceed the bounds of this Article if we were to re-produce the
numerous reports on the bread or flour submitted to the analysis of the
council, and especially on the bread and flour destined for the use of
prisons, on mixed flour, and on the quality of bread prepared from flour
mixed with starch. The council after examining this bread remarked, that
it was not disagreeable to the taste, nor liable to injure the health.
However, they were not able to pronounce on its nutritive qualities. It
has therefore been recommended that if bread made of flour so mixed was
offered for sale, it should have a peculiar form, in order that the
public should know what is the nature of the food which is sold to them.
The same conclusions have been come to with respect to the sale of bread
made of flour mixed with a seventh of the flour of rice. This bread is,
according to the council, savoury and it keeps well, and does not become
hard so soon as the bread prepared in the ordinary way. As to its
nutritive qualities, the council cannot determine on this particular,
the question being one of those which, in the actual state of science,
is the most difficult, and which can only be solved by a prolonged use
of the bread. To complete the series of reports on all that concerns
this species of food, we must speak of the leaden reservoirs made use of
by bakers. It was of moment to know whether the employment by the bakers
of Paris of leaden reservoirs to keep the water used in making bread
could give rise to accidents; whether these reservoirs should be
prohibited, or whether they might be allowed with certain modifications?
The council have studied this important question, which is become among
chemists an object of controversy. Some have affirmed that the water
gets charged with oxide of lead by remaining in reservoirs formed of
this metal. Other chemists, of no less repute, and among others Guyton
de Morveaux, have established, on the contrary, that the presence of a
neutral salt, like sulphate, nitrate or muriate, in whatever quantity,
as 000·2, suffices to prevent the water from dissolving the lead; and
they explain in this way the use that is made, without any ill effects,
of the water of the Seine, and of wells, preserved in leaden vessels,
with or without exposure to the air.
This diversity of opinion rendered necessary numerous experiments, which
have been made with the greatest exactness by a commission of the
council. It results from these experiments:—
1. That distilled water put into a reservoir gives rise at the end of
some minutes to the formation of a salt of white-lead, but that this
salt does not dissolve in the water, and is precipitated, on the
contrary, to the bottom of the reservoir.
2. That the waters of the Seine, and of wells, placed in leaden
reservoirs, have given rise, at the point of contact of the water and
air, to the formation of a white saline matter, which does not dissolve
in water but is precipitated to the bottom of the vessel.
3. That the gaseous Seltz water acts the same on the leaden reservoirs
as the water of the Seine, and of wells. Before affirming what precedes,
the commission left some water for several weeks in four leaden
reservoirs. The liquid was almost entirely evaporated, and the remainder
of the water, when filtered, showed no trace of lead on the application
of the most delicate tests, such as the chromate of potash,
hydrosulphuric acid, and hydriodate of potash.
Water which had remained in a bucket, spread over at the moment, and
throughout its whole extent, with a saline matter composed of carbonate
of lead and of lime, of sulphate of lime and organic substances, did not
leave the slightest trace of lead by the action on the water of the most
powerful tests.
In consequence of these experiments, the council pronounced a formal
opinion, that the bakers might be permitted the use of leaden reservoirs
on condition that they put a cock three inches from the bottom of the
reservoir, in order that if the insoluble carbonate formed it might be
deposited in the water below the cock, and with the further condition
that the reservoir should be cleaned once a-month. For greater security,
the council thought that it should be required of bakers to cover over
the lead which lines these reservoirs with a thin coat of wax, which
would prevent the contact of the water with the metal, and stop the
formation of the insoluble carbonate of lead. To apply this wax it is
only necessary to heat slightly the lead, and rub it rapidly and several
times with a piece of wool done over with wax.
Besides these questions which relate to the quality of the bread, the
council examined what mischief could arise from the use of copper scales
to weigh the dough of which the bread is made. It is known that the
dishes of these scales are copper, and that instead of being cleaned
with cloths they are cleaned with the chains by which they are
suspended, and which, for this purpose, are heaped together and act like
a brush. This state of things seriously engaged the attention of the
council with respect to the danger it presents. The dough, composed of
water and flour, and containing in addition a certain quantity of marine
salt, sticks to the dishes of the scales, and exercises on the metal a
chemical action, of which the result is the oxide of copper. The oxide,
or salts of copper, which is formed, next penetrates into the portion of
the dough which is afterwards detached by the friction of the chains.
We may suppose that in this case some of the oxide of copper would be
introduced into the bread, and that it is important for the public
health to take measures to prevent, from negligence or imprudence, bread
which contained even very small quantities of salts of copper, from
being offered for consumption. The council thought that all danger would
be prevented.
1. By compelling the bakers to use no scales but those of which the
dishes were of tinned iron.
2. In prescribing to them to clean the dishes of the scales by means of
chains of tinned iron, which should only be used for this purpose.
3. By obliging them to wash the chains, and the pan in which they are
kept, with warm water.
4. By prohibiting the bakers to employ in their bakehouses utensils of
zinc, or red and yellow copper.
5. By ordering the bakers, if it is not found expedient to impose the
execution of the measures indicated in the first and third articles, to
tin substantially the chains and dishes of their scales, and any
utensils of zinc, or red and yellow copper.
The council have been occupied at different periods with the
adulterations of salt, and they have not ceased to lend active
assistance to the measures of surveillance prescribed by the Government.
Unhappily its efforts were long unsuccessful. Even now the analysis
which has been made of more than 6000 samples of salt, proves that fraud
always exists, although of a kind less detrimental to the public health.
In 1829 the council proposed to forbid the sale of salt which contained
from five to six per cent. of salts with a potash base, and to oppose,
in addition, the sale of salt mixed with sea-weed, even in small
quantities. The council has since renewed their investigations. More
than 3000 samples of salt, taken from the shops, were analysed by M.
Chevalier, who discovered that 309 samples were adulterated by ground
plaster, or salts of potash, or sulphate of soda, or by the iodines.
These adulterations were found chiefly in the grey salts. The later
experiments of the council have confirmed these results. They have,
moreover, shown that the salt derived from the mines of the south is
more pure than the salt of the west. It contains less water, and less of
the insoluble matter foreign to sea-salt.
We wish we could follow the council in their numerous observations on
the filtering of water—on the use of vessels and utensils of copper—on
the dangers they present according to the circumstances in which they
are employed—and on the regulations of which they ought to be the
object; but there still remains much to be extracted, to show their
solicitude for everything which concerns the well-being of the people,
and the preservation of the public health.
The council, in an article entitled, “Necessity to submit the
Construction of Houses to Sanitary Rules,” inserted in its General
Report for 1827 (p. 39), expressed the wish to see established in the
centre of every quarter of the town a spacious square, railed in, and
planted with trees, in which the children of all classes might, without,
apprehension, and without the special superintendence of their parents,
give themselves up to the exercise suitable to their years, and in which
the inhabitants of all ages might enjoy the solar influence, and breathe
a purer air than in their dwellings. It is, they said, so much the more
needful to come to this determination, that nearly all the gardens have
given place to houses, to streets, or to passages, and that the greater
part of those which have been preserved are surrounded by houses so
lofty that vegetation languishes for want of air and light, which
renders their existence more hurtful than beneficial to health. To these
reasons, which have lost nothing of their force, we will add that which
results from the advantages the quarter would receive from the presence
of such squares in respect to the healthiness produced by favouring the
ventilation of the streets; because a square is to all the streets which
open into it a true _fourneau d’appel_ with a double current, acting by
night as well as by day, at the same time that it is a powerful means by
which to facilitate the action of the winds in the interior of the town.
By placing the charity schools in the vicinity of these squares an
advantage would be offered to the children of the poor which can rarely
be procured for them, that of experiencing the salutary action of the
sun, breathing a pure air, and taking their exercise safe from all
danger during vacations and play-hours.
These powerful considerations naturally lead the council to speak of the
construction of houses under the double relation of public and private
health.
“There are,” they say, “in the march of civilization, as in that of
sciences, epochs of progress which should be marked by the creation of
new laws. With all nations the monuments which attest their pride have
preceded the monuments which testify to their true glory; the first,
sterile, so to speak, in their existence, fix the attention by the
beauty of their form, by the elegance and grandeur of their proportions;
the second, created for the wealth or happiness of nations, attract our
notice to the utility or wisdom of their establishment. This epoch of
true glory has arrived for France. Enough of sterile monuments cover her
soil, still unfruitful in so many respects. Works of public utility,
laws which conduce to the common happiness, these are the monuments that
it is proposed to raise at the present day.
“It is a monument of this last kind of which the council ventures to
suggest the erection, in demanding a law to regulate the construction of
towns, villages, and houses, under the double relation of public and
private health; a monumental law, if ever there was one, since it will
embrace France in its conceptions; all the citizens will enjoy its
benefits with a perfect equality; and the poor man, even more than the
rich, will find himself protected by it in his health, in his life, in
his happiness; because health is life—it is more, it is happiness.
“A similar law has never existed among any ancient people, although we
find among several of them no equivocal proofs of the solicitude of
their legislators to introduce into the laws some precepts of health,
applicable to the people they governed.
“We certainly find among the greater part of modern nations some
ordinances, and regulations, relative to the salubrity of towns and
houses; but their operation does not extend beyond the localities for
which they were made, and little, or not at all, known out of these
localities, they are still very imperfect, and altogether insufficient
for the localities themselves.
“Nevertheless, can any one doubt the immense influence which the
salubrity of towns, of villages, and of the dwelling, even when it is
isolated in the midst of fields, exercises on the health and life of the
people. All statistics, general and individual, attest this extreme
influence; and there is no physician, a little observing, who has not
had frequent occasions to verify it at the bed-side of his patients.
“We must be like the men, so well painted by the Psalmist, to reject
such evidence—_eyes have they and see not_. How shall we explain, or
rather, to what shall we attribute the difference that is remarked
between the mortality of one quarter and that of another quarter of the
same town; of one street and that of another street of the same quarter
or of the same village; or, lastly, the difference that is observed in
this respect between the houses of the same street, and those houses
which are completely isolated. Misery, it is replied to us, is the
cause. Yes, without doubt, misery is a powerful cause; but it is so
especially when it is driven back into the most insalubrious quarters,
streets, and houses; when it lives habitually in the midst of filth and
dirt, that is to say, in the midst of an infected atmosphere; and when
there is no misery, or when it exists in the same degree in the
quarters, in the villages, in the streets, and in the houses with which
the comparison is made, and, stronger still, when poverty is met with
precisely there where there is the least mortality, in what is to be
found the cause of this difference, if it is not in the insalubrity of
the dwelling-places?
“If you had not seen yourself, Monsieur le Prefet, in one of the most
beautiful streets of Paris, and in the vicinity of the most frequented
promenade of the capital, the influence which the construction of the
houses we inhabit has on the health, we would seek by some facts to
convince you of this truth; but we are happy to need only to refer you
to your own experience. This great fact, which naturally results from
the comparison you have drawn, in a report addressed to the Minister of
Commerce, the 31st of June, 1832, between the mortality of the quarter
of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and that of the quarter of the Chaussée-d’Antin,
has not escaped you. Yet, in the striking difference which is found
between the mortality of these two quarters, you have not taken into
account the poor who died in the hospitals, and who were, undeniably,
more numerous from the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville than from that of
the Chaussée-d’Antin. What calculation has demonstrated to you for one
quarter of Paris exists in all in different degrees; and the same
calculation applied to other localities, very distant from the capital,
in which the condition, the habits, the mode of living, and the nature
of the labour which the inhabitants perform are nearly the same, has
given analogous results, presenting the same extremes, without the
possibility of assigning any other cause than the insalubrity of the
dwellings understood in its widest acceptation.
“The council might accumulate facts, calculations, and quotations, to
support the opinion they have formed of the necessity of a law to
regulate the construction of towns, villages, and houses, under the
double relation of public and private health; but they have no need to
be at this pains to induce you to share their conviction, and they are
fully persuaded that, in proposing to you to promote a law so important,
they are only anticipating your desire to co-operate for the well-being:
of your fellow-citizens, and to aid the enlightened zeal of the Minister
of the Interior for all that is great and useful.”
Under certain points of view, salubrity confounds itself with health; on
another side, it governs health; because, without it no good rules of
health can be established. Thus it has engaged the special attention of
the council. We see them to shrink from no difficulty, from no mission,
however painful, however dangerous even, it may be. Nothing escapes
their vigilant attention, and the administration is always sure to have
their aid in all the amendments that it wishes to introduce into this
important branch of public service. It is thus that they pass in review
all which appertains to the wholesomeness of sewers, to the improvement
of the paving, to the establishment of street-fountains, to the flow of
water for domestic or manufacturing purposes, to the cleansing of wells,
and of waste-water wells. The construction of the receptacles of
privies, those incessant causes of insalubrity and inconvenience,
occupies them above all. Here is what they say upon this point:—
“The emptying of the privies in the city of Paris has become a very
heavy expense to the proprietors, and the expense is always on the
increase, in consequence of the modifications in the construction of the
receptacles, and the more abundant use of water; a use rendered
necessary by the actual form of the seats, and still more by the
introduction of private baths.
“It is evident that the first condition for obtaining a result at once
economical and salubrious, is to separate, on the spot, the solid matter
from the liquid, to preserve what has an intrinsic value, and to reject
what is only cumbersome.
“For more than half a century some men, animated by love for the public
good, and several speculators, have directed their researches to
discover a method of making this separation. At the head of these are
Girard and Gourlier, Casaneuve, Sanson, Derosne, Chaumet, the authors of
the article in the _Mémorial de l’Officier du Génie_, and, lastly, the
architects Payen and Dalmont.
“The system of Gourlier is seducing: if it has not yet been submitted to
all the trials it requires, we are able to predict before hand that it
will succeed, and that it will be productive of advantage.
“The benefits of the project of Gourlier are found in a higher degree in
that which has been adopted in barracks.[55]
“The system of movable receptacles has the sanction of time, is
applicable everywhere, facilitates the removal of the contents, and
enables it to be done without smell or dirt: it preserves the workmen
from the dangers of asphyxy, prevents the decay of our houses, and
contributes to augment the disposable mass of manure.
“To prevent the gravest consequences, it is essential not to conduct the
liquid from the privies into waste-water wells, and put them in
communication with the upper layer of the soil in which our wells are
sunk. Prudence requires that the liquid should not be directed into the
second layer, which in many parts of Paris furnishes very good water. If
it is possible, without great inconvenience, to conduct it into channels
altogether lower, it is still the opinion of many experienced persons
that it ought not to be done under Paris for any very considerable
quantities of water, and that it is necessary to reserve this resource
for localities badly situated, and which are rarely met with.
“All the proofs show that the liquid of the privies may be discharged
into the Seine without inconvenience. An investigation conducted
formerly by Hallé and Fourcroy, on the sweepings of Paris, adds great
weight to this opinion. The ancient and recent gaugings, as well as the
daily observation of facts, demonstrate that the quantity of dirty water
sent into the Seine would be so small compared to the water of the
river, that it would always remain unperceived, and could in no way be
injurious to health.
“To convey these waters to the Seine, the first idea which presents
itself is to cast them into one of the three great sewers which surround
Paris on the north.
“A mass of facts and observations prove that the discharge into the
sewers of the liquid from the privies will not infect the sewers, nor
cause danger to those who work in them; that this infection will be so
much the less to be apprehended with the apparatus of Gourlier, with
that which has been adopted in barracks, and with the movable
receptacles, that, by these different methods, the separation taking
place slowly and successively, the liquid carries along with it but very
little of solid matter.
“Everything seems to show that by mixing the liquid from the privies
with a sufficient quantity of water it might, without inconvenience, be
thrown upon the public way, and got rid of in this manner; but prudence
requires that before any innovations of this kind the project should be
submitted to minute and multiplied experiments. These experiments are
the more important, that the result would be to increase the revenues of
the city by the sale of a considerable quantity of water which it has
for disposal.
“If the drying of the solid contents of the privies has hitherto been
considered as one of the most infectious and inconvenient trades, it may
be affirmed that it can now be made one of the less disagreeable, a
circumstance which we owe to the means of disinfection recently
discovered, or which, formerly known, have not been put in practice till
lately on a large scale.[56]
“To favour the employment of these means, and to arrive thereby at
results of high importance, it is not sufficient for the administration
to be animated by praiseworthy intentions. It must obtain, by its
interposition with the supreme authority, a modification in the
classification of the establishments in which the fecal substances are
prepared, and, above all, must use the means at its disposal to disabuse
the public of the prejudices it entertains against these sort of places.
The administration will meet at first with very great obstacles, but,
with time and perseverance, may rest confident of success.
“The changes proposed are of such importance, they will be attended by
consequences so useful, and extensive, that they will be sufficient to
render illustrious to future generations, and to recommend to their
gratitude, the name of the ministers who shall effect them.”
Since their institution, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have been charged to
visit all the parts of France in which epidemic sicknesses have
appeared. Thus we find them in 1807 investigating the autumnal disorders
which broke out at Créteil, at Maisons, at Charenton, &c., and proposing
the creation of a travelling hospital to render aid to the country
districts during the prevalence of epidemics. Some years later, in 1810,
they went to Montreuil, to Montmartre, and other communes in which the
small-pox had assumed an epidemic character; to Pantin where there
reigned an epidemic fever; to Fontenay-sur-Bois, Rosny, &c., where some
ravages had been made by the dysentery. In 1812 they set forth the
causes of the epidemic maladies which had declared themselves in the
communes of Charonne, and Clicky, and by this means prevented their
recurrence. In 1818 they stopped the progress of an endemic fever in the
commune of Chevilly, and of the croup in the commune of Montreuil. In
1825 the small-pox committed great ravages among the inhabitants of
Paris, and of the rural communes of the department of the Seine. Brought
by a mass of workmen who flocked from the country to partake of the high
wages produced by a glut of employment, it was rapidly propagated among
a population who, through carelessness, or prejudice, had rejected the
blessing of vaccination. The small-pox, favoured in its development by
the high temperature of the atmosphere, gave rise for a moment to a
doubt of the preservative property of the vaccine. An eruptive malady,
the _varioloïde_, confounded with the small-pox by people in general,
and by inattentive and inexperienced medical men, originated this idea,
which some cases—rare certainly, but distinctly marked—of small-pox in
persons who had had the true cow-pox, appeared to confirm. It was then
feared that the vaccine had lost with time the advantages which rendered
it so precious; that, weakened in its nature, by passing from one
individual to another through a long course of years, it was no more
susceptible of modifying the organization in a manner to render it
inaccessible to the small-pox. It became therefore important to examine
with care this interesting point of practice. The difficult task was
performed by the council, and the administration, enlightened by their
reports, was able both to re-assure the people justly alarmed, and to
take the proper measures to arrest an evil of which no one could foresee
the consequences.
It is by such labours that the council prepared themselves for the noble
and grand mission which was reserved for them by the appearance in the
capital of the cholera morbus,—a mission which they fulfilled with so
much courage and devotion. In the midst of this public calamity, the
“Conseil de Salubrité,” we do not hesitate to say, surpassed all
expectation. This same zeal was manifested in 1837, when the epidemic
catarrh made some ravages in the capital. Since then, with the exception
of local maladies of little importance, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have
not been called upon to occupy themselves with epidemics.
The _épizooties_ are in many respects less serious than the epidemics.
Nevertheless, as they often affect the animals which serve for the
nutriment of man, and that, apart from this consideration, they may have
grave consequences for the public health, they have constantly engaged
the care of the council. In 1834 an _épizootie_ was reported to the
administration, which prevailed among the cows of the communes round
Paris, and which caused a great mortality. The researches of the council
established that this _épizootie_ was only a chronic disease, a true
pulmonary phthisis to which has been given the name of _pommeliere_, and
by which the greater part of the cows had been attacked which fill the
stables of the milkmen of Paris and its environs. According to the
council, the principal cause of the evil was to be attributed to the
vicious regimen to which this species of animal is subjected. “It is
known that they pass a part of the year in stables perfectly closed, in
which the space is not proportioned to the number of inmates, in which
the vitiated air renews itself with extreme difficulty, and in which the
heat is sometimes suffocating. It is known also that they pass suddenly
from the food of the stable to pasture, and that in this change they go
from the hot and humid atmosphere of the stable, to a sudden exposure to
the continual variations of the external air. This alternation of food,
and of heat and cold, operates as a powerful cause of disease. But as
the evil does not announce itself in a violent manner, as its progress
is not very rapid, as there is even a period in the disease in which the
animal is disposed to get flesh, the cow-feeder, who knows to what point
to keep her, sells her when she is ready to calve. It is in a radius of
thirty leagues from the capital that cows of this kind are purchased by
the jobbers who supply the milkmen of Paris. With these last they still
hold out a certain number of years, if they are properly cared for; but
in general they are kept in stables which are neither sufficiently
large, nor sufficiently airy, where they are exposed to the same causes
which gave birth to the malady. The phthisis arrives insensibly at its
last stage, and carries off every year from Paris, and its
neighbourhood, a great number of these cows.
“As to the question, whether the sale of the flesh of oxen that have
died from the diseases just described should be allowed, the council
have already shown that, from time immemorial, the meat of cows attacked
by pulmonary phthisis in a slight degree, has been consumed at Paris as
good cow-beef. Often even cows which have reached the last stage of this
disease are consigned to the butcher, who offers their flesh for sale as
meat of the second quality, after taking the precaution to cut away the
lungs, the pericardium, the mediastin, and those parts of the sides and
diaphragm, which present a state of disorganization more or less
advanced. This commerce has always taken place in the environs of Paris,
and in Paris itself before the establishment of the _abattoirs_; and if
we are not able to affirm that food of this nature is not bad, there is
at least no example of its use having given rise to accidents. It is to
be presumed that in this case, as in many others, the cooking destroys
the vicious properties of the flesh, and deprives it of all the
qualities injurious to the health of the consumer.
“The council have, however, been far from drawing from all these facts
the conclusion that it is unnecessary to watch over the sale of
butchers’ meat. They think, on the contrary, that this superintendence
cannot be too active, in order that the low price of such meat may not
lead poor families to make it habitually their principal sustenance. It
is known that a bad diet which is not injurious when used casually, may
become, by its continual employment, a source of disease. Numerous
observations have equally taught us, that the flesh of animals in which
putrefaction had commenced, has produced in persons who touched it the
most serious consequences. The council, building upon such data, believe
that it is indispensable to watch with the greatest care the sale of
meat, to have destroyed all the bad meat which is exposed in the shops,
and to forbid the butchers to sell the flesh of any animal that has died
from disease, or been killed in consequence of disease, unless a
veterinary surgeon and physician, appointed by authority, have decided
that the meat could be eaten without inconvenience.”
Some considerations of a kind still more general are developed in the
important report made by the commission, charged in 1839 with the
investigation of the disease called _cocotte_, which attacked the
milking-cows, and deeply occupied the public attention.
We stated at the commencement of this article, that the number of
reports made by the “Conseil de Salubrité,” during the years comprised
in this account, amounts to 4431. This number greatly surpasses in its
proportions that of the preceding years, that is to say, of the twenty
years which form the first period of their labours, dating from their
institution, and which only presents a total of 5008 reports. This
arises from the fact that Paris for a long time has been only a city of
produce, and that the labours of the council have necessarily increased
with the progress of trade, and the character, altogether manufacturing,
assumed by the department of the Seine since 1815. It is necessary,
moreover, to remark that the provisions of the decree of 1810 on
insalubrious establishments, by submitting certain classes of
manufactories to special authorizations, rendered more frequent the
intervention of the council, who were the first to demonstrate the
necessity of these new measures. “It is a great satisfaction to the
council,” say the reporters of their labours for the year 1810, “that
every year the observations and reports lead to general measures which
simplify your administration, by giving certain rules of which the
application becomes every day more easy. The public health was long
since compromised by the existence of certain manufactures, and in the
general accounts we have rendered we have never ceased to demand the
removal of insalubrious establishments. The National Institute,
consulted on this important point, shared our opinion, and a regulatory
law has just designated the manufactures which may be established in the
interior of towns, and those which are not to be tolerated there.”
In the year 1811 we find 118 reports on classed establishments. This
number increased in 1812, and so from year to year, till in 1813, 313
reports were made on establishments of this kind. The use of
steam-engines increased the labours of the council. In 1813, for
instance, there was but one report on these engines; in 1822, the number
had risen already to fifteen. The examination of these machines led the
council to examine their different systems, the dangers and
inconveniences they presented to the public health or safety, and we
foresee, in reading their important observations on this subject, all
the improvements which experience introduced in the sequel into this new
branch of industry. If we pass from the year 1822 to the year 1839, we
find there has been read ninety-six reports on engines of this
description: but they are no longer simple considerations on machines of
which the use is not well understood; they are views of an elevated
order, both on the application of these engines, and on their dangers
and inconveniences. We see that the council have profoundly studied
these important questions.
“We have united under one head,” says M. Busy, the reporter, “all the
establishments on which reports have been made relative to
steam-engines. Each of these establishments doubtless offers by itself
some inconveniences inherent in the kind of trade carried on; but in
general these inconveniences are trifling. The greater part of the
manufactories about which there is a question are for the construction
of engines, and other analogous things, which can only affect the
neighbourhood by the noise and activity which reign there. Out of
sixty-three reports made to the council on steam-engines, eleven were on
sawing-machines, nine on shops for the construction of engines, six on
fulminating powder-mills, four on factories for printing and preparing
stuffs, three on mechanical printing presses. The other reports are
divided in the following manner:
“On machines for flattening metal, for bruising colours, for
pulverizing, for mixing mortar, for extracting stone, seven; for sugar
refining, for the making of sugar of starch, three; for spinning, two;
for turning, two; for optical glasses, two; for polishing steel, one;
for cleaning grain, for the preservation of provisions, three; for
perfumery, two: for soap-making, two; for bleaching, for making candles,
hats, and delf-ware, for ironfounding, for scouring ashes, six; total
63.
“There has been made besides on simple steam-boilers 33 reports, divided
among different trades in the following manner, viz:—
For printing and preparing of stuffs and woollens 12
Hat manufactories 7
Wax and tallow candle manufactories 3
The shops of mechanicians 2
Refining 2
Soap-making 2
Extraction of the colouring matter from dye-woods 2
Baths 2
Dyeing 1
“If we add these 33 reports to the 63 preceding, we have a total of 96
reports on steam-engines, or simple boilers. We join them together in
consequence of the identity of the inconveniences to which these
machines give rise. These inconveniences can only proceed from the
chance of explosion of compressed steam, or from the chance of fire, and
from the presence of smoke, which accompany the establishment of every
furnace, whatever may be its use. It is true, however, that among the
complaints or objections which have reached the council, several have
turned upon the noise and shaking occasioned by the steam-engines, a
shaking which is particularly felt in houses a little shut in, and
connected with the neighbouring houses. This occurred with the printing
presses, and some other mechanical applications of steam.
“But these results are altogether independent of the steam itself, are
inherent in the imperfection of the mechanism employed, and would be
produced with much greater intensity by substituting for steam a horse,
a fall of water, the action of the wind, or any other mechanical motor.
“If we consider the steam-engines and boilers with respect to the
explosions to which they may give birth, we see that no accident has
happened during the current year from a total or partial explosion of an
engine, and yet there is no complaint or opposition which is not swelled
by the fear of these dangers. If the accidents of this nature may with
justice, by their seriousness and sphere of action, provoke the fears of
the neighbours, the wise measures prescribed by the rules are of a
nature to render them impossible, when they are faithfully executed.
Thus, Monsieur le Prefect, the council have always vigorously insisted
on the maintenance of the precautions with which the law surrounds the
steam-engines, not only to shield the responsibility of your
administration, but also because they are persuaded that it is
impossible in the actual state of things to neglect these prescriptions
without exposing those who make use of steam-engines to eminent dangers.
“The true and the most serious inconvenience of steam-engines is the
smoke. It is against this that most of the well-founded complaints are
raised.
“This inconvenience is not only felt at the present moment, but it
excites, above all, apprehensions for the future.
“When we consider that in the single year 1839, there have been granted
82 authorizations for steam-engines, and that we are yet but at the
beginning of the applications of this mechanical agent,—when we follow
the increasing progression of petitions addressed to the administration,
we are not able to suppress a certain fear against the ulterior
invasions of the smoke from these establishments.
“The council have applied themselves for a long time to the solution of
this difficulty, which is met at every turn in the petitions addressed
to you, not only for steam-engines, but for all the trades in which
furnaces are employed.
“Various systems have been proposed: that which first presents itself is
the use of smoke-consuming furnaces, which appears in fact the most
rational and appropriate. Nevertheless, although it is very easy to
assign the theoretical conditions for complete combustion of coal, the
difficulties of application have not permitted this kind of furnace to
become general. Hitherto the smoke-consuming furnaces require great
precision in the execution, great regularity in the distribution of the
fuel,—things difficult to realize in ordinary labour. On the other hand,
the great excess of air necessary to obtain complete combustion often
diminishes the efficacy of the coal, and renders these furnaces more
expensive, in certain cases, than the ordinary furnaces, in spite of the
loss of fuel which the latter involve.
“The mechanical distributors to regulate the supply of fuel, and the
activity of the combustion, have been also proposed and employed with
success; but they are a considerable expense at the outset, and can be
but little adopted except in great concerns, and where there is a very
constant application of steam.
“It remains to modify the nature of the fuel; and it is this which the
council have generally done. They commonly prescribe the use of coke, or
some variety of prepared coal, which gives no smoke—leaving it however
to the proprietors to make use of whichever method suits them best,
whether smoke-consuming furnaces, mechanical distributors, or fuel which
yields no smoke.
“These regulations, Monsieur le Prefect, have been adopted in principle
by the “Conseil de Salubrité,” and are, in the majority of cases, the
condition to which they think it their duty to submit the authorizations
they have the honour to propose to you.
“Doubtless their rigorous application may cramp certain establishments.
The council are not ignorant that for some particular purposes the use
of coke presents great obstacles, considering the construction of the
furnaces; but the absence of smoke in the combustion of coal is not so
very difficult to obtain, as to shake the intimate conviction of the
council that this constriction will be but momentary, and that it will
end by turning to the profit of the manufacturer.
“The problem of which the council seek the solution, is able to be
resolved; it is so already in great part, but there yet remains one step
to arrive at the goal, and they will reach it by persevering in the
course they have adopted. In their efforts they have been sustained, we
repeat, by the conviction that they labour not only for the advantage of
the health and cleanliness of the capital, by seeking to guarantee its
inhabitants from the nuisance of smoke, but also for the advantage of
the manufacturer himself, by forcing him to a better employment of his
fuel, and by putting him into such a condition that he may be able to
select the localities which suit him, without being exposed to those
continual complaints, to those recriminations, often well-founded, which
have not always been foreseen, and which sometimes become the cause of
the greatest embarrassments to the manufacturing establishments.
“An important progress in the path we indicate was made in 1839, by the
contrivance of M. Beslay, a mechanician, for steam-boilers—a contrivance
which has been pointed out in several reports on this subject, and which
proposes to prevent explosions and avoid smoke by means of a general use
of coke. It is only to be regretted that it has not yet been able to be
applied to all the purposes for which steam-boilers are employed.”
The improvements introduced by the council into the different branches
of industry with which they have had to deal, and on which their reports
enter into details at once useful and interesting, are numerous. Thus
the refining of gold and silver, the factories for fulminating powder,
for gilding, for chemical products, for bitumen, for melting tallow, and
a mass of other trades, owe to them notable improvements, both in the
methods of fabrication, and in the conditions for public health and
safety under which they are to be carried on. The white-lead
manufactories have excited their earnest solicitude. It is known that
the workmen who labour in these places are subject to serious and
frequent maladies. In consulting the earlier labours of the council, we
see them unceasingly occupied with this question; but the frequency of
the accidents, and their seriousness, have more particularly attracted
their attention in these latter times, and have engaged them to compile
a set of instructions which set forth the best rules of health to be
observed in these manufactories. (The rules have already been quoted.)
Later, the council have anew examined deeply this branch of trade. They
have visited the manufactories of white-lead existing in the department
of the Seine; they have obtained the experience of other departments,
and they have shown the necessity of commissioning one of their members
to follow the results of the rules quoted above. They have required,
moreover, that the administration should furnish some statistics on the
state of workers in white-lead admitted into the hospital. The
administration has hastened to defer to this wish, and there is no doubt
that there will result a sensible improvement in the health of the
workmen.
(After giving several other minor instances of the labours of the
Conseil, the report thus concludes:—)
And now that we have detailed the principal labours of the council, it
would be a necessary supplement to this article to show the results that
have followed from them,—the reforms they have introduced into the
public service. But here we are no more dealing with the labours of the
council, but with the labours of the administration. Thus independently
of the decisions on classed establishments, and which amount to about
300 a-year, it would be necessary to describe the measures for the
public health executed by the administration. But to confine ourselves
only to acts which interest the generality of the citizens, we may cite
the ordinances of police which relate to coloured sugar-plums; to horses
attacked with the glanders, or contagious maladies; to vessels and
utensils of copper; to the adulteration of salt; to the aid to be given
to the drowned and asphyxied; to the depôts for refuse in the rural
communes; to the dissection, modelling, and embalming of corpses; to the
cleaning of wells and waste-water wells; to the adulteration and sale of
fulminating powder; to the classification of new trades, the
amphitheatres of anatomy, the establishments of pork-butchers, &c. &c.
Certainly there are few institutions that can show such results; there
are few that receive an impulse so enlightened and constant. Bound in an
intimate manner with the administration of which they form part, the
“Conseil de Salubrité” has at all times, found in it a just appreciator
of their labours. They know the credit accorded to their reports, and
the duties imposed on them by a confidence so honourable for the
administration that gives it, and so justly merited by the body that
receives it.
16.—_Qualifications of Officers of Public Health: Statement by_ M.
DUCHÂTELET.
It is generally thought in the world that the medical knowledge acquired
in the schools is all that is necessary to become a useful member of the
council. The greater part of medical men themselves share this opinion;
and on the strength of some precepts which they have collected from
books on health and professions, they think themselves sufficiently
instructed to decide on the instant the gravest questions, which can
only be resolved by special studies.
A man may have exhausted medical literature; he may be an excellent
practician at the sick-bed, a learned physician, a clever and eloquent
professor; but all these acquirements, taken in themselves, are nearly
useless in a Conseil de Salubrité like that of Paris; and if an occasion
presents itself to make use of them, a very small number of persons
suffice to apply them. To be really useful in the council, it is
necessary to have an extended knowledge of natural philosophy, of the
constitution of the soil on which Paris stands, and of the geology of
neighbouring countries; it is necessary, above all, to know with
exactness the action which trades may have on the health of those who
exercise them, and the much more important action of manufactories of
every species on plants, on men congregated in towns, and on animals.
This knowledge, so important, of the action of manufactories and trades,
is not to be acquired by ordinary study, or in the silence of the
cabinet. It is not to be obtained without positive notions on the arts,
and on the greater part of the processes peculiar to each trade. It
requires habit and the frequenting of the places of work. In this
particular, more even than with medicine, books are not a substitute for
practice; and if there exist works on the subject, they are more likely
to mislead than enlighten.
From what has been said, the necessity will be evident to introduce into
the council those physicians who have made health, and particularly the
public health, a special study; and to join with them chemists, and,
above all, manufacturing chemists, because what would many of those
persons, whose life has been passed in hospitals and the exclusive study
of medicine, be before a steam engine? It is clear that they would often
be deceived by those adroit and skilful manufacturers who would have an
interest in concealing the truth.
17.—_Instance by_ MM. DUCHÂTELET _and_ D’ARCET _of the erroneous Medical
Inferences as to the insalubrity of particular Trades_.
Ramazzini is, as far as we know, the first who has treated professedly
of the maladies produced by the fumes of tobacco. In his great work, _De
Morbis Artificum_, he states that the workmen employed in the
manufacture of tobacco are seized with great pains in the head, with
vertigo, nausea, and perpetual sneezing; and that so great is the
subtilty of this substance, that all the neighbourhood, particularly in
summer, experience nausea. He adds, that those who work on tobacco lose
their appetite, and that their breath is insupportable.
Fourcroy, after repeating in his translation of Ramazzini all the
passages from this author, adds, in a note, several observations to
prove the dangers of tobacco; such as, that a lady died from a cancer in
the nose in consequence of taking too much snuff; another from a polypus
in the œsophagus, which prevented her swallowing; another from frightful
convulsions produced by sleeping in a room in which tobacco had been
rasped. Fourcroy states, however, that there are some privileged persons
who become accustomed to the action of tobacco, and experience no
inconvenience from it.
Cadet-Gassicourt, in a memoir addressed to the prefect of police on the
maladies incident to the trades carried on in Paris, says that the
workmen occupied in the preparation of tobacco are subject to vomitings,
colics, and acute and chronic affections of the chest; that they have
often vertigo, bloody fluxes, and are addicted to drink.
Tourtelle, in his _Elémens d’Hygiène_, affirms that it is very dangerous
to sleep in warehouses of tobacco; and he quotes a case, mentioned by
Buchoz, of a young girl of five, who died in a short time from dreadful
vomitings, occasioned by this sole cause.
Percy, in the article _Chapeau_, in the _Dictionnaire des Sciences
Médicales_, mentions, that some soldiers, exercising in the
_Champ-de-Mars_ in very warm weather, were overcome by syncope, which he
attributes to some tobacco that these men had put in their caps.
In a new edition of Ramazzini and Fourcroy, by Patissier, we find the
opinions of these authors without observation or comment. The editor is
content to add, that those who have to do with tobacco are, in general,
wasted, discoloured, yellow, and asthmatical.
Finally, Merat, in the article _Tabac_, in the _Dictionnaire des
Sciences Médicales_, says, that men engaged in the preparation of this
substance are wasted, discoloured, yellow, asthmatic, subject to colic,
diarrhœa, the bloody flux, but, above all, to vertigo, cephalalgia,
muscular tremor, to true narcotism, and to diseases, more or less acute,
of the chest. “All these assertions,” he continues, “are the fruit of my
observations in the hospitals of Paris. Tobacco causes not only evils
without number, but even death to those who prepare it. It deranges the
memory of all who inhale it, and renders it less clear and entire; it
weakens the tissues, especially the nervous tissues; it causes trembling
of the limbs; diminishes strength; it produces emaciation, and even
consumption, particularly among females; and sometimes begets entire
imbecility.”
“We might multiply these quotations. The just celebrity of the authors
who have furnished them gives to their opinion a force which imposes
belief, and makes us reject every species of doubt. Let us recall,
however, the maxim of Descartes; let us cease to believe the words of a
master; let us dare to doubt for an instant, and, observing for
ourselves, let us learn to form an opinion, based on what our own senses
and judgment have taught us.”
Acting in this spirit, Parent Duchâtelet and D’Arcet carried on a minute
investigation, in a vast manufactory of tobacco at Paris, containing
1,054 workmen. Not content with the results afforded by a single
establishment, they directed questions to the nine other great
manufactories of tobacco which France contains, and the answers were
prepared by the physicians, surgeons, and officers of each establishment
in conjunction. “The observations,” say MM. Duchâtelet and D’Arcet,
“which compose this memoir, have been collected from a sum total of 4518
workmen. They appear to us so much the more valuable and conclusive,
that they have been made simultaneously in the most opposite parts of
France, by men who had not, and could not have, any connexion. There is
thus no possibility to suspect the influence of a preconceived opinion;
and if those to whom our inquiries were addressed are unanimous in their
replies, and if these replies agree with our own observations, we shall
be sure that we have arrived at the truth.”
The conclusions which followed from these widely extended researches
were—
1. That in the greater part of the factories there was never known an
example of an individual who could not accustom himself to the
emanations of tobacco, and that in the rare cases where it proved
injurious, it was always in a particular part of the process, which
merely obliged the workman to be transferred to another department of
the factory.
2. That all which has been said on the frequency of nausea, of
vomitings, of diarrhœa, of colic, and of haemorrhages, is pure
supposition. That it is so no less with respect to the headaches,
sneezings, loss of appetite, foulness of breath, acute and chronic
affections of the chest, cancers, and other similar diseases. What the
same authors say on the discolouration of the skin of the workmen
engaged in the preparation of tobacco, on the yellow hue of their
complexion, their leanness, and emaciation, proves that they have not
observed for themselves, or have only seen the exceptions to the rule,
or have not compared this class of people with other workmen of the same
town, who were engaged in occupations of a totally different kind.
3. That tobacco, far from producing, in those who prepare it, death and
narcotism, does not even influence their nervous system; and that
vertigo, syncope, muscular tremor, convulsions, and other like evils,
which have been charged against it, have never existed in the
manufactories, though the men sleep in the midst of the most subtil
preparations, or, at least, are not to be attributed to that cause.
4. Not only is the tobacco without any effect on the health during the
first years devoted to its preparation, it has not the least ill
consequences in more advanced life. Feebleness and great age, or causes
altogether accidental, have been the sole ground for dismissing the
workmen.
5. There are some professions which, without destroying health in an
evident manner, abridge life; but a great number of those who work on
tobacco reach, and even surpass, the ordinary limit of human existence.
6. It is proved by innumerable facts, that the manufactories of tobacco
are not in anywise injurious to the men, animals, or plants, which may
exist in their vicinity.
It thus turns out, upon examination, that this much maligned substance
is perfectly innocuous. “Yet what practitioner,” say MM. Parent
Duchâtelet and D’Arcet, “who had not had occasion to visit the workshops
and study their influence, would not be forced into belief by the
imposing authorities we have quoted above; who of them would hesitate to
regard as demonstrated opinions on which Ramazzini, Fourcroy, Cadet
Gassicourt, Tourtelle, Percy, Patissier, Merat and others are unanimous,
without a single person having uttered a contrary assertion? There are
found among these authorities two members of the Royal Academy of
Medicine, three members of the Academy of Sciences, two professors of
the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, one professor of the Faculty of
Medicine of Strasbourg, two chemists, and two celebrated physicians—one
French, the other Italian; in a word, six physicians and an apothecary,
who held, and still hold, the most eminent places in the learned world.
It is therefore evident that it is of the highest importance that trades
and professions should be investigated differently from what they have
hitherto been; and this importance daily increases, because of the
progress and extension of arts and manufactures.”
18.—_On the Habitations of the Lower Orders of Paris._
No. 1.
The labouring classes are obliged to live in houses almost always
dilapidated, insufficient, or unhealthy. Such is the lot of the poor man
in all countries: the force of circumstances, the hard law of necessity,
compel it. Yet, if it is impossible to remedy completely this state of
things, may we not approximate to it, by building houses for every grade
of the lower orders—not only of the honest poor, but of the debased and
depraved? It appears to me that these houses would have a double
advantage;—they would diminish the causes of public insalubrity, and
offer to the honest and economical workman the means to procure a
residence equal to his necessities, and capable of producing in him the
taste for retirement and domestic peace so favourable to morals. It is
especially in this last point of view that the amelioration of the
dwellings of the poor and laborious class is to be ranked among the
preservatives against vicious habits.
Rent being one of the most important and indispensable domestic
expenses, the father of a family, pressed by other wants of the first
necessity, naturally seeks the least costly habitation. Now, these
habitations exist only in certain quarters, and in certain streets of
those quarters: they are old, ruined, and filthy. The proprietors, in
order to tenant them, let the lodgings very low, and thus attract the
poorer families. If these lodgings were healthy, if they were sufficient
for all the members of the family, there would be no room for censure;
but they are foul, badly lighted, and neither air-tight nor water-tight.
They are small, and as parents and children live and sleep in the same
room, the overcrowding is both a cause of unhealthiness, and an offence
against good morals. Moreover, the bad state and filth of the passages,
privies, and sinks, give rise to infectious exhalations, which vitiate
the air of these humble abodes, and affect the health of their
inhabitants in a manner so much more mischievous that the greater part
of them work all the day in crowded and ill-ventilated shops.
It would be worthy of a wise administration to remedy this dangerous
complication. The task is doubtless difficult; but why not grapple with
it boldly, instead of allowing to subsist in Paris, without any effort
to destroy them, so many centres of infection which reduce to the level
of the lowest animals the unfortunate beings who seek in them a retreat
for the night.
Although the lodgings are not all repulsive, they are all alike open to
criticism. Some offend by overcrowding, others by the mode of sleeping;
others, lastly, by the absence of all ventilation, and even by a total
want of air. Overcrowding is an evil which prevails in all the lodgings
of the lowest class, and which aggravates the mischief resulting from
the other inconveniences to which they are subject. The twenty-five or
thirty thousand workmen employed in house-building, who flock to Paris
every year from certain departments, congregate in chambers, and sleep
there during the season. Many of these places are kept by countrymen of
their own, who attract them by their known probity, and the kindness
they entertain for them. These chambers abound principally in the
quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville for the masons, and in the Faubourg
Saint-Martin for the carpenters. These excellent workmen, by an
exception more peculiar to them than to any others, look only to
economy. They bargain with the lodging-house keeper, so as to obtain for
six francs a month, besides the room, the washing of a shirt a-week, and
a mess of soup every day, for which they themselves provide the bread.
All that is not devoted to their slender wants is laid by for the
support of their family, or the increase of their little patrimony. The
police unanimously testify to the order and concord which reign in their
chambers, as well as to their good conduct abroad. Is it not mournful
that these fine fellows should sleep thus piled up in little garrets?
Accustomed to work in the open air, the smallness of their rooms is more
trying to them than to any others. Thus typhus fever is common among
them, and sometimes attacks a whole chamber.
The overcrowding and deficient ventilation are still more injurious to
workmen employed in manufactures. They pass every day from an infected
lodging into a shop which is usually as unwholesome, and they are thus
predisposed to contract readily contagious maladies.
Of all the lower orders, the chiffonniers inhabit the most infected and
disgusting lodgings. It is vain to expect to descend into the lowest
ranks of society,—inequality always appears somewhere. Even the
chiffonniers have their notables. There are some a little more
economical, a little more raised than the mass, and who enjoy a certain
comfort. Those the most elevated occupy one or two small rooms, which
they hire for themselves and their families; others possess a pallet,
which serves them to sleep on, in the chamber of which they are one
occupant among many. But this possession is more often collective than
personal; and although shared, it does not fail to excite the envy of
the poor wretches who lie in a species of trough, on rags, or on
handsful of straw, with which the room is strewed. The police charged
with the surveillance of the lodgings inhabited by the chiffonniers give
an incredible picture of them. Each occupant keeps by him his basket,
sometimes full of filth—and what filth! These savages do not hesitate to
comprise dead animals in their gleanings, and pass the night by the side
of this stinking prey. When the police go to these places, they
experience a suffocating feeling, bordering on asphyxy. They order the
windows to be opened when they can be opened, and the severe
representations they address to the lodging-house keepers on this
horrible mixture of human beings with decayed animal matter does not
move them. They answer, that their lodgers are accustomed to it as well
as themselves. A trait of manners peculiar to the chiffonniers, and
which might be called their pastime, consists in rat-catching in the
courts of the houses which they frequent. They entice the rats by the
aid of certain substances attached to the rags they gather in the
streets. With this view they put heaps of rags near the holes in the
walls, and when they think that the rats are buried in the rags, they
let loose into the court dogs trained for the purpose, and, in the
twinkling of an eye, they make themselves masters of the rats, of which
they eat the flesh and sell the skin.
The lodgings which receive at night the scum of society are thorough
pest-houses. Those even which are not frequented by chiffonniers become,
by the crowding of the inhabitants and their filthy habits, dangerous
centres of infection. There are some chambers which contain as many as
nine beds, separated by small passages hardly wide enough to get
through, and these beds are often occupied by two persons who do not
know each other, and have never seen one another. Difference of sex is
no obstacle to these nocturnal and fortuitous cohabitations, although
the police neglect nothing to prevent disorders. Among the female
apartments there is one which is famous for the picture of decrepitude
and abjectness which it presents. The women who occupy it are old
drunkards, of whom several are suspected of theft. The spectacle of
these animated mummies has something sepulchral.
One must bring to social anatomy a serious spirit of investigation, to
form a just idea of the population which lives in the concealed recesses
of society. The imagination, however fertile and daring, could never
reach, in this matter, to the height of the reality: there is a
character, a physiognomy, a strangeness, which it is necessary to have
seen in order to assume the responsibility of an historian. Let no one
tax with romance the traits of manners nor the description of places
contained in this chapter. However softened by the reserve I have
imposed on myself, they are not less true at bottom. I have sacrificed
the coarseness of the outline and colouring out of respect to decency.
It is the only infidelity of which I accuse myself. It is impossible not
to feel the necessity to provide an efficacious remedy for a state of
things so contrary to the rights of humanity and civilization.[57]
19.—_On the Habitations and Lodgings of the Lower Orders of Paris._
No. 2.
There exist in Paris some thousands of individuals who have no
domicile—who sleep to-day in one place, the next day in another—and who
have recourse every evening to those houses where, for a payment usually
very moderate, they can at least obtain a place to lie in, and a
covering for their heads. It is not only strangers living temporarily in
Paris who lodge in this manner; a mass of workmen, mostly single men,
who have not stirred from the capital for ten, fifteen, and twenty
years, prefer this kind of life to the occupation of a separate chamber.
It may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, that this population
comprises all that is most drunken and debased in society. It is
composed of people without foresight, and without a home, living from
day to day, and trusting to the hospitals in the case of sickness or
infirmity. It is in the lowest places in these disgusting haunts in
which a person is lodged for six, four, and even for two sous, that the
greater part of the prostitutes reside, who can scarcely, after
purchasing food, lay aside from their daily gains the trifling sum
necessary to avert sleeping in the open air. I have visited some of
these lodgings, and it was not without a feeling of pain that I have
seen human creatures reduced to live in such places, and that in the
capital of France. To give a just idea of these abodes, I will extract
some passages from the remarkable report which the inspector-general of
furnished lodgings addressed to the prefect of police at the time of the
cholera. It tells of nothing but houses in ruin, of straw for beds in a
state of putrefaction, of darkness, of infectious smells, of filth
without example. These are some of the passages:—
“Rue ——, No. —. This house is remarkable for its excessive dirt. It is a
genuine centre of infection. It is inhabited solely by thieves,
smugglers, beggars, and prostitutes. It is impossible to enter without
being suffocated.
“Rue ——, No. —. This house fixes the attention by its construction and
filth. There are no beds, except some loathsome pallets; animal remains,
intestines, and the refuse of meals, are rotting in the court; all the
chambers look on a corridor completely deprived of air and light; the
sinks and the privies of every story are loathsome from ordure and fecal
matter. It is the hideous abode of vice and misery.
“Rue ——, No. —. The court of this house is four feet square, and is full
of dung; the chambers, crowded with occupants, open on it; the privies,
dilapidated to the fifth floor, let the fecal matter fall upon the
staircase, which is covered with it to the bottom. Many of the rooms
have no other aperture than the door which opens upon this staircase.
The house is the resort of sharpers, of thieves, of the most filthy
prostitutes, and of everything that is most abject both of men and
women.
“Rue du Faubourg ——, No. —. A house occupied from top to bottom by
chiffonniers, mendicants, street-organists, street-walkers, and Italian
boys, who go about with animals. All these sleep upon rags picked from
the street, and of which there is a depôt on the ground-floor. More
complete abjectness it is impossible to witness.
“Rue ——, No. —. This house is the resort of all that is most abased. It
is exclusively inhabited by thieves, prostitutes, discharged criminals,
beggars, vagabonds, gamesters, and every species of rogues. The greatest
filth reigns everywhere; the windows are made of oiled paper instead of
glass; the rooms are infected; at each story the ordure of the privies
flows upon the staircase.”[58]
Another French writer, M. Frégier, has given the following description
of the external appearance of these abodes:—“The streets, not, at
farthest, more than eight feet wide, are dirty, and flanked by lofty
houses, four stories high, which are blackened by time. The height of
the houses renders the streets gloomy and damp, and the houses
themselves are dark, particularly on the ground-floor. Spirit shops,
beer shops, and low eating houses abound. The gloom of these shops,
joined to the repulsive physiognomy of the streets, infuse a secret
horror into the visitor who is led there by the spirit of observation,
and who knows that the greater part of the shops are the habitual resort
of the lowest prostitutes, and of rogues that live in the neighbourhood.
The lodgings and places of dissipation frequented by this part of the
population are worthy, from their filth, of the streets and quarters in
which they are situated.”[59]
20.-_Extract from the Report of the Commission appointed by the Central
Board of Public Health to ascertain the Condition of the Dwellings of
the Working Classes in Brussels, and to suggest Means for their
Improvement._
Our inquiries have led us more particularly into the most populous and
miserable districts into which the working classes are continually
crowding, in proportion as new and elegant buildings have encroached
upon the districts within the heart of the capital, formerly almost
exclusively occupied by those classes. We have visited successively, in
the district of _Minimes_, the _rue des Pignons_, and _de la
Samaritane_, the _cul-de-sac des Minimes_, the alley _des Prêtres_, _les
rues de l’Epris_, _du Bourreau_, _de la Oventail_, &c.; in the district
_de la Chapelle_, _les rues des Ménages_, _du Radro_, _de la Rasière_,
_des Rats_, _du Renard_, &c.; in the district _de la rue d’Anderlecht_,
_la rue des Navets_, and the alley _au Lait_. We entered into a great
number of the dwellings. We not only inquired, but also inspected, in
order that we might ascertain the truth of the statements which were
made to us. In now presenting the results of this inquiry, we do not
hesitate to call your attention to the very important facts which have
been gathered, at the same time that we ask your indulgence for the
imperfect manner in which we have been able to perform the duties
committed to our zeal and exertions.
The misery of the localities we have visited struck us immediately, from
their appearance of uniform poverty. The streets and alleys, at all
times dirty and ill-paved, in times of rain or thaw had the appearance
of a pestilential mire; the water had no means of running off, and the
smallness of the passages, the absence of courts or gardens, the
crowding of families, and the detestable modes of building, rendered all
circulation of air or ventilation quite impossible. The most
indispensable conveniences were entirely wanting in most of the houses.
They had no pumps, nor privies, nor sewers, except one in common.
Indeed, we saw seventy houses that were provided with only one pump or
one privy for the whole of that number.
If you enter the houses, the spectacle which is there presented to your
view is, if anything, still more wretched. If the arrangement and order
to be seen in some of the rooms recall the proverbial neatness of the
Flemish, on the other hand, the houses occupied by large families, the
alleys, the passages, and the stairs, are generally disgustingly filthy;
the brush of the whitewasher never passes along them, or if they are
ever cleaned, it is only to attract new tenants, who soon restore them
to their primitive dirtiness. The steepness of the stairs, which,
indeed, are often more like ladders, must be a perpetual cause of
accidents, especially to the young children. The space occupied by a
family is generally much too confined for each of the members to receive
the quantity of fresh air necessary for the preservation of health.
Hence their appearance is generally that of suffering and of bad
condition. The children are pale and emaciated, and bear all the visible
signs of premature suffering. The number of those who are rickety and
scrofulous is considerable, and the mortality amongst the children and
the aged exceeds all the most unfavourable averages. As we pass along
these receptacles of misery, we feel astonished to see so few old
people; an early death has carried them beyond their wretchedness: and
if inquiries are made of parents, there are few who have not lost one or
more children. It would be important to compare the proportion of deaths
in the families of the rich and of the indigent. There is little doubt
that this comparison would prove that misery, the want of proper air and
space, the occupations of these people, and privations of every sort,
sensibly diminish the period of life of the working classes.
In these wretched habitations everything is sacrificed generally to the
rapacity of the proprietor. Every repair which affects the health or the
comfort of the tenant merely, and that is not necessary to prevent the
total ruin of the dwelling, is entirely neglected. What is the use of
cleaning the walls for people whose habits are filthy? Why make windows
for the entrance of air and light, or repair a sewer, or cleanse an
alley covered with stagnant water, for people who are accustomed to
pestilential smells? It is what a proprietor can never understand. Do
not believe, however, that these dreadful abodes are rented at their
proper value. On the contrary, the unfortunate people obliged to live in
these houses, because all better ones are closed against them, in
reality pay a higher rent than for a wholesome room in a good house.
21. _Principles of Sanitary Police in Germany. Extracts from Professor_
MOHL.
It is one important duty of a State to provide abundant supplies of
water for its people; and this duty is based on the impossibility, in
many cases, for individuals by their own exertions to procure even the
barest necessary quantity of water, and also that it requires much skill
to distinguish that which is of a good quality from that which is
injurious. The State ought, therefore, to provide water of the best
quality in sufficient abundance, and to arrange also for its most
extensive distribution: this is often attended with great difficulties
and with much expense, if the district is naturally ill-supplied with
springs of water; or where a town, being large, requires more water than
its own surface springs, or those of the immediate neighbourhood, can
supply. Without maintaining that the example given us by ancient
nations, of munificent expenditure in the laying out of aqueducts, &c.,
is one which we, therefore, are obliged to follow, yet it may be
demanded of the State, that it should provide water, at least so far as
the absolute wants of life require, by aqueducts or pipes, or at least
by cisterns, laid down at the public expense. For the sake of the poorer
classes, it does not seem advisable that this duty should be handed over
to a private company.[60]
An injudicious economy on this point affects most injuriously the habits
of cleanliness, and consequently the health of the lower classes. Water
is properly distributed when every district is provided with an
abundance of springs or wells. Loss of time, danger of fire,
difficulties in the time of contagious diseases, are the consequences of
the wells being few in number, even though each one should furnish a
large stream of water.
It is a well-known fact, that locality has a great effect on the life
and health of the inhabitants, and especially according as it offers the
means of proper circulation of air or not. Thus, elevated situations are
generally more healthy than places shut in by hills. In towns, those
parts which are traversed by broad streets, are always more healthy than
those which are so closely covered with houses as never to be properly
ventilated, or where the sun can never penetrate to dry up the moisture;
but an ill-drained situation is the most injurious to health.
The healthiness of a whole town is often essentially improved by the
formation of a single sewer or drain: in other places, it requires very
extended operations to produce the same effect. We may include amongst
the various influences, the ditches surrounding the cities filled with
stagnant water; by draining these, not only a purer air is gained, but
also a fertile piece of land. It ought to be remarked here, however,
that this work of draining water, and the removal of the mud, ought to
be done in the cold season; if not, dangerous fevers will in all
probability be the consequence.
The foul air arising from marshy land, when that is necessary, as in the
cultivation of rice, is an evil for which there is no remedy.[61]
Another means of improving the healthiness of a town, is by proper
attention to the breadth, and to the direction of the streets in all the
new quarters of the town. The streets ought to intersect, each other at
right angles, and not at too great distances: the direction of the
streets, also, should not run due north and south, as in that case the
streets lying parallel in one direction, would be scorched by the sun,
and without any shade during mid-day; whilst the streets running at
right angles to these, would never be warmed by a ray of sunshine.
The health of towns would also be much improved by the prohibition of
all cellars as dwelling-houses, by legislative enactments as to the
elevation of the ground-floor of dwelling-houses above the level of the
streets, also as to the construction of proper conveniences attached to
dwelling-houses; and by regulations with regard to the proper size of
windows: also by regulations regarding the strictest cleanliness of the
streets, as this is more important in its effects on the health
generally, than even the situation of a town, or attention to its mode
of building. By attention to it, Holland is inhabitable; by the neglect
of it, Cairo and Constantinople are the very hot-beds of the plague.
The first means to attain this cleanliness is by a proper paving of all
the streets, in order to lay the district dry. Without this, the streets
are either a stream of mud, or a sea of dust; in both cases equally
injurious to the health. It is often expensive to get a hard material
for the purpose of pavement; but when obtained, the expense of keeping
it in repair is much less. When it is possible, the streets should be
kept clean, by turning on them a stream of water,—the drains being
always kept well open to receive it afterwards. Every inhabitant should
be obliged to keep the portion of the street clean before his own door.
The refuse of the town ought to be conveyed away, at the expense of the
town, to some part of the country, removed from all dwelling-houses.
22.—_A Report on the Statements of Dr. Mauthner regarding the Cotton
Manufactures, given at the Monthly Meeting on the 2nd of November, 1841.
By_ Herr L. M. VON PACHER.
At the meeting of the 7th of June, Dr. Mauthner sent in a report on the
condition of the children employed in the cotton-works, in which he gave
an exposition of the evidence, partly of his own experience and partly
on the reports of others, of the moral and physical evils which the
various branches of manufacture bring with them, and proposals were put
into the hands of the owners of the mills for preventing the evils so
strongly denounced.
The learned meeting determined to appoint a special commission to
inquire into so grave and important a matter. This body held its first
meeting on the 29th of July, at which our much-esteemed chairman
presided, and I had the honour to be commissioned to inquire into that
part of the report of Dr. Mauthner which treats more particularly of the
effects of the cotton manufactures.
Before I enter upon the discussion on the special points of inquiry,
permit me to lay before you a few general remarks on the nature of our
inquiry, and of the condition of the people employed in the
cotton-works, more particularly of Lower Austria. It must first be
conceded that the condition of the children working in the factories is
closely connected with the condition of the rest of the working
population, and cannot be considered separately. Our president felt the
necessity of considering them in connexion throughout the various parts
of the inquiry which he had proposed to himself; and, before the
commencement of our inquiry, it was generally agreed that our attention
should extend also to the condition of the adult workpeople.
We could not conceal from ourselves that we were undertaking a subject
at once the most important and the most delicate,—an inquiry which might
disclose to the general public that the unhappy signs of the times were
to be seen in our affairs, and which also, without cause, might alarm a
very excitable class as to their own condition. English and French
journals are full of the most striking descriptions of the physical and
moral evils of the manufacturing population; and not without ground, as
we learn from the various commissions of inquiry appointed by the
respective governments. With your permission I will quote a passage from
a report which the Commission de l’Intendance Sanataire du Nord drew up
in the year 1832, and which unfortunately has not been found exaggerated
even in later periods. It is word for word as follows:—
“No one without personal inspection can form any conception of the
dwellings of our workpeople: the neglect in which they live brings evils
with it which makes their misery unbearable, indeed almost fatal. Their
poverty, by the negligence and demoralization which produces it, becomes
almost destructive. In their dark cellars, in their cellar-like rooms,
the air is never changed; it is perfectly poisonous. The walls are
covered with filth. If a bed is ever found, it is always filthy, and
made up of foul and rotten straw. It is covered with a coarse and dirty
rag, the colour or material of which can hardly be distinguished; it is
a miserable threadbare coverlet. The dirty and worm-eaten pieces of
furniture and utensils are thrown about without any order; the closed
windows scarcely allow any light to pass through their smoky panes, many
of which are stuffed with paper, and (it will hardly be credited) they
not unfrequently nail the window fast in order that it may run no risk
of being broken in the opening and shutting of it. The floors of their
houses are dirtier than the rest of the house, covered with ordure,
ashes, rotten straw, and all that has been brought in from the filthy
streets outside; it is a receptacle for every kind of vermin. The air is
no longer fit to breathe; one feels in these abodes stunned with an
overpowering and horrible stench, a smell of excrement, filth of every
kind, and of human beings. And the inhabitant of these abodes, in what
state is he? His clothes are in rags, and tossed on. His hair has never
known a comb, and is covered with the material with which he is working;
and his skin, though filthy, is yet distinguishable on his face, but on
the other part of his body, concealed by his rags, there are
accumulations of every kind. Nothing is so fearfully dirty as the old
and wrinkled of these demoralised creatures. Their abdomens distended,
their limbs distorted, their backs bent forward, their legs twisted,
their necks scarred and full of swellings, their fingers festered, their
joints swollen and weak, and, lastly, these unfortunate creatures are
tormented, we may say eaten up, with vermin of all kinds.”
These descriptions were given by M. de Chambert, Boglli, Brigaudet,
Kulman, and Themistocles Lestibuwers. I shall be excused for having
given this long and disgusting extract, as it shows clearly what was the
state and the evils which could call forth those general and loud
complaints, and which made it a duty for government to take the matter
into consideration. The whole picture is too wretched to be brought into
the most distant comparison with the condition of the poorest of our
workpeople, who are in general well fed and decently clothed, and show
in the furniture of their cleanly-kept houses the fruits of their small
earnings. They, together with their children, enjoy excellent health,
and in general deserve the character of being a sober, industrious,
orderly, tractable, and attached class. But a large population of
workpeople, living entirely on the daily labour of their hands, wanting
many things in external circumstances which, to the eye accustomed to
luxury and abundance, are considered indispensable, under the continual
pressure of strict regulations and continuous labour, is not a very
enviable picture to the superficial observer, and often gives occasion
to many unfounded lamentations and ill-timed apprehensions, if not to
one-sided measures, which are, however, powerless against the stern
necessity of supporting thousands of human beings, which are disturbing
when they shake the established order of things, and are destructive
when they make a happy and quiet class of workpeople discontented with
their lot.
The cotton-works in Lower Austria, which are almost all situated within
a circle of a few miles around Vienna, employ about 10,000 hands, for
whose accommodation solid and roomy dwellings have been erected for the
most part at the same time as the works were established.
Most of the mills have not only a considerable number of dwellings for
the married workers, but large, separate sleeping-rooms for the
unmarried of both sexes, which are provided with beds, and lighted and
warmed at the expense of the mill. When the larger and older mills were
built, there was erected for the boys and girls a so-called children’s
house, in which, at that time, the children were provided at the expense
of the mill with food, clothes, and instruction, and who were bound by
certain regulations issued by the government, and were placed under the
inspection of the respective clergyman and physician of the district.
After the works were extended, they found they were obliged to give up
these institutions; and they now drew the requisite number of hands,
partly from the descendants of their own people, and partly from the
children of the country people, who, in the course of time, becoming
informed as to the condition of the children in the factories, send
their own children after they are too big for home employment and to go
to school, to work in the mills for a certain number of years; after
which, however, they generally return to their agricultural labour. On
the confines of Hungary, on a Sunday evening, hundreds of young, robust,
and healthy workpeople, carrying with them the provisions for the week,
may be seen coming to the mill, whence, on the Saturday evening, they
may be seen going in merry groups carrying their wages back to their own
homes. For these, and all who do not live with their parents, decent and
proper rooms are provided, sometimes in that which used to be the
children’s house, or in other places equally under inspection.
The employment in cotton mills, and more especially of the children,
requires attention, and a certain quickness or sleight of hand more than
any bodily exertion. The whole of the hands are employed in roomy and
light apartments, which in summer are well ventilated, and in winter
warmed with great regularity, and there is nothing in the material, nor
in the processes of the manufacture, which can be injurious to the
health. The hours of work, which are generally from four to five in the
morning to seven or eight in the evening, are interrupted by three
meal-times; and on Saturday the mill is closed from three to four hours
earlier. The weekly wages of boys and girls are from 3 to 5 florins, and
those of the adults from 6 to 18, besides a house free; and it is not
only sufficient for their wants, but gives them also the means of laying
by a little saving, examples of which are not unfrequent.
Under these circumstances the health is not, and cannot be, anything
else than extremely good; the large number of old who are still robust
and in employment, the experience and evidence of all the physicians who
practise amongst the mill population, the result of the reports of the
district physician, but above all, the healthy state they were in during
several epidemics, and also the small proportion of deaths as seen in
the parish register, all afford the most striking evidence of the fact
of their healthiness. Every noxious circumstance must undoubtedly bear
with it the traces of its evil; street riots, mobs of workpeople, and
excesses of all kinds, breaches of the law and criminal acts, numerous
and open concubinage, large numbers of illegitimate children (in many
manufacturing towns amounting to one-fourth of the whole births), and,
lastly, the large numbers of entirely destitute and disabled workpeople
who seek for assistance from the parish and from all charities; these
are the melancholy signs which mark in England and France the state of
the manufacturing population.
In the course of 40 years, during which the Austrian manufactures have
arisen so near to the capital, and have been well watched by the police,
such moral and physical deterioration of so large a population could not
have escaped notice; but I ask where are those incontrovertible signs
which an hospital or a workhouse more frequently attended or applied to
by the mill population than by any other poor class of the community
would be? where are those prevailing diseases? where is the increased
mortality? and, lastly, where are the traces of moral and mental
degradation? Certainly it would be unjust to throw the stone at those
who have linked with the unavoidable demands of business circumstances
which might be measured by the scale of a more fortunate and independent
existence.
Dr. Mauthner states, “that the weakness of the body and constitution of
the children employed in the great cotton-works in the neighbourhood is
very striking.
“1st. That the race of men employed in those establishments is much less
robust than that of the peasantry of the neighbouring villages.
“2nd. That bauchscropheln and scrophuleuse consumption are not uncommon;
that inflammatory diseases are very rare.
“3rd. That premature old age and early death is the common fate.”
Even supposing that since the establishment of the spinning-works there
could have been created a peculiar race of people, still the supposition
could not prove more than that the constitution of the workers had been
modified by their employment and their mode of living, since experience
shows that the duration of life is not shorter than that of the other
working classes.
2dly. That the above-mentioned diseases principally affect children of
the earliest age, the former about the fifth year, the last about the
seventh year; and that it is to be premised that the children who never
work in the mill before their ninth year, come sometimes with the
disease already developed upon them. The children of the mill hands are,
indeed, less attacked by this disease than the children of the poor
agricultural labourer, because they are generally better housed and
clothed than these. That inflammatory diseases seldom appear is no sign
of a weak constitution, since, on the one hand, these seldom appear
amongst children; and, on the other hand, they do show themselves
amongst the adults, whenever there are external influences and inducing
circumstances to produce them; and all the physicians practising in the
cotton-works agree in stating that, with the exception of rheumatic
affections, there are no peculiar forms of disease amongst the
cotton-spinning population.
3rdly. As to the statement of premature old age and early deaths, it is
one which is contradicted by all the experience of half a century. The
registers of deaths made by the clergymen of the parishes give the most
exact information as to the proportion of deaths. The results of these
are,
1st. That the number of deaths, especially amongst the manufacturing
people, is proportionally less than amongst the agricultural labourers;
2nd. That, as amongst other classes, the deaths are the most numerous of
children under two years;
3rd. That between the age of 12 and 16 there are the fewest deaths;
4th. That there are a great many between 60 and 70.
The means proposed by Dr. Mauthner for obtaining a better physical and
moral state are,
1st. Shortening the hours of labour;
2ndly. Interrupting the hours of labour by school instruction: on both
which points there could be no discussion, since these are already
provided for by the law.
With regard to the long working hours, which certainly appear very
oppressive to the unemployed spectator, long habit has accustomed the
workers to them, and they do not produce any perceptible injury, more
especially as the people are paid in proportion to the time they are
employed. It is to be remembered that there remain eight hours for rest,
none of which are spent in going and coming to their homes, as is the
case in other countries, as, for instance, in Mulhausen, where one-third
of the workers live from one to two miles from the mill.
It is not during the hours of well-regulated and orderly employment that
there is any danger of demoralization, but during the leisure hours.
Villermé, in his valuable work on the _Etat Physique et Morale des
Ouvriers_, states that the moral and physical deterioration of the
manufacturing class in Rheims, where they only work from 10 to 12 hours,
is most striking. The hours of work being ended, the people fill the
taverns and the streets with prostitutes, whilst the workers from the
numerous manufactories of Sedan, who work 15 hours, are sober, moral,
and orderly. He mentions also that few manufactories employ so many
robust hands as the spinning works at Sedan.
3dly. To employ more than one spinner to attend to a new spinning
machine which turns a greater number of spindles.
It would in general be well to trust to the manufacturer the number of
workers he should employ, as his interest compels him to use a requisite
number of hands. In this particular case it ought to be stated that,
owing to the progress of machinery, the spinner having 800 or 1000
spindles has less labour than formerly, when he had only 300 spindles to
attend to.
4thly. That the children, and mill hands generally, should be kept in
good order, by sick funds and savings’ banks.
In most works there is established a kind of sick fund, to which each
hand contributes weekly from 1 to 2 _kr._ for every guilder they earn;
or there are voluntary contributions to those who are invalided; or,
lastly, when they receive medical advice gratis, they have this fund to
expend in medicines. If this fund is sufficient to assist the sick, it
is not enough to support those in old age, and they must of necessity
depend on that help which they are entitled to as being the fathers of
families; and indeed every country mill can count many families amongst
the workers in which an aged father or mother is supported by their
children.
The formation of regulations, binding on all and applicable to all
cases, as to the employment of children in mills, together with all
other regulations which affect the internal arrangements of a
manufactory, is incontestibly attended with many difficulties, and
indeed one might say with insuperable obstacles. French legislation has
employed itself three years with this object. The law has appeared, and
we have read it in our public journals. In the leading principles it
does not seem to contain anything but what has been in practice in
Austria for many years, though of our proceedings in regard to minute
details may be said what the minister of finance prognosticated in the
Chamber of Peers on the 31st May, 1837, when he said, “At different
times government has felt the necessity of a similar law. It has
occupied itself with it, and made every inquiry on the subject, but the
law itself presents extreme difficulties: many countries have attempted
one; England has even passed a law on this subject, but it is not
observed.”
The interests of the children, it is repeated, have been protected by
the regulations issued by the government of Lower Austria, the last of
which were issued on July 16, 1839. For the moral and mental development
of the labourer in general there is only one great panacea: this lies in
the extension of trade, in the security and steadiness of employment,
and in the power of the labourer to maintain himself and his children
comfortably and respectably with the work of his own hands.
It is to be hoped that our manufacturers will progress in the gradual
and prudent course which is equally removed from stupid and blind
adherence to old things, as from the spirit of hasty imitation and the
headlong pursuit of novelties. We shall then not have to fear the
creation of a dissolute and depraved class of workpeople, as we see in
other countries. For the rest, trust to the wise care of our
government—trust to the sound sense and excellent disposition of our
labourers—and, above all, trust something to the humanity and to the
opinions of the manufacturers of Austria themselves.
_Remarks on the Cotton Manufactory in Schwadorf._
There is here, under the superintendence of the master of the works, a
sick-fund for the workpeople, to which every man, woman, and child
together must contribute 1½ _xr._ kreutzer for every guilder they
receive in wages; for this they obtain not only for themselves, but also
for the members of their families who do not come to the mill (such as
the little children and the mothers), gratuitous medical advice and
medicines; and, further, the _men_, when they are prevented from coming
to the mill by sickness, receive a 12–kreutzer per day.
The number of hands is on an average 170 men, 220 women and adult girls,
and 100 children; total, 550 individuals.
The amount of contribution to the relief-fund was, in
1839 f.380·4 per day 62 _xr._
1840 f.410·56 per day 67 _xr._
Though on an average from five to six men of the 170 employed are
prevented from coming to their work, yet of these there are _four_ who
have received support from the fund, on account of the infirmities of
age and incurable diseases, for many years; so that, on an average,
there is only from one to two who are prevented from coming to their
work by sickness.[62] A part of the above-mentioned 550 mill hands live
in the adjacent district; these, when they cannot come to the medical
man belonging to the factory, are attended by the surgeon of the
district; but then, on the other hand, there must be set against these
the members of the families who do not work at the mill, as
above-mentioned, and which are about equal in number. Indeed, the number
of those coming for medical advice of the factory physician, and to
which the following tables relate, may be from 600 to 700. The total
population of Schwadorf is about 1700, of which, on an average of the
last 10 years, according to the parish register, 62 died annually. Of
these, according to the register kept by the factory physician, only 13,
on an average, were from the mill population; at least, as it appears in
the last seven years, during which the present physician has attended.
Attended. Died.
1834 1211 23 (N.B. Cholera.)
1835 852 10
1836 653 15
1837 540 14
1838 394 12
1839 298 6
1840 345 10
———— ——
4293 90
———— ——
Average 617 13
A Special View of the state of Sickness in the years 1839, 1840.
┌─────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Diseases. │ Treated. │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┤
│ │ 1839. │ 1840. │
├─────────────┼────┬──────┬─────────┬──────┼────┬──────┬─────────┬──────┤
│ │Men.│Women.│Children.│Total.│Men.│Women.│Children.│Total.│
├─────────────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┤
│Inflammation │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ consumption│ 10│ 17│ 10│ 37│ 35│ 19│ 10│ 64│
│Nervous fever│ 19│ 4│ │ 23│ 8│ 9│ │ 17│
│Diseases of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the first │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ class │ 23│ 25│ 7│ 55│ 34│ 18│ 19│ 71│
│Chronic │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ disease of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the skin │ 15│ 11│ 5│ 31│ 12│ 9│ 14│ 35│
│Bleeding and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ other │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ cleansings │ 5│ 16│ 3│ 24│ 3│ 13│ │ 16│
│Swelling of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ scutiformed│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ glandule │ │ 10│ │ 10│ │ 6│ │ 6│
│Consumption │ │ 2│ │ 2│ │ 2│ │ 2│
│Spasms or │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ convulsions│ │ 15│ 6│ 21│ 1│ 10│ 10│ 21│
│Green │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ sickness │ │ 20│ │ 20│ │ 30│ │ 30│
│Rheumatism │ 5│ 7│ │ 12│ 4│ 6│ │ 10│
│Worms │ 3│ 2│ 22│ 27│ │ 3│ 20│ 23│
│Water in the │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ head │ │ │ 4│ 4│ │ │ 14│ 14│
│Scrofula │ │ │ 2│ 2│ │ │ 3│ 3│
│Sundries │ 5│ 11│ 2│ 18│ │ 20│ │ 20│
├─────────────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┤
│ Total │ 83│ 143│ 70│ 298│ 100│ 145│ 100│ 345│
└─────────────┴────┴──────┴─────────┴──────┴────┴──────┴─────────┴──────┘
┌─────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Diseases. │ Deaths. │
├─────────────┼────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┤
│ │ 1839. │ 1840. │
├─────────────┼────┬──────┬─────────┬──────┼────┬──────┬─────────┬──────┤
│ │Men.│Women.│Children.│Total.│Men.│Women.│Children.│Total.│
├─────────────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┤
│Inflammation │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ consumption│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Nervous fever│ │ │ │ │ 1│ │ │ 1│
│Diseases of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the first │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ class │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Chronic │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ disease of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the skin │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Bleeding and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ other │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ cleansings │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Swelling of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ the │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ scutiformed│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ glandule │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Consumption │ │ 2│ 1│ 3│ │ 2│ 1│ 3│
│Spasms or │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ convulsions│ 1│ │ 1│ 2│ │ │ 2│ 2│
│Green │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ sickness │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Rheumatism │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Worms │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Water in the │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ head │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│
│Scrofula │ │ │ 1│ 1│ │ │ 1│ 1│
│Sundries │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─────────────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┼────┼──────┼─────────┼──────┤
│ Total │ 1│ 2│ 3│ 6│ 1│ 2│ 7│ 10│
└─────────────┴────┴──────┴─────────┴──────┴────┴──────┴─────────┴──────┘
Although the number of deaths only includes those who lived in the
village of Schwadorf itself, yet under the “treated” are included also
all those from the neighbourhood whose illness was not too great to
prevent them coming to Schwadorf for medical advice. It further ought to
be remarked upon the apparently large number of cases of sickness, that
as the people have medical advice and medicine gratis, that they come
for it on the slightest illness, and the more so as not only the master
of the works but also the physician encourages them as much as possible
to do so, convinced that in most cases, by timely aid, more serious
illnesses are prevented. Lastly, it is to be understood that these
memoranda or notices have not been made for any special object, but only
for our own information.
_Remarks on the Factories in Neunkirchen._
1. _Screw Works._ There exists in connexion with this mill a sick-fund,
in which, however, the hands dwelling out of Neunkirchen do not
participate. Those who live in Neunkirchen pay to this fund weekly 1
_xr._ for every guilder they earn as wages. They receive for this
medical advice and medicine gratis; and if they cannot come to work, the
following relief, namely, (those under Wr. Wf. fl. 4½ weekly wages have
nothing)
From fl. 4½ to 6 daily 20 _xr._ W. W.
6 to 9 daily 24 _xr._ W. W.
Over 9 daily 30 _xr._ W. W.
Those Croatians who live in their houses do not receive any quota from
the sick-fund, but are, of course, attended. As to those who are out of
the district, they also receive medical advice gratis, if they can come
to the factory physician, even though they do not contribute to the
sick-fund. Only few have families, but these also, in case of sickness,
receive medical assistance.
The number of hands varies considerably from 200 to 300; on an average
about 250; of these may be,
Men and adults 180
Women 20
Children from 13 to 17 years 50
The total contribution to the relief-fund was, in the
Year 1839, W. W. fl. 190·48, or 31 _x._ per day.
1840, W. W. fl. 250·50, or 41 _x._ per day.
Also on an average one or two individuals could not work on account of
illness.
To both the spinning works of Herrn von Eltz and Herrn Roulet there is
attached a sick-fund, the exact rules of which I am not acquainted with.
In the print-works of Dubois, Dupasquier, and Co., the printers have a
sick-fund amongst themselves, out of which the hands in work assist
those who are unable to work, according to the circumstances. Since the
hands in the screw-works are not, like the spinners, a steady, fixed
class of workers, but a more fluctuating class, since it often happens
that members of the same family are employed in different factories, and
it is difficult to separate into heads the number of individuals who
have received medical aid; the annexed table for 1840 will give a
tolerably correct view of the state of sickness in the various works,
only with regard however to the numbers working, leaving the other
members of the family out of consideration. It is to be observed here,
that the physician by whom these statements have been drawn up is
appointed exclusively to the screw-works and the two spinning
manufactories. The hands from the print-works go also to other
physicians, of whom there are several in Neunkirchen; hence is explained
the apparently small number of persons from the print-works who have
received medical aid from him.
Screw works of Spinning works of Print works of Von
Brevillier and Co. Frid. Eltz and Dubois,
Carl Roulet Dupasquier, and
together. Co.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
About 180 men 160 men 180 men
20 women 200 women 90 women
50 children 150 children 90 children
——— ——— ———
250 persons. 510 persons. 360 persons.
In 1840,
having
received
medical
treatment:
Catarrh 14 30 8
Rheumatism. 88 40 20
Gastric 12 25 4
Intermittent 5 16 3
fever
Nervous fever 3 10 3
Inflammations 16 36 10
Various 17 36 8
diseases
Scrofula 0 8 0
Accidents 7 12 4
——— ——— ———
92 213 60
Deaths in the screw works 1 man, tubercles in the lungs.
Deaths in the screw works 1 man, inflammation of the lungs.
Deaths in the spinning works 1 man, tubercles in the lungs.
Deaths in the print works 1 man, apoplexy.
Deaths in the print works 1 man, fatal accident.
—
5 men.
A Tabular View of the Deaths in the various Spinning Manufactories, as a
means of comparing them with the Deaths occurring in the rest of the
Population, taken from the Registers of Deaths in the under-mentioned
Parishes.
┌───────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────┬──────────┬───────────┐
│ │ │ Total │ │Proportion│ Spinning │
│ Year. │ Parish. │Population.│Deaths.│of Deaths │ Works. │
│ │ │ │ │per Cent. │ │
├───────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │Günselsdorf│ 1,500│ 48│ 3.2│Teesdorf │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │Pottendorf │ 4,000│ 157│ 4.0│Pottendorf │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │Pottenstein│ 3,000│ 111│ 3.7│Fatnafeld │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │Schönau │ 860│ 354│ 4.1│Schönau │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │Sollenau │ 750│ 288│ 3.8│Sollenau │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ The │ │ │ │ │ │
│average│Schwadorf │ 1,700│ 62│ 3.7│Schwadorf │
│ of 7 │ │ │ │ │ │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │Steinabürkl│ 640│ 33│ 2.5│Steinabürkl│
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │Teresimfeld│ 1,200│ 78│ 3.3│Felydorf │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────┤
│ │ Total │ 13,650│ 1,131│ 3.8│ │
└───────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────┴──────────┴───────────┘
┌───────┬───────────┬───────┬──────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Mill │ │Proportion│ Age of Death of the Mill │
│ Year. │Population.│Deaths.│of Deaths │ Population. │
│ │ │ │per Cent. │ │
├───────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼──────┬───────┬───────┬───────┤
│ │ │ │ │Under │Between│Between│Between│
│ │ │ │ │ 3 │3 and 6│6 and 9│10 and │
│ │ │ │ │years.│years. │years. │ 14 │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │years. │
├───────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 700│ 21│ 3.0│ 9│ │ │ 1│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 1,200│ 42│ 3.5│ 13│ 4│ 3│ 3│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 500│ 19│ 3.8│ 11│ 1│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ 300│ 132│ 3.4│ 46│ 6│ 5│ 23│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ 360│ 115│ 3.2│ 59│ 1│ 8│ 5│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ The │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│average│ 550│ 13│ 2.3│ │ │ │ │
│ of 7 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ 394│ 16│ 2.0│ 13│ │ 1│ │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ 700│ 28│ 2.0│ 19│ │ │ 2│
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼───────────┼───────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ 4,704│ 386│ 3.3│ 170│ 12│ 17│ 34│
└───────┴───────────┴───────┴──────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴───────┘
┌───────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
│ Year. │ Age of Death of the Mill Population. │
│ │ │
├───────┼───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┤
│ │Between│Between│Between│Between│Between│Between│Between│
│ │15 and │19 and │26 and │32 and │38 and │41 and │45 and │
│ │ 18 │ 25 │ 30 │ 36 │ 40 │ 44 │ 47 │
│ │years. │years. │years. │years. │years. │years. │years. │
├───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 1│ │ │ 2│ 1│ 1│ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 5│ 6│ 4│ 1│ 1│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 3│ │ │ 1│ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ 7│ 12│ 2│ 4│ 2│ 5│ 4│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ 5│ 6│ 3│ 5│ 2│ 2│ 6│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ The │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│average│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ of 7 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ 1│ │ │ │ │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ 1│ 2│ 2│ │ │ │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ 21│ 25│ 12│ 15│ 6│ 8│ 10│
└───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┘
┌───────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
│ Year. │ Age of Death of the Mill Population. │
│ │ │
├───────┼───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┤
│ │Between│Between│Between│Between│Between│
│ │50 and │55 and │60 and │65 and │70 and │
│ │ 54 │ 58 │ 64 │ 68 │ 75 │
│ │years. │years. │years. │years. │years. │
├───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 1│ 1│ 2│ 1│ 1│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ 1│ │ │ │ 1│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1840 │ │ │ │ 1│ 2│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ 3│ 2│ 4│ 4│ 3│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 10 │ │ 3│ 6│ 2│ 2│
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ The │ │ │ │ │ │
│average│ │ │ │ │ │
│ of 7 │ │ │ │ │ │
│ years │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ │ │ 1│ │ │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│During │ 1│ │ 1│ │ │
│2 years│ │ │ │ │ │
├───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤
│ │ 6│ 6│ 14│ 8│ 9│
└───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┘
23.—_Typhus Fever, the vast amount of, produced among the Poor of
Liverpool from want of Ventilation and Cleanliness._
The typhus, or low contagious fever, prevails in all large cities and
towns to a degree that those are not aware of who have not turned their
attention to the subject, or whose occupations do not lead them to mix
with the labouring poor. In Liverpool it has been supposed that this
disease is seldom to be met with; and it is certainly true, that the
upper classes of the inhabitants are not often subjected to its ravages.
When the extent to which it is constantly present among the poor shall
be proved by authentic documents, this circumstance will serve to
demonstrate the narrow sphere of the contagion, and to show how much it
is within the limits of human power to lessen the frequency of the
disease.
Of the inhabitants of Liverpool, it is ascertained that about 9500 live
in cellars underground, and upwards of 9000 in back houses, which in
general have an imperfect ventilation, especially in the new streets on
the south side of the town, where a pernicious practice has been
introduced of building houses to be let to labourers, in small confined
courts, which have a communication with the street by a narrow aperture,
but no passage for the air through them. Among the inhabitants of the
cellars and these back houses the typhus is constantly present; and the
number of persons under this disease that apply for medical assistance
to the charitable institutions, the public will be astonished to hear,
exceeds, on an average, 3000 annually. For the ten years preceding 1797,
there were, on an average, 119 patients ill of fever constantly on the
books of the dispensary. Of convalescents, unfit for labour, the average
number will be nearly as great. Thus, in Liverpool, 240 of the poor may
be considered as constantly rendered incapable of earning their
subsistence by this single disease; and as the poor seldom lay up any
part of their earnings for a season of sickness, the expense of their
maintenance must, in one form or other, fall on the public. If we take
this as low as 10_l._ for each, it will amount to 2400_l._ annually.
Though the cure of this disease is a principal object of our charitable
institutions in Liverpool, it is to be lamented that hitherto little or
nothing has been done for its prevention. The infection arises from a
want of cleanliness and ventilation, and its influence is promoted by
damp, fatigue, sorrow, and hunger. A vigilant exercise of all the means
of prevention might, in a short period, supersede the use of hospitals,
by extinguishing the disease; a prospect in which the philanthropist
might more safely indulge, if he could calculate with the same
confidence on the wisdom as on the power of his species.[63]
24.—_Extract from Dr. Ferriar’s Advice to the Labouring Classes in
Manchester; given in 1800._
Avoid living in damp cellars; they destroy your constitutions and
shorten your lives. No temptation of low rents can counterbalance their
ill effects. You are apt to crowd into the cellars of new buildings,
supposing them to be clean; this is a fatal mistake; a new house is
always damp for two years, and the cellars which you inhabit under them
are generally as moist as the bottom of a well. In such places you are
liable to bad fevers, which often throw the patient into a decline, and
you are apt to get rheumatic complaints, that continue for a long time
and disable you from working.
If you cannot help taking a cellar, be attentive to have all the windows
put in good repair before you venture into it, and, if possible, get it
whitewashed. If you attempt to live in a cellar with broken windows,
colds and fevers will be the certain consequences.
In many parts of the town you sleep in back rooms, behind the front
cellar, which are dark and have no proper circulation of air. It would
be much more healthy to sleep to the front; at least when you have large
families, which is often the case, you ought to divide them, and not to
crowd the whole together in the back cellar.
Keep your persons and houses as clean as your employments will permit,
and do not regret the loss of an hour’s wages when your time is occupied
in attending to cleanliness. It is better to give up a little time
occasionally to keep your houses neat, than to see your whole family
lying sick in consequence of working constantly without cleaning. It
would be of great service if you could contrive to air your bed and
bed-clothes out of doors once or twice a-week.
Always wash your children from head to foot with cold water before you
send them to work in the morning. Take care to keep them dry in their
feet, and never allow them to go to work without giving them their
breakfast, though you should have nothing to offer them but a crust of
bread and a little water. Children who get wet feet, when they go out
early fasting, seldom escape fever or severe colds.
* * * * *
Your health will always be materially injured by the following
circumstances:—living in small back buildings, adjoining to the open
vaults of privies; living in cellars where the streets are not properly
soughed or drained; living in narrow bye-streets where sheep are
slaughtered, and where the blood and garbage are allowed to stagnate and
corrupt, and perhaps more than all, by living crowded together in dirty
lodging-houses, where you cannot have the common comforts of light and
air.
It should be unnecessary to remind you that much sickness is occasioned
among you by passing your evenings at ale-houses, or in strolling about
the streets or in the fields adjoining to the town. Perhaps those who
are most apt to expose themselves in this manner would pay little
attention to dissuasive arguments of any kind; however, those who feel
an interest in your welfare cannot omit making the remark.
25.—_Principles of Jurisprudence and Responsibility for Accidents._
(_Extract from the First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the
Labour Children in Factories._)
From the evidence collected, it appears that in many of the mills,
numerous accidents of a grievous nature do occur to the workpeople. It
appears also that these accidents may be prevented, since in some mills
where more care of the workpeople is in general displayed they are
prevented. It appears further, that whilst some manufacturers liberally
contribute to the relief of the sufferers, many other manufacturers
leave them to obtain relief from public bounty, or as they may.
The refusal to contribute to the expense of the cure of those who have
been maimed is usually founded on the assertion that the accident was
occasioned by culpable heedlessness or temerity. In the cases of the
children of tender years, we do not consider this a valid defence
against the claim for contribution from the employer. We cannot suppose
an obligation to perpetual caution and discretion imposed on children at
an age when those qualities do not usually exist. The indiscretion of
children must, we consider, be presumed and guarded against as a thing
that must necessarily, and to a greater or less extent, be manifested by
all of them.
But the accidents which occur to the adults, are of themselves evidence
(unless they were wilfully incurred in a state of delirium) that the
individual used all the caution of which he is capable; as it may be
presumed that the loss of life or limb, or the infliction of severe
pain, would rarely be wantonly incurred.
Some of the manufacturers have proposed that the inspectors, who they
think ought to be appointed to insure compliance with any legislative
regulation, should have power to inspect the factories, and direct what
parts of the machinery should be fenced off, and that after such
directions have been complied with, the manufacturer should be relieved
from further responsibility.
We concur in the proposition for giving such power to inspectors, but we
do not concur in the proposal to relieve the manufacturer from
responsibility.
We apprehend that no inspector would probably be so fully conversant
with all the uses of every variety of machinery as to be acquainted with
all the dangers which may be provided against; and also, that whilst
there is much machinery which does not, from its nature, admit of its
being boxed off, there is much that could not be made entirely safe
without the reconstruction of whole manufactories.
Excluding from consideration the cases of culpable temerity on the part
of the adults, and assuming that the aid to be given when accidents do
occur shall afford no bounty on carelessness, the cases which remain for
provision are those of adults which may be considered purely accidental.
Taking a case of this class, where mischief has occurred in the
performance of the joint business of the labourer and his employer; the
question is, by which of these parties the pecuniary consequences of
such mischief shall be sustained.
We conceive that it may be stated, as a principle of jurisprudence
applicable to the cases of evils arising from causes which ordinary
prudence cannot avert, that responsibility should be concentrated, or,
as closely as possible, apportioned on those who have the best means of
preventing the mischief. Unless we are to impose on the workman the
obligation of perpetual care and apprehension of danger, the nature of
the injuries inflicted are of themselves evidence that all the care
which can be taken by individuals attending to their work is taken by
them; it is only the proprietor of the machinery who has the most
effectual means of guarding against the dangers attendant upon its use.
If such an extent of pecuniary responsibility for the accidents which
are incidental to the use of the machines is imposed upon him, those
consequences will be more likely to be taken into account, and to be
guarded against at the time of the erection of the machinery. The
workmen are not prone to regard immediate dangers, still less dangers
which are remote and contingent, and many of the accidents are of a
nature apparently too uncertain to form data for insurance. It could
hardly be expected that a workman in entering a manufactory should
object that any portion of the machinery is dangerous, and that it ought
to be boxed off. But the proprietor of the machine is necessarily the
person who can best foresee all the consequences incidental to its use,
and can best guard against them. By throwing upon him a portion of the
pecuniary responsibility for those mischiefs, we combine interest with
duty, and add to the efficiency of both.
If the pecuniary consequences from unavoidable accidents were
considerable, the imposition of the proposed responsibility may be met
by the master, or by a deduction from the wages. Considering the
defective nature of most existing modes of provision against sickness
and casualties by benefit or friendly societies, and also, unhappily,
the large proportion of those who, from improvidence, do not take
advantage of these or other means, (of which some portion of the
working-class avail themselves in so exemplary and admirable a manner),
if we were to devise a form of insurance against the casualties in
question, available to all classes, we should recommend that measures
should be taken to secure from the master the regular deductions of the
amount of the contribution of the persons employed.
We propose that in the case of all accidents whatsoever from machinery
occurring to children under fourteen years of age, the proprietor of the
machinery shall pay for the medical attendance on the child, and all the
expenses of the cure, until medical attendance is no longer required;
and also during the same period, shall continue to pay wages at the rate
of half the wages enjoyed by the individual in question at the time of
the occurrence of the accident.
We are of opinion that persons above that age, in all cases where the
injury was received from accidents in the ordinary course of business,
where there was no culpable temerity, should receive similar treatment
at the expense of the employer, and should also be allowed half wages
until the period of cure, as we believe that an allowance of full wages
would occasion considerable fraud in the protraction of that period,
especially in the cases of accidents of a less serious nature.
We think that the remedy should be given on complaint before a
magistrate or the inspector.
“With regard to fatal injuries occasioned by wilful negligence, we have
at present no new remedies to suggest as substitutes to those afforded
by the common law.”
[In a recent case, I believe in Scotland, 300_l._ damages were
recovered against the owner of an old mine for the loss of a child,
which had fallen into it accidentally from the opening not being
properly protected.
It is sometimes stated that the owners of mines already come within
the principle, that they are interested in prevention, inasmuch as
they incur loss from the stoppage of work and otherwise by accidents.
The fact, however, of no exertions being made for prevention might be
adduced as proof that the share of the loss was not sufficiently
great, and the interest therefore inadequate; but it will generally be
found that no share of the loss falls directly on the manager of the
works, and that the pecuniary consequences are so far diffused over
numerous partners as not to be felt, and that this is so particularly
in works or machinery belonging to joint-stock companies.
In Prussia, as well as Austria, deductions are required by the law to
be made from the wages of the men engaged in mining operations, which
deductions constitute a sick-fund for the support of the men during
ordinary sickness. The following is a translation of the articles of
the Prussian code in respect to the responsibility now imposed on the
owners for accidents to the workpeople in Prussia as in Austria:—
Art. 214. “The proprietors of the mines are bound to take care of the
miners who are wounded or fall into bad health in their service.
Art. 215. “When the provincial laws do not contain any express
provisions thereon, the person who works the mine shall pay to the
sick or wounded workman four weeks’ wages if the produce of the mine
does not cover the expense of working, or if it be only just equal to
it, or if it be required to defray the antecedent expenses of the
mine; and when the mine produces a sufficient dividend, the workman
shall be paid eight weeks’ wages in case the illness lasts that length
of time.
Art. 216. “If the illness lasts a greater length of time, the miner
shall be supported out of the sick-fund.
Art. 217. “The expenses of medical treatment, and of burial of a miner
wounded or killed by accident, shall be defrayed from the same fund.
Art. 218. “The widow of a miner has also the right to claim the
gratuitous wages fixed by Article 215.
Art. 219. “The gratuitous wages granted to the miner in case of wounds
or death are not allowed if the miner has killed or wounded himself
with premeditation, or by any gross neglect, working otherwise than in
the mine.
Art. 220. “If the wound or death has been occasioned by malice or the
gross neglect of a third person, the latter shall indemnify the
sick-fund and the proprietors of the mine.”—E. C.]
26. _Extract from the Report of John L. Kennedy, Esq., Barrister at Law,
to the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Labour of Young Persons in
Mines and Manufactories._
In all the instances which I have met with of accidents occurring in
coal-mines, as I have repeatedly stated, negligence forms an almost
invariable element—negligence which is fairly assignable to one or other
of the parties concerned in this branch of industry: either negligence
on the part of the colliers, whether adults or children, in omitting
those means of safety which are within their own control, or negligence
on the part of the superintendent, or ultimately of the owners of the
mines, in not providing the _means_, or duly regulating those means of
safety, which are not within the discretion of any child or the control
of the individual workman.
The children who are below the age of discretion are of course not to be
deemed responsible for that which they have not to exercise; and
unfortunately in the present state of education of the adult colliers, a
large proportion of them are in the same category as children in respect
to the want of discretion; and hence arises the first difficulty of any
direct legislative interference for their protection.
Whatever detailed provisions might be laid down in any statute, or
directed by any public officer acting under the authority of any
statute, I can see no reason to believe that they would be adopted below
ground by such a population.
For example; the safety-lamp is provided by most, and directed by all
proprietors and underlookers to be used by the colliers; but, as we have
seen, they habitually set aside the protection thus provided for them,
though they do so under a penalty of maiming or death—and what more
severe penalty could any statute impose or enforce with greater
certainty? Education appears to me to be the slow and remote but
complete preventive of those calamities arising from indiscretion. The
efficiency of this remedy, the fact that ignorance and brutality are not
essential to mining occupations, will, I apprehend, be shown by the
comparative superiority of a better educated class of miners, namely,
the Cornish miners and the lead miners of Lead Hills, Lanarkshire, who
often, with less wages than the colliers of this district, attain a
superior condition and are comparatively free from the like instances of
indiscretion.
It will, however, be seen that there is a large class of accidents which
comes within the control of responsible agents, and which would scarcely
be within the control of the colliers, even if they had the discretion.
For example, the sufficiency of the winding-ropes, guiders and
side-rods, chairs, sliders, casing of the pit sides with brick and
mortar, covers over the tubs to prevent coal falling on those ascending
and descending in them, and the various other means of security in
superior pit gearing, which, having been adopted in some mines with
success, are demonstrably practicable, and no doubt ought to be used in
all other similar cases.
But these practical measures appear to me from their number to be
incapable of specification in any statute that could be discussed or
tolerated in Parliament, if it should take upon itself the direction of
mining operations, and they are apparently too numerous and important,
to be intrusted to the discretion of any public officer. Positive
regulations by statute or under legislative sanction would, I apprehend,
impede changes in machinery and in operations which are commonly
beneficial to the whole class of the workpeople. In whatsoever mode such
preventive regulations were prescribed, the enforcement of them would, I
apprehend, imply an inspection by a public officer; from the nature of
the places I should doubt the efficiency of such inspection. I doubt
whether inspectors could be found who would faithfully descend shafts
two or three times the depth of the height of St. Paul’s, and amidst wet
and damp and noxious gases crawl or allow themselves to be waggoned
through miles of dark drains and subterranean caverns, with the chance
of the roof falling on them or being burnt by explosion, _to see that
all was right_, and not act on the easy assumption that it was so.
I believe, in the course of my own performance of the disagreeable duty
assigned to me, I became tolerably familiar with such places; but I
could not but perceive that I might easily have been deceived, and was
always at the mercy of the colliers themselves for the completeness of
my information.
No familiarity diminishes the disagreeable duty of proceeding through
low, hot, and damp galleries, bent with the chest on the knees, under
the oppression of clothes damp with moisture or perspiration, which the
inspector must endure.
Proprietors themselves, whose direct interest it is to be aware of what
is going forward under ground, are obliged to depend for inspection on
their underlookers or foremen, who have been colliers.
In a large proportion of accidents, especially those where the witnesses
are themselves destroyed, it would, I conceive, be extremely difficult,
if not impossible, to prove against underlookers or proprietors the
neglect of proper precaution. For example, in explosions of fire-damp
the air-doors are frequently blown to pieces, the waggons dashed to
atoms, the roof brought in by collapse from the exhaustion of the air in
the mine, and, in short, the position of everything so completely
deranged that it would be impossible to arrive at any correct conclusion
as to the state of things previous to the accident.
A boy is thrown out of a tub in ascending the pit-shaft by the chairs
coming in contact half way, the chairs may or may not be broken, the
body is found dashed to pieces at the bottom; if it so happen that there
are no marks either on the chairs or basket to show that they have been
in contact, no one would be so bold as to swear that it was so. Numerous
cases of this nature might be cited.
It may be a question whether extensive remedies are not practicable by
the application of the principle of concentrating responsibility on
those who have the best means of prevention, by such self-acting
arrangements as shall give them a direct interest in prevention.
Coal-owners and the underlookers of collieries assume that all the
accidents which are not caused by the negligence of the workmen
themselves are absolutely unavoidable, and in the present state of their
interest and knowledge I believe them to be sincere in their assumption.
As evidence of its truth, and in justification, they may adduce the
frequent return of verdicts of simply “accidental death” upon inquests
before the coroners. Conceding most fully that a large extent of
accident is an unavoidable and essential concomitant of this branch of
industry, the question then arises, Why should not this branch of
industry bear the whole of its necessary and unavoidable consequences?
The more this question is examined, the more I apprehend will it be
found desirable that the full expenses of such accidents should be borne
by that branch of industry in which they are created; in which case they
will be borne either by those who, as producers, have the chief profits,
or they will fall, as I apprehend they ought to fall, on the consumers.
The satisfaction of the pecuniary losses attendant on _personal
injuries_ from accidents, heavy and long continued as those losses are,
will be found to be a consideration of minor importance to the
_prevention_ of the accidents; and, above all, the prevention of the
degraded mental condition of the reckless population amidst which such
accidents occur. By imposing the pecuniary consequences, not as
penalties for omissions, which at present are really not wilful, but as
a trade charge or _insurance_ payable by the branch of industry liable
to the accidents, an interest will be created in their prevention on the
part of those who alone have the means of efficiently preventing them.
Instead of a penalty in the expense to which they might be put, they
would thus have a perpetually acting bounty in the saving of every new
improvement, and would be made the most efficient inspectors—having in
every foreman and collier a superintendent in himself, gratis to the
public.
It is a maxim of this district that manufacturers “only improve or adopt
improvements upon threadbare profits.” Under the bounty created by the
just and necessary charge upon the mines of the insurance against
accidents and calamities, it can scarcely be doubted that the
coal-owners would find out and adopt improvements in working of which
they are themselves at present unaware. They would, moreover, have an
interest in the removal by education of that dense ignorance,
constituting that state of mind out of which the acts of “indiscretion”
or heedlessness, and the other daily acts which disturb the community,
emanate. Even with the present adult colliers, they would have an
interest in exercising such a preventive control as would be exemplified
by a case in another branch of industry which I have cited in the
section on Accidents in my Report on the Calico Print-Grounds—I allude
to the case of the men who were employed in kyanizing logs of wood on
the Bolton and Preston Railway. It would, of course, follow from the
adoption of the principle of charging the costs of accidents as an
insurance or trade charge on the employment, or on those who had the
best means of preventing them—viz. the coal-proprietors—that they should
be enabled to distribute the principle of self-insurance and
responsibility on their underlookers and workmen.
I avail myself of an illustration of the operation of the principle of
preventive legislation which appears to me to be applicable to cases of
the nature of those which are the subjects of this Report.
Formerly convicts were transported in private vessels engaged for the
purpose at a charge of a certain amount per head on the number
_embarked_. The ships belonged to respectable merchants and owners; and
on that responsibility which is supposed to attach to fair character and
respectability the convicts were committed to their charge.
The interest which engrossed the mind of the shipowner, it may be
presumed, was that of making the most of his vessels, and sending out a
full cargo. No wilful oversight, still less any oppression, was perhaps
imputable to the owners, the captains, or any one else: but still the
fair profits of a good cargo could scarcely be expected to be sacrificed
for the avoidance of any temporary inconvenience of convicts during a
voyage; but somehow or other it happened that fever broke out, and that
the mortality during the first voyages was dreadful—sometimes half the
passengers were lost. I presume that the convicts were accompanied by
officers of the Government; but the importance of ventilation was little
known at that time, and even the King’s ships were ravaged by scurvy,
dysentery, and fever. The appointment of special inspectors for this
purpose solely would possibly have mitigated the evil to some extent,
perhaps to an extent to warrant the expense; but I believe it would have
protracted amendment, and left untouched a large mass of evil.
At length, however, the form of contract was altered: instead of the
shipowners being paid per head on the number _embarked_, they were only
paid per head _on the number landed alive_; so that the shipowners lost
by every person who died on the passage. This form of contract changed
the whole face of things.
Attention, or the efficient stimulus of interest, was directed to the
cause of the mortality: ventilation and other appliances were sedulously
attended to; the merchant, at his own proper cost, provided a medical
officer to take charge of the convicts, and the remuneration of that
officer was proportioned to the number landed _alive_. The result was
that the frightful mortality disappeared, and the voyages have generally
been effected with a higher degree of health amongst the passengers, or
with less mortality, than would perhaps have occurred amongst the same
number of the same class of persons living at large on shore.[64] The
East India Company have also, I am informed, adopted the same principle
in the payment of the medical officers who have charge of the transport
of their troops. The same principle has been directed to be applied by
the Poor Law Commissioners in the contracts for the shipment of
pauper-emigrants for Canada; and I am informed that complaints and the
cause of them have proportionably disappeared.
I am informed by a friend who has taken a great interest in the subject
of the transport of emigrants, that a year or two ago the principle was
overlooked in the transport of emigrants by the Government agent. Some
vessels were chartered and officered by Government officers of the
highest character; but fever broke out in those ships, and there was
severe suffering; whilst the voyages of ordinary emigrant-ships,
commanded by common skippers—people of no rank or consideration, but
placed under a contract which made their interest coincident with
humanity—made their voyages as any person of practical experience and
observance of the operation of different interests might have expected.
I believe that the practical application of the same principle of
legislation, viz. the concentration of responsibility on those who may
best find out and apply the means of prevention, would, in this
important branch of industry, in which such numbers of young persons,
and persons young in understanding and discretion, are employed, would
be the most efficient preventive, and would, at the same time, give the
owners and managers of collieries, at the outset, the least trouble, and
ultimately a high degree of comfort.
I may here repeat, that it is observable in the district assigned to me,
that the accidents from the breakage of rope are of rare occurrence in
the deepest mines. The cost of a rope for the deeper mines is
proportionably greater than for those of less depth. Not only,
therefore, is the breakage of a rope a serious loss in itself, but the
cause of still more serious loss from the interruption of the very
extensive operations of the large mines to which they belong. It is a
matter of fact, that greater care is bestowed on these expensive ropes
and gearing, because it is the interest of those who are not always
thinking about preventing _remote_ accidents, but who are naturally and
properly always thinking about _immediate_ profits, to take care of
them.
The responsibility implied by the proposed application of the principle
for prevention, is a responsibility for exercise of care in their own
business operations, which care can be exercised by them and no others,
without interrupting and interfering with them in their business
operations.
27.—_Tables of Sickness in Prisons._
Table showing the Sickness experienced by 2,876 Prisoners committed to
the Prison of Glasgow, from 1st January to 31st October, 1841, including
432 in Prison on 1st January, as compared with that of the East India
Company’s Labourers, and the Highland Society’s Tables.
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────┐
│ Age. │ Females. │ Prison │
│ │ │ of │
│ │ │Glasgow.│
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬─────────┼────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │Average │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness,│duration│
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of│ of │
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Glasgow. │Sickness│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ per │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ annum │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ for │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ every │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │Female. │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ │ │ │ │ Days │ │ │
│ Years. │ │ │ │ & │ Days. │ │
│ │ │ │ │Decimals.│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Under 16│ 68 │ │ 4,520 │ 66·47 │ 11 │ ·87 │
│16 to 21│ 317 │ This │23,575 │ 74·36 │ 61 │ ·95 │
│ │ │cannot be │ │ │ │ │
│21 to 26│ 209 │ given │17,140 │ 82·00 │ 125 │ 2·74 │
│ │ │ without │ │ │ │ │
│26 to 31│ 172 │ immense │ 8,932 │ 51·93 │ 57 │ 2·34 │
│ │ │ labour, │ │ │ │ │
│31 to 36│ 95 │ no │ 6,306 │ 66·37 │ 30 │ 1·89 │
│ │ │ register │ │ │ │ │
│36 to 41│ 89 │ having │ 5,785 │ 65· │ 21 │ 1·5 │
│ │ │ been │ │ │ │ │
│41 to 46│ 46 │kept which│ 3,198 │ 69·52 │ 57 │ 6·5 │
│46 to 51│ 45 │ readily │ 1,813 │ 40·28 │ 7 │ 1·38 │
│ │ │ shows │ │ │ │ │
│51 to 56│ 24 │the daily │ 1,530 │ 63·75 │ 9 │ 2·19 │
│56 to 61│ 7 │average of│ 1,731 │ 247·28 │ 40 │ 8· │
│61 to 66│ 5 │ the │ 45 │ 9· │ │ │
│ │ │ various │ │ │ │ │
│66 to 71│ 2 │ ages and │ 362 │ 181· │ 60 │ ·60 │
│ │ │ sexes. │ │ │ │ │
│71 to 76│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ Total. │ 1,079 │ │74,837 │ 69·36 │ 478 │ 2·33 │
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴─────────┴────────┘
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────┐
│ Age. │ Males. │Prison of│
│ │ │Glasgow. │
│ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬─────────┼─────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │ Average │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness,│duration │
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of│ of │
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Glasgow. │Sickness │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │per annum│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │for every│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ Male. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ │ │ │ │Days and │ │Days and │
│ Years. │ │ │ │Decimals.│ Days. │Decimals.│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Under 16│ 267 │ │20,428 │ 76·50 │ 66 │ 1·17 │
│16 to 21│ 596 │ This │43,484 │ 72·95 │ 417 │ 3·5 │
│ │ │cannot be │ │ │ │ │
│21 to 26│ 376 │ given │23,128 │ 61·51 │ 116 │ 1·83 │
│ │ │ without │ │ │ │ │
│26 to 31│ 204 │ immense │11,886 │ 58·26 │ 86 │ 2·65 │
│ │ │ labour, │ │ │ │ │
│31 to 36│ 111 │ no │ 8,409 │ 75·75 │ 64 │ 2·83 │
│ │ │ register │ │ │ │ │
│36 to 41│ 93 │ having │ 4,813 │ 51·75 │ 12 │ 9· │
│ │ │ been │ │ │ │ │
│41 to 46│ 62 │kept which│ 4,174 │ 67·32 │ 6 │ ·49 │
│46 to 51│ 37 │ readily │ 1,195 │ 32·29 │ 7 │ 2·16 │
│ │ │ shows │ │ │ │ │
│51 to 56│ 26 │the daily │ 1,156 │ 44·46 │ 25 │ 7·9 │
│56 to 61│ 12 │average of│ 612 │ 51· │ 4 │ 2·3 │
│61 to 66│ 7 │ the │ 238 │ 34· │ 4 │ 6· │
│ │ │ various │ │ │ │ │
│66 to 71│ 4 │ ages and │ 948 │ 237· │ │ │
│ │ │ sexes. │ │ │ │ │
│71 to 76│ 1 │ │ 14 │ 14· │ │ │
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ Total. │ 1,796 │ │123,885│ 68·98 │ 807 │ 2·38 │
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘
┌────────┬──────────┬────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ Age. │East India│ Highland │ Prison of Glasgow. │
│ │Company’s │ Society. │ │
│ │Labourers.│ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────┬─────────┼─────────┬───────────┤
│ │ Average │ Age. │ Average │ No. │ Deaths. │
│ │ duration │ │duration │liberated│ │
│ │ of │ │ of │ on │ │
│ │ Sickness │ │Sickness │ account │ │
│ │per annum │ │per annum│ of │ │
│ │for every │ │for every│Sickness.│ │
│ │ Man. │ │ Man, as │ │ │
│ │ │ │shown by │ │ │
│ │ │ │Tables of│ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────┼─────────┼────┬────┼─────┬─────┤
│ │ Days and │ │Days and │ M. │ F. │ M. │ F. │
│ Years. │Decimals. │Years.│Decimals.│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Under 16│ │ 21 │ 4·0 │ │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 4·02 │ 46 │ 7·0 │ 1 │ │ 3 │ 2 │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│21 to 26│ 5·40 │ 57 │ 14·0 │ │ 1 │ │ 1 │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│26 to 31│ 4·49 │ 63 │ 21·0 │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│31 to 36│ 4·55 │ 65 │ 30·8 │ │ 1 │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│36 to 41│ 5·57 │ 66 │ 37·8 │ │ │ 3 │ 1 │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│41 to 46│ 5·18 │ 67 │ 46·2 │ │ │ │ │
│46 to 51│ 5·43 │ 68 │ 56·0 │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│51 to 56│ 6·80 │ 69 │ 63·0 │ │ 1 │ │ │
│56 to 61│ 7·21 │ 70 │ 70·0 │ │ │ │ │
│61 to 66│ 10·24 │ │ │ │ │ 1 │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│66 to 71│ 9·93 │ │ │ │ │ 1 │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│71 to 76│ 10·60 │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│76 to 81│ 12·67 │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────┼─────────┼────┼────┼─────┼─────┤
│ Total. │ │ │ │ │ │8[65]│4[65]│
└────────┴──────────┴──────┴─────────┴────┴────┴─────┴─────┘
Dietary.│ Weight.—First-rate, 24 ounces; second-rate, 30 ounces; │
│ third-rate, 36 ounces. │
│ Equivalent Total in ounces of wheaten bread. │
│Cost on an average 3‑1/16_d._ per day, but taking the average│
│ of the last seven years, it cost exactly 2¾_d._ per day. │
│ This is exclusive of fuel and cooking. │
Table showing the Sickness experienced by 2,889 Prisoners committed to
the Prison of Edinburgh from 1st January to 31st October, 1841, as
compared with that of the East India Company’s Labourers, and the
Highland Society’s Tables.
┌────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────┐
│ Age. │ Females. │Prison of │
│ │ │Edinburgh.│
│ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬──────────┼──────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │ Average │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness, │ duration │
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of │ of │
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Edinburgh.│ Sickness │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │per annum │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │for every │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ Female. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ Years. │ │ │ │ Days & │ Days. │ │
│ │ │ │ │Decimals.│ │ │
│Under 16│ 106 │ 11·9 │ 3,631 │ 34·25 │ 9 │ ·90 │
│16 to 21│ 420 │ 49·2 │15,060 │ 35·85 │ 25 │ ·60 │
│21 to 26│ 437 │ 42·6 │12,952 │ 29·61 │ 102 │ 2·87 │
│26 to 31│ 252 │ 22·8 │ 6,958 │ 27·61 │ 57 │ 2·90 │
│31 to 36│ 135 │ 17·7 │ 5,463 │ 40·66 │ 32 │ 2·01 │
│36 to 41│ 105 │ 11·1 │ 3,399 │ 32·37 │ 11 │ 1·17 │
│41 to 46│ 47 │ 4·3 │ 1,327 │ 28·23 │ 30[66] │ 8·25 │
│46 to 51│ 60 │ 7·5 │ 2,294 │ 38·23 │ 6 │ ·95 │
│51 to 56│ 14 │ 1·6 │ 494 │ 35·28 │ 3 │ 2·21 │
│56 to 61│ 29 │ 1·7 │ 524 │ 18·06 │ │ │
│61 to 66│ 9 │ 1·2 │ 386 │ 42·88 │ │ │
│66 to 71│ 11 │ 1·1 │ 339 │ 30·81 │ │ │
│71 to 76│ 3 │ ·23 │ 70 │ 23·33 │ │ │
│76 to 81│ 5 │ ·43 │ 130 │ 26· │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ Total. │ 1,663 │ 173·36 │53,057 │ 32·49 │ 275 │ 1·9 │
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴──────────┴──────────┘
┌────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Age. │ Males. │
│ │ │
│ │ │
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬──────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness, │
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of │
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Edinburgh.│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Years. │ │ │ │ Days & │ Days. │
│ │ │ │ │Decimals.│ │
│Under 16│ 216 │ 41·9 │12,752 │ 59·03 │ 43 │
│16 to 21│ 314 │ 55·3 │16,826 │ 53·58 │ 143 │
│21 to 26│ 223 │ 28·9 │ 8,199 │ 36·72 │ 37 │
│26 to 31│ 136 │ 15·8 │ 4,818 │ 35·42 │ 36 │
│31 to 36│ 95 │ 11·2 │ 3,426 │ 36·06 │ 25 │
│36 to 41│ 81 │ 9·8 │ 3,007 │ 37·12 │ 7 │
│41 to 46│ 56 │ 4·4 │ 1,338 │ 23·88 │ 2 │
│46 to 51│ 55 │ 8·2 │ 1,892 │ 34·40 │ 12 │
│51 to 56│ 23 │ 1·7 │ 544 │ 23·85 │ 13 │
│56 to 61│ 24 │ 3·3 │ 1,004 │ 41·83 │ 36[66] │
│61 to 66│ 19 │ 2·2 │ 683 │ 35·94 │ 8 │
│66 to 71│ 8 │ ·62 │ 190 │ 23·75 │ │
│71 to 76│ 3 │ ·16 │ 51 │ 17· │ │
│76 to 81│ 3 │ ·19 │ 60 │ 20· │ 3[66] │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ Total. │ 1,256 │ 179·67 │54,790 │ 43·62 │ 365 │
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴──────────┘
┌────────┬──────────┬──────────╥────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ Age. │Prison of │East India║ Highland │Prison of Edinburgh. │
│ │Edinburgh.│Company’s ║ Society. │ │
│ │ │Labourers.║ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────╫──────┬─────────┼─────────┬───────────┤
│ │ Average │ Average ║ Age. │ Average │ No. │ Deaths. │
│ │ duration │ duration ║ │duration │liberated│ │
│ │ of │ of ║ │ of │ on │ │
│ │ Sickness │ Sickness ║ │Sickness │ account │ │
│ │per annum │per annum ║ │per annum│ of │ │
│ │for every │for every ║ │for every│Sickness.│ │
│ │ Male. │ Man. ║ │ Man, as │ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │shown by │ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │Tables of│ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────╫──────┼─────────┼────┬────┼─────┬─────┤
│ Years. │ Days & │ Days & ║Years.│ Days & │ M. │ F. │ M. │ F. │
│ │Decimals. │Decimals. ║ │Decimals.│ │ │ │ │
│Under 16│ 1·23 │ ║ 21 │ 4·0 │ │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 3·10 │ 4·02 ║ 46 │ 7·0 │ │ │ 1 │ │
│21 to 26│ 1·64 │ 5·40 ║ 57 │ 14·0 │ │ │ │ │
│26 to 31│ 2·72 │ 4·49 ║ 63 │ 21·0 │ │ │ │ │
│31 to 36│ 2·63 │ 4·55 ║ 65 │ 30·8 │ │ │ │ │
│36 to 41│ ·85 │ 5·57 ║ 66 │ 37·8 │ │ │ │ │
│41 to 46│ ·51 │ 5·18 ║ 67 │ 46·2 │ │ │ │ │
│46 to 51│ 2·31 │ 5·43 ║ 68 │ 56·0 │ │ │ 1 │ │
│51 to 56│ 8·71 │ 6·80 ║ 69 │ 63·O │ │ │ 1 │ │
│56 to 61│ 13·09 │ 7·21 ║ 70 │ 70·0 │ │ │ │ │
│61 to 66│ 4·27 │ 10·24 ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
│66 to 71│ │ 9·93 ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
│71 to 76│ │ 10·60 ║ │ │ │ │ │ │
│76 to 81│ 18·25 │ 12·67 ║ │ │ │ │ 1 │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────╫──────┼─────────┼────┼────┼─────┼─────┤
│ Total. │ 2·4 │ ║ │ │ │ │ 4 │ │
└────────┴──────────┴──────────╨──────┴─────────┴────┴────┴─────┴─────┘
Table showing the Sickness experienced by 5,408 Prisoners committed to
the Prisons of Salford from October 17, 1840, to October 16, 1841, as
compared with that of the East India Company’s Labourers, and the
Highland Society’s Tables.
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────┐
│ Age. │ Females. │ Prison │
│ │ │ of │
│ │ │Salford.│
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬─────────┼────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │Average │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness,│duration│
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of│ of │
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Salford. │Sickness│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ per │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ annum │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ for │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ every │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │Female. │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ Years. │ │ │ │ Days & │ Days. │ │
│ │ │ │ │Decimals.│ │ │
│Under 16│ 58│ 12·93│ 3,353│ 57·81│ 4│ ·44│
│16 to 21│ 279│ 37·52│ 13,701│ 49·1│ 372│ 9·91│
│21 to 26│ 264│ 31·96│ 11,681│ 44·24│ 239│ 7·46│
│26 to 31│ 185│ 26·69│ 9,748│ 52·7│ 409│ 15·31│
│31 to 36│ 120│ 17·33│ 6,329│ 52·74│ 316│ 18·22│
│36 to 41│ 90│ 8·49│ 3,238│ 36·│ 56│ 6·31│
│41 to 46│ 58│ 9·98│ 3,647│ 62·89│ 213│ 21·31│
│46 to 51│ 46│ 6·36│ 2,325│ 50·54│ 55│ 8·63│
│51 to 56│ 17│ 2·83│ 1,034│ 60·82│ │ │
│56 to 61│ 9│ 1·07│ 393│ 43·60│ 80│ 74·3│
│61 to 66│ 4│ ·05│ 192│ 38·│ 29│ 55·13│
│66 to 71│ 1│ │ 14│ 14·│ │ │
│71 to 76│ │ │ 30│ 30·│ │ │
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ Total │ 1,132│ 155·21│ 55,635│ 49·37│ 1,773│ 11·6│
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴─────────┴────────┘
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Age. │ Males. │
│ │ │
│ │ │
├────────┼──────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────┬─────────┤
│ │Total No. │ Daily │ Total │ Average │ Actual │
│ │ of │ average │No. of │ No. of │sickness,│
│ │Prisoners.│ No. of │Days in│ Days in │Prison of│
│ │ │Prisoners.│Prison.│ Prison. │Salford. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ Years. │ │ │ │ Days & │ Days. │
│ │ │ │ │Decimals.│ │
│Under 16│ 542│ 89·52│ 32,690│ 60·31│ 69│
│16 to 21│ 1,072│ 155·2│ 56,671│ 52·86│ 623│
│21 to 26│ 935│ 118·2│ 43,166│ 46·16│ 293│
│26 to 31│ 590│ 78·07│ 28,507│ 47·67│ 182│
│31 to 36│ 371│ 43·39│ 15,847│ 42·71│ 135│
│36 to 41│ 316│ 41·14│ 15,023│ 47·54│ 210│
│41 to 46│ 170│ 19·98│ 7,298│ 42·93│ 55│
│46 to 51│ 117│ 13·11│ 4,818│ 41·18│ 77│
│51 to 56│ 75│ 9·42│ 3,443│ 45·09│ 51│
│56 to 61│ 47│ 4·24│ 1,547│ 32·93│ 7│
│61 to 66│ 20│ 3·08│ 1,127│ 56·35│ 83│
│66 to 71│ 9│ ·07│ 267│ 29·66│ 2│
│71 to 76│ 4│ ·27│ 101│ 25·25│ │
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ Total │ 4,276│ 574·53│210,503│ 49·23│ 1,787│
└────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────┴─────────┘
┌────────┬─────────┬──────────╥────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ Age. │Prison of│East India║ Highland │ Prison of Salford. │
│ │Salford. │Company’s ║ Society. │ │
│ │ │Labourers.║ │ │
├────────┼─────────┼──────────╫──────┬─────────┼─────────┬───────────┤
│ │ Average │ Average ║ Age. │ Average │ No. │ Deaths. │
│ │duration │ duration ║ │duration │liberated│ │
│ │ of │ of ║ │ of │ on │ │
│ │Sickness │ Sickness ║ │Sickness │ account │ │
│ │per annum│per annum ║ │per annum│ of │ │
│ │for every│for every ║ │for every│Sickness.│ │
│ │ Male. │ Man. ║ │ Man, as │ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │shown by │ │ │
│ │ │ ║ │Tables of│ │ │
├────────┼─────────┼──────────╫──────┼─────────┼────┬────┼─────┬─────┤
│ Years. │ Days & │ Days & ║Years.│ Days & │ M.│ F.│ M.│ F.│
│ │Decimals.│Decimals. ║ │Decimals.│ │ │ │ │
│Under 16│ ·77│ ║ 21│ 4·0│ │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 4·01│ 4·02║ 46│ 7·0│ │ │ │ │
│21 to 26│ 2·4│ 5·40║ 57│ 14·0│ │ │ 1│ │
│26 to 31│ 2·33│ 4·49║ 83│ 21·0│ │ │ │ 1│
│31 to 36│ 3·1│ 4·55║ 85│ 30·8│ │ │ 2│ 1│
│36 to 41│ 5·1│ 5·57║ 66│ 37·8│ │ │ 1│ │
│41 to 46│ 2·75│ 5·18║ 67│ 46·2│ │ │ 1│ │
│46 to 51│ 5·83│ 5·43║ 68│ 56·0│ │ │ 1│ │
│51 to 56│ 5·43│ 6·80║ 69│ 63·0│ │ │ │ │
│56 to 61│ 1·65│ 7·21║ 70│ 70·0│ │ │ │ │
│61 to 66│ 2·67│ 10·24║ │ │ │ │ 1│ │
│66 to 71│ 2·69│ 9·93║ │ │ │ │ 1│ │
│71 to 76│ │ 10·60║ │ │ │ │ │ │
│76 to 81│ │ 12·67║ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────┼─────────┼──────────╫──────┼─────────┼────┼────┼─────┼─────┤
│ Total │ 3·098│ ║ │ │ │ │ 8│ 2│
└────────┴─────────┴──────────╨──────┴─────────┴────┴────┴─────┴─────┘
28.—_Experience of Sickness in the Wynds of Edinburgh._
Table showing the Sickness experienced by 334 Persons, from 10th
November, 1840, to 10th November, 1841, in some of the Wynds and Closes
of Edinburgh, compared with the Sickness experienced in the Edinburgh
Prison, by the East India Company’s Labourers, and by the Members of
Benefit Societies, as shown in the Highland Society’s Tables.
┌────────┬──────────────────┬─────────╥──────────┐
│ Age. │ Females. │ Closes ║Prison of │
│ │ │ and ║Edinburgh.│
│ │ │ Wynds. ║ │
├────────┼────────┬─────────┼─────────╫──────────┤
│ │ No. of │ Actual │ Average ║ Average │
│ │Persons.│Sickness,│duration ║ duration │
│ │ │ Closes │ of ║ of │
│ │ │and Wynds│Sickness ║ Sickness │
│ │ │ of │per Annum║per Annum │
│ │ │Edinburgh│for every║for every │
│ │ │ │ Female. ║ Female. │
│ │ │ │ ║ │
│ │ │ │ ║ │
├────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────╫──────────┤
│ Years. │ │ Days. │Days and ║ Days and │
│ │ │ │Decimals.║Decimals. │
│Under 12│ 12│ 98│ 8·1║ │
│12 to 16│ 19│ 244│ 12·8║ ·90│
│16 to 21│ 19│ 112│ 5·9║ ·60│
│21 to 26│ 18│ 273│ 15·1║ 2·87│
│26 to 31│ 23│ 215│ 9·3║ 2·90│
│31 to 36│ 12│ 133│ 11·0║ 2·01│
│36 to 41│ 30│ 199│ 6·6║ 1·17│
│41 to 46│ 9│ 84│ 9·3║ 8·25│
│46 to 51│ 11│ 477│ 43·3║ ·93│
│51 to 56│ 5│ 81│ 16·2║ 2·21│
│56 to 61│ 10│ 71│ 7·1║ ·00│
│61 to 66│ 5│ 56│ 11·2║ ·00│
│66 to 71│ 1│ 0│ ·0║ ·00│
│71 to 76│ 2│ 365│ 182·5║ ·00│
│76 to 81│ 1│ 35│ 35·║ ·00│
├────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────╫──────────┤
│ Total. │ 177│ 2,443│ 13·8║ 1·9│
└────────┴────────┴─────────┴─────────╨──────────┘
┌────────┬──────────────────┬─────────╥──────────┬──────────┐
│ Age. │ Males. │ Closes ║Prison of │East India│
│ │ │ and ║Edinburgh.│Company’s │
│ │ │ Wynds. ║ │Labourers.│
├────────┼────────┬─────────┼─────────╫──────────┼──────────┤
│ │ No. of │ Actual │ Average ║ Average │ Average │
│ │Persons.│Sickness,│duration ║ duration │ duration │
│ │ │ Closes │ of ║ of │ of │
│ │ │and Wynds│Sickness ║ Sickness │ Sickness │
│ │ │ of │per Annum║per Annum │per Annum │
│ │ │Edinburgh│for every║for every │for every │
│ │ │ │ Male. ║ Male. │ Male. │
│ │ │ │ ║ │ │
│ │ │ │ ║ │ │
├────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────╫──────────┼──────────┤
│ Years. │ │ Days. │Days and ║ Days and │ Days and │
│ │ │ │Decimals.║Decimals. │Decimals. │
│Under 12│ 6│ 21│ 3·5║ │ │
│12 to 16│ 21│ 49│ 2·3║ 1·23│ │
│16 to 21│ 19│ 98│ 5·1║ 3·10│ 4·02│
│21 to 26│ 7│ 77│ 11·0║ 1·64│ 5·40│
│26 to 31│ 16│ 133│ 8·3║ 2·72│ 4·49│
│31 to 36│ 17│ 70│ 4·1║ 2·63│ 4·55│
│36 to 41│ 19│ 287│ 15·1║ ·85│ 5·57│
│41 to 46│ 13│ 393│ 30·0║ ·51│ 5·18│
│46 to 51│ 15│ 243│ 16·2║ 2·31│ 5·43│
│51 to 56│ 5│ 152│ 30·4║ 8·71│ 6·80│
│56 to 61│ 9│ 385│ 42·7║ 13·09│ 7·21│
│61 to 66│ 5│ 321│ 64·2║ 4·27│ 10·24│
│66 to 71│ 2│ 82│ 41·0║ ·00│ 9·93│
│71 to 76│ 3│ 251│ 83·6║ ·00│ 10·60│
│76 to 81│ │ │ ║ 18·25│ 12·67│
├────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────╫──────────┼──────────┤
│ Total. │ 157│ 2,562│ 16·3║ 2·4│ │
└────────┴────────┴─────────┴─────────╨──────────┴──────────┘
┌────────┬────────────────┬───────┬──────────┐
│ Age. │ Highland │Closes │Prison of │
│ │ Society. │ and │Edinburgh.│
│ │ │Wynds. │ │
├────────┼──────┬─────────┼───────┼──────────┤
│ │ Age. │ Average │Deaths.│ Deaths. │
│ │ │duration │ │ │
│ │ │ of │ │ │
│ │ │Sickness │ │ │
│ │ │per Annum│ │ │
│ │ │for every│ │ │
│ │ │ Man, as │ │ │
│ │ │shown by │ │ │
│ │ │Tables of│ │ │
├────────┼──────┼─────────┼───┬───┼────┬─────┤
│ Years. │Years.│Days and │M. │F. │ M. │ F. │
│ │ │Decimals.│ │ │ │ │
│Under 12│ │ │ 1│ │ │ │
│12 to 16│ 21│ 4·0│ │ │ │ │
│16 to 21│ 46│ 7·0│ │ │ 1│ │
│21 to 26│ 57│ 14·0│ │ 2│ │ │
│26 to 31│ 63│ 21·0│ │ │ │ │
│31 to 36│ 65│ 30·8│ │ │ │ │
│36 to 41│ 66│ 37·8│ │ │ │ │
│41 to 46│ 67│ 46·2│ │ 1│ │ │
│46 to 51│ 68│ 56·0│ │ │ 1│ │
│51 to 56│ 69│ 63·0│ │ │ 1│ │
│56 to 61│ 70│ 70·0│ 1│ │ │ │
│61 to 66│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│66 to 71│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│71 to 76│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│76 to 81│ │ │ │ │ 1│ │
├────────┼──────┼─────────┼───┼───┼────┼─────┤
│ Total. │ │ │ 2│ 3│ 4│ │
└────────┴──────┴─────────┴───┴───┴────┴─────┘
29.—_Suggested Form of Notification to Owners or Occupiers for the
distribution of the Expense of permanent Alterations, and the avoidance
of Overcharges on persons enjoying only portions of the benefit._
The Commissioners of Sewers appointed to superintend the execution of
the Act of Victoria, passed for the protection of the public health,
which requires that every inhabited tenement shall be provided with
proper means of drainage, and cleansing, and the removal of refuse, have
caused a survey to be made of the houses and tenements in—[court or
street, as the case may be]. On this survey it appears that your house,
with others in the same place, are without the requisites required by
law; that they are without proper sewers, without drainage from the
house, and without water or proper means for the constant removal of
night-soil, or conveniences for cleansing.
By the section of the Act the several requisites hereunder described
are directed to be provided and completed within months after this
date.
The Commissioners have directed tenders for contracts upon
specifications to be taken for the execution of the required works,
under a civil engineer, in the most beneficial manner and at the lowest
cost.
They are also prepared to take loans on the security of the rates for
defraying the expenses of the execution of the works contracted for.
It will be at your option either to repay at once the cost of the
requisite works by which the property will be benefited, or to repay it
by annual instalments in 30 year, paying 5 per cent. interest on the
principal sum expended, or on that part of it that may, from time to
time, remain unpaid.
To save the trouble and expense of a double collection, annual
instalments and the interest on the principal sums expended will be
collected from the tenant with rates. Where the landlord is under any
agreement or obligation to cleanse the cesspools, the tenant will be
entitled to deduct from the rent the charge for the drainage and
apparatus for cleansing. Where the tenant pays rent weekly, or at
shorter periods than quarterly, and does not pay rates, the charge
for the works in question is required by the statute to be paid by the
owner of the tenement, who will levy the amount with the rent, or make
his own terms with the tenant for the improvement in question.
The cost of the required improvements or principal sum, which will be
charged at the contract prices, together with the annual instalments and
interest thereon, and the weekly charge or improved rent that may be due
or charged on the weekly tenant, will be as follows:—
┌───────────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│ │ │ Annual │ │
│ │ │ Interest, │ │
│ │ │commuted at 5│Weekly Charge│
│ │ Annual │per cent. on │ to the │
│First Outlay per Tenement. │ Instalment │ Outlay, │ Tenant, or │
│ │for Repayment│ charged as │ Increased │
│ │in 30 years. │ Rent on │ Rent. │
│ │ │ Tenant, and │ │
│ │ │ Annual Rent │ │
│ │ │ of Water. │ │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┬──────┼──────┬──────┼──────┬──────┤
│ £. _s._ _d._│ _s._ │ _d._ │ _s._ │ _d._ │ _s._ │ _d._ │
│Water-closet │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Water-tank 10 8 6│ 6│ 11│ 6│ 8│ 0│ 3│
│ Drain │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Main Sewer 5 12 0│ 3│ 9│ 3│ 6│ 0│ 1½│
│Water │ │ │ 5│ 0│ 0│ 1│
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│ Total │ 10│ 8│ 15│ 2│ 0│ 5½│
└───────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┘
If the landlord undertake to cleanse the cesspools, then the additional
weekly charge on the occupier for the supplies of water and drainage
will be 2½_d._ weekly, involving, as the occupier should be informed,
the conveniences, cleanliness, and security to health, and saving of
medical expenses.
Persons having only interests in property for years or for determinate
periods may, by means of the above table, distribute amongst the persons
successively interested in the property the portions of the charge to
which they are liable.
The surveyor and officers of sewers are charged with the duty of from
time to time inspecting and seeing to the sufficiency of the means of
drainage and cleansing. By the terms of the contract the contractor is
bound to make good the drains for years, but the tenant will be
liable to make good any wanton damage.
The Act gives to the owner of the beneficial interest in the premises
the option of executing the prescribed works himself, on giving notice
on or before the of such his intention, and entering into his surety
to execute them within the time prescribed and according to the contract
specifications, to the satisfaction of the officer charged with the
superintendence of the work.
30.—_Extracts from Evidence on the Moral and Physical Evils which may be
created by the mode of Hiring and Paying Workmen._
(Extract from Evidence given before a Committee of the House of
Commons.)
CHARLES SAUNDERS.
What is your occupation?—Coal-whipper.
Have the goodness to state to the Committee the manner in which coal
whippers are engaged and paid?—I have been in the habit of obtaining a
living by coal whipping for the last 10 years, and when I want
employment, (me and the likes of me of course,) I have to go to the
publican to get a job, to ask him for a job; and he tells me to go and
sit down, and he will give me an answer by and by. I go and sit down,
and if I have 2_d._ in my pocket, of course I am obliged to spend it,
with a view of getting a job; and, probably, when two or three hours
have elapsed, by that time there is about 50 or 60 people come on the
same errand to the same person for a job. He keeps us three or four
hours there; and then he comes out, and he looks round among us, and he
knows those well that can drink the most, and those are the people that
obtain employment first. Those that cannot drink a great deal, and think
more of their family than others do, cannot obtain any employment; those
that drink the most get the most employment. When the men are made up
for the ship, we go to work the next day morning, but we have to take
what the publican calls the allowance, such as a quartern of rum, or
three half-quarterns, or a pot of beer, or what not; then they have to
take a pot of beer off in a bottle on board,—what he calls beer, but not
fit for a man to drink, generally speaking, what I call poison: I have
actually teemed it overboard myself, before I could drink it; I could
not drink it, although I have been sweating and as thirsty as a man
could be, and have put it overboard, and gone and dipped my bottle in a
bucket of water.
In the after part of the day, when your work was over, where did you go
then?—Then, when we have done our day’s work, we came on shore, and we
had to go into the house again; and perhaps we might want a shilling or
two to get our families a little support; the landlord would tell us to
go and sit down in the tap-room, and he would give us some by and by,
and he would keep us there until nine or ten at night; first, we would
go for a pint or a pot, or what not, to see whether he was getting
ready, for we dare not go empty-handed, without a pot or pint, or to
call for something by way of excuse; after keeping us there until nine
or ten at night, then he would give us 2_s._ 6_d._ or 3_s._
Were you obliged to spend money in drink?—Yes.
Could you not avoid it by any means?—No.
What would have happened if you had refused to spend money in
drink?—Then we could have no employment; and moreover than that, if you
had had what you thought was requisite, if he did not think it was
sufficient, he would add more than what you had actually contracted for;
and if you refused to pay this, and you said, “I have not had but so
much, I won’t pay it.” “Oh, won’t you; if you do not, here is your
money, what you say it is; go out, and never come in here again.”
Have you known anybody refused employment because they would not
contribute to the publican’s demand for drink?—Yes, I could find 50.
Who have lost their employment because they would not drink so much as
the publican wished?—Yes, I could.
Could you not engage yourself to the captain of the ship without going
to the publican?—No, for the publicans are some of them shipowners, and
they are all intermixed through the trade by one thing and another, so
that the captain or owner of the ship gives the favour to the publican
to employ the whippers.
MR. CLAYDON, _Master of the Limehouse Workhouse, belonging to the
Stepney Union_.
With respect to the labouring classes, have you observed whether, with
respect to any of them, these ill-regulated inclinations are subjected
to unnecessary temptations?—The practice of paying men at public houses,
and making the obtaining employment dependent in a certain measure upon
drinking, which is the case with the coal-whippers.
Have you ever had occasion as respects the coal-whippers to investigate
those cases?—We did at one period, having an opportunity, investigate
upwards of 40 cases of coal-whippers.
Those were 40 applicants for relief?—The greater part of them were; 22
of them were in the immediate receipt of relief at the time the others
were applicants.
What was the result in those cases?—We took their earnings over a
considerable period, and we found that they had earned, taking the
average, 18_s._ 10_d._ per week. The utmost we could make out that their
families had received of that, in any shape, was 12_s._ 10_d._ per week.
Whatever might have been their family, one-third of it had gone in drink
and those charges which were brought against them.
Had any of those men earned more than that?—There were instances in
which they had earned 20_s._ a-day.
And all came upon the pauper list just the same?—Yes, just as destitute
as the rest, saving never seems to enter into their calculation at all.
Then with respect to this particular class, notwithstanding their
earning wages twice as much as agricultural labourers earn probably, and
which agricultural labourers save money, and are depositors in
savings-banks, these men made no deposits, and no reserve, but the whole
of them fall upon the rates? In one shape or other they receive the
public charity, is that so?—Yes, in fact they have not the means
possessed by other labourers, of pawning anything. I question whether
you could find as much furniture in any one of their houses, as you
could pawn for 2_s._ 6_d._
Not even in those cases where they are earning a guinea a-day?—No, they
are all alike destitute, and their families look as dirty and as filthy,
and are as ill-governed, and their houses are as destitute of furniture
as those who earn the smaller sums, there is no difference; and in case
of sickness they come at once upon the parish, unless they sometimes
assist each other a little; but, however, they have no certain means at
all but the parish. Their sicknesses are generally short. In most cases
they are so ill prepared to bear sickness, that they are cut off very
rapidly, and die comparatively young. I do not speak this from actual
experience however.
Have you seen the cases of the widows, and the children coming in upon
the parish?—Yes, we have 28 cases now. Our present numbers are 425
children, that is from the whole of the Union; there is only a small
portion of the Union in the coal-whippers’ district, but we have 28
children directly belonging to them, some of them legitimate, and others
illegitimate; all of that origin that we know decidedly that they are
the produce of those coal-whippers.
Are the same observations as to the causes of the pauperism of the
adults to be taken as to the causes of the pauperism of the
children?—Yes. The observation is universal. The children cannot have
produced it themselves, but they have the same habits and the same
proneness to indulge the appetites, in fact I think there is a
remarkable deficiency in the consideration of most parents, in that
matter, even of respectable parents; they let their children go to the
confectioners and buy drams, for they are drams in another form,
peppermint and cloves, and so on, made up into articles of
confectionary, and nothing is so likely to produce a depraved appetite,
the transition is so natural from that to ardent spirit.
With respect to the residences of those classes, the coal-whippers
especially, have you observed whether you have bad any cases of sickness
arising from their state of filthiness, or traceable to it?—I do not
know whether we can attribute it to that, but nothing can be more
likely, although it is impossible to say, for the coal-whipper is very
little at home, still nothing can be conceived more destitute, or more
disgusting than their abodes.
What are the sorts of children you receive in the house from them with
respect to training or education, that is, of those classes of
coal-whippers?—They are completely uneducated; the generality of them
are very untractable.
Allowed to run about wild?—Completely.
No care taken of them?—Not the ordinary care of cleanliness. I had three
in last night, and notwithstanding all our anxiety after economy we were
obliged to burn every rag of their clothes. To cleanse them was out of
the question entirely; that is the case with half that come in to the
workhouse.
_Mr. Sargeant_, the relieving officer of the same district.
Is it not your duty to visit the houses, and to inquire into the cases
of applicants for relief? Yes, it is.
In doing so, you must trace the causes of the application for
relief?—Yes.
What is the chief cause you find precede the application for
relief?—Excessive drink.
In respect to those trammels which it is described that the
coal-whippers are in, what is the consequence as to their households?
how do you find, when you visit those cases, that their houses are
provided?—I would rather sleep in my coal-hole than in any of their
hovels. I went into six houses yesterday, each house contains four
rooms, and in some of those houses there were 30 souls. In the least
house there were 17.
How many sleep in the same room?—In one room there were four widows and
two children, in the most wretched place imaginable.
Are quarrels between man and wife frequent?—Yes; through drink.
Are separations frequent? Yes; separations through drink on the part of
the wife.
How many cases have you of wives separated from their husbands in the
same way? I have had 15.
The wives, then, have imbibed the habits of the husbands? Yes.
Is there no cleanliness on a Sunday? Oh dear, no!
No attendance to church? No.
As to the children, what is their condition? The children of most abject
wretchedness. Those poor children are sent out to scour the streets, to
pick up and do anything else they can; and not particular to thieving.
What the condition of the girls?—The girls, when infants of seven years
of age, are turned out into the streets with fruit and all sorts of
things; when they arrive at the age of 14, go to stay stitching; then
they sit in doors at home with their mother, and so on, until the age of
15 or 16, when they generally become prostitutes. I see it, because I am
always amongst them. I have tried to get them to send those girls out to
service, when they say, “Mr. Sargeant, what am I to do? my husband earns
but little, I am obliged to depend upon what my daughter can do and
myself.”
_Mr. Rooke_, the relieving officer of St. George’s in the East.
I know the poor population of our parish well. I know that a large
proportion of the juvenile delinquents in our streets are coal-whippers’
children; I have known some of them to be transported. I know also that
the girls, who are coal-whippers’ children, turn out prostitutes; it is
seldom that any of them turn out to be good servants. Delirium tremens
is a frequent complaint amongst the coal-whippers, and it sometimes
extends to madness. There is one girl, for example, Margaret Harley,
aged 25, the daughter of a coal-whipper, who, for the last 10 years, has
always been either in a prison, in our workhouse, or the lunatic asylum;
I do not believe that during that time she has been 10 months out of
either of those places. I know a large proportion of the prostitutes in
our district who, as the children of these improvident classes, have
either been inmates of the house or otherwise chargeable to the public.
-----
Footnote 1:
The Commissioners have no money to remunerate physicians; and those
named should be distinctly informed that the service will be purely
honorary.
Footnote 2:
Vide Appendix C.
Footnote 3:
See the evidence on this subject taken before the Committee of the
House of Commons, on the sewerage of the metropolis; see also the
evidence of _Mr. Oldfield_, an extensive builder, _post_.
Footnote 4:
Vide the evidence of Mr. Dark and Mr. Treble, Appendix.
Footnote 5:
Mr. Smith, of Deanston, is of opinion that it would be practicable to
distribute such refuse by irrigation without exposure of the surface
of the fluid in which it is held in suspension.
Footnote 6:
Professor Liebig in his work on the “Chemistry of Agriculture,” refers
to various authorities on the practical value of such refuse, who
state that “human urine is, if possible, more husbanded by the Chinese
than night-soil for manure; every farm or patch of land for
cultivation has a tank, where all substances convertible into manure
are carefully deposited, the whole made liquid by adding urine in the
proportion required, and invariably applied in that state.” This is
exactly the process followed in the Netherlands.—See “Outlines of
Flemish Husbandry,” p. 22. “The business of collecting urine and
night-soil employs an immense number of persons, who deposit tubs in
every house in the cities for the reception of the urine of the
inmates, which vessels are removed daily with as much care as our
farmers remove their honey from the hives. When we consider the
immense value of night-soil as a manure, it is quite astounding that
so little attention is paid to preserve it. The quantity is immense
which is carried down by the drains in London to the river Thames,
serving no other purpose than to pollute its waters. A substance which
by its putrefaction generates miasmata may, by artificial means, be
rendered totally inoffensive, inodorous, and transportable, and yet
prejudice prevents these means being resorted to. If,” says the
professor, “we admit that the liquid and solid excrements of man
amount on an average to 1½ lb. daily (5/4 lb. of urine and ¼ lb.
fæces), and that both together contain 3 per cent. of nitrogen; then
in one year they will amount to 547 lbs., which contain 16·41 lbs. of
nitrogen, a quantity sufficient to yield the nitrogen of 800 lbs. of
wheat, rye, oats, or of 900 lbs. of barley.”—(Boussingault) “This is
much more than is necessary to add to an acre of land in order to
obtain, with the assistance of the nitrogen absorbed from the
atmosphere, the richest possible crop every year. Every town and farm
might thus supply itself with the manure which, besides containing the
most nitrogen, contains also the most phosphates, and if rotation of
the crops were adopted, they would be most abundant.”—Edited by Dr.
LYON PLAYFAIR.
Footnote 7:
See _post_.
Footnote 8:
Treatise on Road Formation and Cleansing.
Footnote 9:
See in the Appendix the form of calculation.
Footnote 10:
In Paris the greater proportion of the private houses are even now
supplied with water only by water-carriers, and the means of the
immediate conveyance of refuse, by a system of water-closets
communicating through drains to sewers to receptacles for use, could
not have been presented to the consideration of the men of science to
whom the subject was referred. It appears that in the first class of
houses in that city the cesspools were formerly only emptied once in
four or five years, and that it is now considered a great improvement
that they are emptied twice or thrice a-year. But the offensiveness
and the frequent injurious effects from emptying and removing the
contents, has led to the proposal of a plan of closed receptacles or
removable tanks, in which the soil maybe carted away to the place of
deposit for use as manure. The retention, however, of accumulations,
which can only be constantly removed by means of water, and the want
of proper supplies of water laid on in the houses very seriously
disparages the salubrity and habits of the population of that city, as
well as of the towns in this country where the same practice prevails.
Footnote 11:
Mr. John Martin, the artist, has endeavoured to direct public
attention to the sewerage of the metropolis, and proposed the erection
of a grand cloaca maxima, and various architectural works along the
Thames, with the meritorious objects of preventing the pollution of
the river, and saving the refuse. His plan was to form a canal on each
bank parallel to the river, so as to intercept the whole of the
sewerage, and convey it to large reservoirs or places of deposit at a
distance. His plan for the north bank was a canal, constructed of
iron, costing 60,000_l._ per mile, extending from Westminster to the
mouth of the Regent’s Canal, “where the grand receptacle should be
from which the soil should be conveyed to barges, and transmitted by
canals to various parts of the country.”—_Committee on Sewers’
Report_, p. 169. The primary objection to this plan is that it would
send the refuse still further out of the reach of large districts,
where it is wanted as manure, to a place where it would only be
available to the places for which canal conveyance would be
convenient; that it would leave untouched the great obstacle to the
use of manure, namely, the cost of removal and application by cartage
and hand labour. The construction of the canal would also involve the
disturbance of the whole of the wharf property; as originally
proposed, it involved their entire reconstruction, and the erection of
a grand colonnade along the banks of the river. For the removal of the
refuse, engineers of practical experience agree that the most eligible
plan was by various small conduits, not larger, where iron pipes might
be necessary, than the pipes used by the water companies in bringing
water into the metropolis, at a cost not a fifth, perhaps, of one
large canal, and without any disturbance of property. For the
application of the refuse as manure, practical experience at
Edinburgh, and of irrigation elsewhere, shows that the most effectual
mode of distribution for use is by water-meadows or drainage and
irrigation combined; forming an unseen, unostentatious, self-acting
system of excretory ducts, altogether superseding cartage or hand
labour, and conveying the refuse in closed streams, acting constantly
and rapidly until they distribute the refuse into the field of
production.
Footnote 12:
A litre is one pint and a twentieth.
Footnote 13:
The spread of the knowledge of the fact that animals are subject to
typhus consumption, and the chief of the train of disorders supposed
to be peculiarly human, will, it may be expected, more powerfully
direct attention to the common means of prevention. The following
extract from a report on the labours of the Board of Health at Paris
will show the effect of bad ventilation on cattle:—“The _epizootie_
are in many respects less serious than the epidemics; nevertheless, as
they often affect the animals which serve for the nutriment of man,
and that apart from this consideration they may have grave
consequences for the public health, they have constantly engaged the
care of the council. In 1834, an _epizootie_ was reported to the
administration which prevailed among the cows of the communes round
Paris, and which caused a great mortality. The researches of the
council established that this _epizootie_ was only a chronic disease,
a true pulmonary phthisis, to which has been given the name of
_pommelière_, and by which the greater part of the cows had been
attacked which fill the stables of the milkmen of Paris and its
environs. According to the council, the principal cause of the evil
was to be attributed to the vicious regimen to which this species of
animal is subjected. It is known that they pass a part of the year in
stables perfectly closed, in which the space is not proportioned to
the number of inmates, in which the vitiated air renews itself with
extreme difficulty, and in which the heat is sometimes suffocating. It
is known, also, that they pass suddenly from the food of the stable to
pasture, and that in this change they go from the hot and humid
atmosphere of the stable to a sudden exposure to the continual
variations of the external air. This alternation of food and of heat
and cold operates as a powerful cause of disease. But as the evil does
not announce itself in a violent manner, as its progress is not very
rapid, as there is even a period in the disease in which the animal is
disposed to get flesh, the cow-feeder, who knows to what point to keep
her, sells her when she is ready to calve. It is in a radius of 30
leagues from the capital that cows of this kind are purchased by the
jobbers, who supply the milkmen of Paris. With these last they still
hold out a certain number of years, if they are properly cared for,
but in general they are kept in stables which are neither sufficiently
large nor sufficiently airy, where they are exposed to the same causes
which gave birth to the malady. The phthisis arrives insensibly at its
last stage, and carries off every year from Paris and its
neighbourhood a great number of these cows.” A similar discovery was
only lately made as to the effect of defective ventilation on the
cavalry horses in some of the government barracks in England; and it
is stated, that a saving of several thousand pounds per annum was
effected by an easy improvement of the ventilation of the barracks
near the metropolis. An agriculturalist had a large number of sheep
housed to feed them on mangel wurzel, but a great number of them
sickened and died, and he declared that it was the food which had
killed them. A veterinary surgeon, however, who happened to be aware
of the consequences of defective ventilation, pointed out the
remedy,—a better ventilation for the sheep, which were overcrowded.
The defect was remedied; the sheep ate well, and throve upon the
mangel wurzel.
Footnote 14:
Vide extracts from the official report in the Appendix.
Footnote 15:
The following were the terms of our instructions to the district
medical commissioners of inquiry:—“A given amount of evil is
experienced by a class placed under peculiar circumstances; a large
portion of that evil is shared by other classes not under these
peculiar circumstances; to attribute the whole of the evil experienced
by the first class to those peculiar circumstances is obviously
fallacious. It is conceived that it is only by investigating the
subject with this precaution constantly in the mind that it is
possible to arrive at a just conclusion. While you carefully observe
the effects of labour on the children and the adult workpeople, and
report every case in which you conceive it to be excessive, and state
the reasons on which you ground that opinion, you are requested to
investigate minutely the concurrent causes of ill health. With this
view you are requested in every case to examine and report the state
of the drains in and about the factory: the state of the neighbourhood
of the factory as to dryness or dampness, cleanliness or filthiness:
the state of the houses and neighbourhood in which the children and
adult workpeople take their meals and exercise (if they leave the
factory), and where they sleep: the state of the air within the
factory, and which the workpeople usually respire, whether it be fresh
or whether it be not fresh, owing to deficient ventilation,—whether it
be pure, or whether it be rendered impure by effluvia floating in it,
and if so, what the effluvia are: what organs of the body are likely
to be injured, and what, from careful examination, you find to be
actually injured: the temperature of the air, the highest, the lowest,
and the average temperature, and the condition of the air as to
dryness or moisture.”
Footnote 16:
Rapport de la Commission des Epidémies de l’Académie Royale de
Médecine pour l’année 1839 et un partie d’ 1840. Par M. Brichetan,
Secrétaire Rapporteur de la Commission.
Footnote 17:
Vide Dr. Barham’s Report on Truro, Appendix.
Footnote 18:
These Tables are compiled from deaths which took place in Manchester
during the year 1840; in Leeds during the year 1840; in Liverpool
during the year 1840; in Bath during the year 1839; in Bethnal Green
during the year 1839; in the Strand union during the year 1840; in the
Kendal union during the year ended 30th September, 1841; in the county
of Wilts during the year 1840; and in Rutland during the three years
1838, 1839, and 1840.
Footnote 19:
A brief explanation of the construction of tables of mortality may be
desirable to prevent misapprehensions by those who are unacquainted
with the nature of such evidence. If amongst 4481 who die each year,
as at Leeds, it be found that altogether, man, woman, and child, they
have lived 92,734 years, that number equally divided, without
distinction of the old and young, gives 21 years as the _average
period of life_. The variations of such average periods, as shown by
the tables showing the mean periods of death of a whole population,
are deemed the best test of its condition and progress. The tables of
_proportional mortality_ are such as those of Liverpool, where, out of
223,054 inhabitants, 7435 die; that is to say, one-thirtieth of the
ascertained population are swept away every year. Such tables only
serve, however, for remote comparison of the condition of different
districts, for it will be perceived how large will be the different
conditions of two communities having exactly the same proportions of
mortality, but in one of which the deaths occur principally amongst
the infant population, and the other in which they occur amongst the
adults. Thus in all the parishes of Leeds, where the average age of
deaths of all who die is 21 years, since the deaths occur chiefly at
young ages amongst the labouring classes, the proportions of the
population who die annually is only 1 in 37. The average age of death,
or the average extent of life to every individual, may go on
increasing, and yet the proportions who die remain the same. Hence it
is that statistical returns of the proportions of death, which are so
generally used, are fundamentally unstable as means of ascertaining
the progressive sanitary condition of a population in different
countries. The _probabilities of life_ at different periods of life on
which insurance companies act, are determined by tables of a different
construction. To form a table of the probabilities of life at given
periods, in 1000 cases say, the date of the birth in each case is
ascertained, and observations are made of how many remain alive at the
end of each year at the different periods of life. From the different
ages at which that 1000 have died, it is held to be probable that
every other 1000 persons similarly circumstanced will die. The
observations on which tables of this description have been founded
have generally been from mixed classes differently circumstanced, and
no observations on a basis sufficiently large, that I am aware, have
been made to determine the probabilities of life to any one class of
workpeople, or to any one class of professional persons. The three
tables of the proportions of deaths at different ages would be of
little service to indicate the probability of life at different ages
unless we could ascertain with exactness the precise numbers of the
classes _living_ from which the deaths have occurred. More than half
the children of the working classes die, and only one-fifth of the
children of the gentry die, before the fifth year of age; and after
having attained that age, the _probabilities of life_ of the
labourer’s child might be greater than that of the child of the person
of the superior classes; but though we have other evidence that the
reverse is the case, we have not the evidence of well-constructed
tables of the probability of life at different periods strictly
applicable to that class. Though the proportions per cent. of those
who die in the higher and in the lower classes approximate in the
periods between 20 and 60 years of age, yet we know that the
probabilities of life in each class at each period are widely
different. The probable duration of life of a miner who had attained
40 years of age may not be, and we have reason to believe is not, half
that of the agricultural labourer, not one-third that of a person of
the higher ranks who had attained the same period.
Footnote 20:
It is the practice in Geneva for female servants to delay marriage
until they have saved enough to furnish a house, &c. In illustration
of this state of things it is stated that in 290 out of 956 marriages,
the female was at the time of marriage older than the male. With
further advances in prosperity, it is anticipated that age of marriage
would again diminish.
Footnote 21:
“Out of 100 deaths in the 16th century, 25·92 were children in their
first year; in the 17th century, 23·72; in the 18th century, 20·12; in
1801–13, they were 16·57; and in 1814–33, they were 13·85.” In
Liverpool, the number of children which in the year 1840 died under
one year of age was no less than 23 per cent., or what it was in
Geneva in the 17th century. In the county of Wilts where the
proportionate mortality is 1 in 58, the deaths of children in the
first year were 16 per cent. Dr. Griffin, in a report on the sanitary
condition of the population of Limerick, where the births appear to
bear such proportions to the marriages as they appear to have borne in
Geneva in the earliest periods, namely, of five children to a
marriage, and more in the worst-conditioned districts, makes an
important observation on the subject: “I find that as the poor nurse
their own children, there is in general an interval of about two years
between the birth of one child and that of the next; but if the child
dies early on the breast, this interval will be much shorter; and if
this occurs often, there will be a certain number born as it were _for
the purpose of dying_; and these being soon replaced, the same number
may still be preserved as if there had been few or no deaths, or only
the ordinary number.” Of these 55 per cent. died.
Footnote 22:
The registries in England at present supply no means of distinguishing
the migrant population who die in given places; and in each return a
small proportion of deaths have been omitted where the station of the
party has not been described; but taking as approximations the returns
of the ages of all who die, no district examined appears to present so
high a probability of life as at Geneva. The average age of all who
died in the respective periods before stated appear, from the returns
I have obtained, to be in the county of Rutland 39 years; in the
Kendal union 36; in the county of Wilts 35 years; in Bath 31; in the
Kensington union 30; in the Strand union 28; in the Whitechapel union
27; in Bethnal-green 21; in Leeds 21; in Manchester 20; in Bolton 19;
in Liverpool 17. By the Northampton Tables the probability of life in
infancy to all born was 25 years; in Carlisle it was 38.
Footnote 23:
Some constitutions are found which resist vaccine matter. Here and
there constitutions appear which resist all the noxious influences by
which they are surrounded, and attain extreme old age. Not
unfrequently we find the existence of these solitary individuals
referred to as proofs of the general salubrity of the very
circumstances under which generations have fallen and been buried
around them. It is a singular fact, as yet unexplained, that the
greatest proportion of centenarians are of the labouring classes; and
that instances of them have from time to time appeared amidst the
crowded populations in some of the worst neighbourhoods in London,
where the average duration of life is the lowest. It is remarked by
Mr. Mallet, that in Geneva extreme old age has not participated in the
prolongation of life which has taken place in the less advanced ages.
In the periods of from 60 to 70 years of age the amelioration is
inconsiderable; after 70 years there is no perceptible improvement;
after 80 years the aged have indeed a little less probability of life
at the present time than they had in the 16th century. Centenarians,
who were not rare in the 16th and 17th centuries, now disappear;
during the last 27 years Geneva has not produced a single one.
Footnote 24:
_Bibliothèque Universelle, September, 1831._
In Alexandria, which is a seat of pestilence, where the Arab
population leave the ordure before their doors (as we have seen large
classes of the lower population do in this country), where the dog is
the only scavenger of the animal refuse (as the pig is in many
districts in our towns), where those who have died of plague remain
unburied for days amidst the abodes of the living (as those who have
died of fever often do in the poorest districts in this
country),—there, under the more powerful action of a burning sun,
disease and death are proportionately rife; and, as shown by some
returns of death in 1841, out of a population of 60,000, the deaths
were 7,017 (of which 1,165 only were from plague), or more than
one-tenth of the population. It is known, however, that in the
well-cleansed and best streets, inhabited by the European and
fluctuating population, the proportion of mortality is not greater
than amidst a similar population in the towns of Europe; but it is
stated that the lower population, notwithstanding that it has been
decimated by the annual mortality, has, within the last quarter of a
century, more than doubled.
Footnote 25:
An English military officer, who has had much practice as an engineer,
and who has done much to protect the health of the population of one
of the South American towns, by drainage, whose opinion I took on the
efficiency of measures for cleansing inferior districts, recently
informed me that he should take advantage of a favourable change which
had occurred in one of the recent revolutions, to return to South
America, and try what he agreed was the most efficient course of
proceeding, commencing with the middle classes, by inducing the new
government to undertake works for bringing water into the houses of
the inhabitants, and adopt the self-acting system of cleansing the
poorest districts, and the use of the refuse for distant production,
on the principles established in this Report.
The authorities in Hamburgh have applied to Mr. Lindley, the engineer,
for a plan for the drainage of that town, and he has recommended for
adoption the same principles, and the application of the refuse for
agriculture, at a distance from the houses, instead of discharging it
into the water which washes the town.
Footnote 26:
Dr. Bisset Hawkins, the medical Commissioner in the Factory Inquiry,
stated in his Report, “I believe that most travellers are struck by
the lowness of stature, the leanness and paleness which present
themselves so commonly to the eye at Manchester, and above all, among
the factory classes. I have never been in any town in Great Britain
nor in Europe in which degeneracy of form and colour from the national
standard has been so obvious.” P. 6. From a return obtained in 1836
and presented to the Manchester Statistical Society, of the cattle
passing the toll-gates and the meat sold in the markets, it appeared
that the consumption exclusively amongst this population could not be
less than 105 lbs. each person annually, man, woman, and child, or 450
lbs. yearly per family of butchers’ meat alone, exclusively of bacon,
pork, fish, and poultry. The wretched personal appearance of this
population was only equalled by that of the Irish population of St.
Giles, where the man earned from 14_s._ or 16_s._ to 1_l._ per week,
(the wife and child earning something in addition,) but where it is
their habit to live chiefly on potatoes and use little meat. The
effect of a pure atmosphere, independently of diet, is shown in this
population when they go into the country during harvest time. After a
fortnight or three weeks’ absence, in which they will have had little
change of living, except, perhaps, taking less spirits, the whole
family return with the hue of health.
Footnote 27:
I have referred to the experience since the year 1801 in France, where
the registration of births amongst the migratory population of the
crowded districts, where the greatest mortality prevails, is likely to
have been as imperfect as in England, but that experience is, on the
whole, confirmatory, and proves that in the worst districts the births
still exceed the mortality.
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│ │ Increase of │Proportion of│Proportion of│ Excess of │
│ │Population in│Births in 35 │Deaths in 35 │ Births over │
│ │ 35 Years in │ Years to │ Years to │ Deaths in │
│ │every 10,000 │ 10,000 of │ 10,000 of │ 10,000 of │
│ │ Persons. │ Population. │ Population. │ Population. │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│5 groups of │ │ │ │ │
│ departments│ 311│ 10,705│ 8,079│ 2,626│
│ of _lowest │ │ │ │ │
│ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │
│6 groups of │ │ │ │ │
│ departments│ 2,396│ 12,439│ 10,044│ 2,395│
│ of _mean │ │ │ │ │
│ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │
│6 groups of │ │ │ │ │
│ departments│ 4,190│ 13,024│ 12,350│ 674│
│ of _highest│ │ │ │ │
│ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
Footnote 28:
In recruiting for the French army, the standard is now fixed at 1·566
metres of height, which is about 5 feet 1½ inches English.
Fifty years ago, however, the standard height was 5 feet 4 inches
English.
The English standard is for the Foot Guards 5 feet 6 inches.
lbs. avoirdupois.
The mean weight in Belgium (Brussels and environs)
of the man is 140·49
In France (Paris and the neighbourhood)
the man is 136·89
The mean weight of the Englishman (taken at
Cambridge), from 18 to 25 150·98
(In coaches it is usually considered that it
averages 165 lbs.)
The mean height of the Belgian male is 5 feet 6‑3/10 inches
The mean height of the Frenchman 5 feet 4 inches
The mean height of the Englishman 5 feet 9½ inches
(M. Quetelet and M. Villermé, on the authority of M. Tenon, Annuaire
de l’Obs. de Bruxelles, 1836.)
Footnote 29:
The diseases included under “Other Diseases,” include the deaths
registered from a number of miscellaneous causes too numerous to be
specified in the table.
Footnote 30:
Where so much independent provision is made, as by clubs, only a part
of the consequences of premature deaths appear on the poor’s roll. The
population of Camborne is less exclusively mining than is Gwennap; but
the records of pauperism in the office afford marks of a general
difference in the condition of the population of the two parishes.
┌────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────────┬───────────────────┐
│ │ │Ratio of Widows and │ │
│ │Ratio of Paupers to│Women whose Husbands│Cost of Relief per │
│Parish. │ the whole │have deserted them, │ Head on the whole │
│ │ Population. │or are transported, │ Population. │
│ │ │ to the whole │ │
│ │ │ Population. │ │
├────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────────┬─────────┤
│ │ │ │ _s._ │ _d._ │
│Gwennap │ 1 in 25 │ 1 in 186 │3 │2 │
│Illogan │ 1 in 35 │ 1 in 346 │2 │2¾ │
│Camborne│ 1 in 34 │ 1 in 401 │2 │4¾ │
└────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┘
Footnote 31:
I am informed that regulations on the principle of those we
recommended, under the Factory Commission for the Protection of Adult
Workmen from the consequences of Accidents, are now adopted in the
Prussian code, and practically enforced.
Footnote 32:
An Act made in Ireland the 3rd year of his present Majesty “for better
preventing the severities, &c., has the following clause:—“Whereas
many infectious disorders are daily produced by the confinement of
numbers in close prisons, whereunto there is no back-yard adjoining,
and the lives of his majesty’s subjects are endangered by the bringing
of prisoners into public streets for air; be it enacted—That every
grand jury at the assizes or quarter sessions may be enabled, and they
are hereby required and directed to contract either by lease, or to
purchase a piece of ground next adjoining the gaol, or as near as
conveniently can be had thereto, and cause to be erected necessary
houses, and a wall sufficient for the security of the said
prisoners.””
Footnote 33:
Thirty-three males who were imprisoned for six months gained 37 lbs.
total weight; five females gained 19 lbs.; twenty-two males, confined
during twelve months, gained 3 lbs.; eight females, during the same
period, gained 5 lbs.; seven males in eighteen months gained 24 lbs.;
and two females 10 lbs. At Edinburgh also they were weighed, and, on
the whole, they gained. See Appendix, statement of the periods of
confinement and weight of prisoners at the commencement and
termination of their imprisonment.
Footnote 34:
It is observed by Dr. Wilson, in reference to the mortality in the
navy, that “the mortality from wounds is inconsiderable compared with
that occasioned by disease. Much misconception has prevailed on this
subject in the public mind. Deaths in action, by the general
excitement attending them, from being published in official despatches
and perpetuated in gazettes, make more than a due impression; for it
is found, when accurately reckoned, that they are few in comparison
with those resulting from ordinary diseases. Sir G. Blane, when
writing under the common impression, and without the corrections of
figures, alleges that half the mortality in war periods is
attributable to wounds received in battle and other external causes;
but he gives a very different account when he dismisses
unauthenticated notions to deal with numerical facts. He then states,
that from 1780 till 1783, though in that period, besides single
actions, engagements with forts, &c., the great battle of the 12th of
April was fought, the mortality from disease, compared with that from
external causes, was as 3 to 1; in 1779, according to his statement,
the former was to the latter as 8 to 1.” During the last 41 months of
the peninsular war, whilst 24,930 privates died of disease, only 8899
died of wounds, or were killed in battle. The deaths during the
campaign were,—of the privates in battle, 4·2 per cent.; of disease,
11·9 per cent.: of officers, in battle, 6·6 per cent.; of disease, 3·7
per cent. per annum. The average deaths in four battles, Talavera,
Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, were 3·9 per cent. of officers,
2·11 of privates. In the peninsular war there were generally 22½ per
cent. of men absent on account of sickness; and a reduction of the
proportions of sick to 6 per cent. would have set free 10,000 men from
the hospitals to be added to the effective force of the
army.—_Official Returns._ The highest increased charge for insurance
of military men during the peninsular campaign was 10 guineas per
cent. The extra premiums taken on the insurance of military lives on
service in India and China are from 3 to 5 guineas per cent.,
governed, however, by the unfavourable chances of the climate to which
the campaign leads, as well as by the increased risks from battle. The
extra premiums on naval officers in hostile service is usually from 3
to 5 guineas per cent., governed by the consideration of the climate.
Footnote 35:
_Vide_ Appendix for estimate and detailed specification. From some
recent experiments made with the egg-shaped sewers or main drains, it
appears that drains of sufficient size might be made at one-third less
than the price for sewers in the annexed estimate. In many instances,
main drains costing one-half the sum would suffice.
Footnote 36:
As an instance of the little account the manufacturing workpeople have
made of such charges, it is mentioned by Sir Charles Shaw that, on the
introduction of the new police force into Manchester, he found the
workpeople in the habit of paying 6_d._ per week each to the old watch
for calling them up. He put a stop to the practice, as being one which
interfered with the regular duties of the police, and as being founded
on a habit which might be corrected. The employers, however,
complained of the interruption of the practice, and requested that it
might be renewed. Sir Charles, considering that 6_d._ was too high a
charge, offered to allow the police to call up the workpeople at 2_d._
per week each, provided the masters, to save the trouble of the weekly
collection, deducted the amount from the weekly wages, and paid it
over to the police fund. The answer to the proposal was, that the
workpeople would sooner pay 6_d._ of their own accord than have 1_d._
deducted from their wages by their masters.
Footnote 37:
The experience of France is precisely similar. In a work of great
authority on the lower classes of that country, it is stated that the
secret of the existence of so many filthy, infected, and miserable
habitations, is simply that the persons who pay two sous for their
lodging at night spend ten sous on brandy by day.
Footnote 38:
A butter merchant informed me that the value of the Irish butter was
deteriorated to a greater extent than they were aware of, from its
being frequently made in close smoky hovels instead of in clean and
well-ventilated dairies, as in England.
Footnote 39:
In an inquiry, from house to house, into the condition of the
labouring population in the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John
Westminster, it was found that, out of a total of 5366 houses, 2352
were occupied for terms under one year, and that no less than 1834 had
been occupied during periods from one to six months only.
Footnote 40:
It appears that the mortality for five years, ending 1839, was in
Catrine 1 to 54.20, whilst in Glasgow for the same period it was 1 to
31.
Footnote 41:
Mohl. Polizei-Wissenschaft, vol. i. page 135, Note.
Footnote 42:
“Or shall on the said bridge, or in any street or place within the
distance aforesaid (all the legislation was restricted to “fifty
yards”) from either end thereof, hoop, fire, cleanse, wash, or scald
any cask or tub; or hew, saw, or cut any stone, wood or timber; or
bore any timber; or make or repair, or wash or clean any coach,
chaise, waggon, sledge or other carriage, or the wheel, body, springs,
or other part of any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge, or other carriage
(except such as may want immediate repair from any sudden accident on
the spot, and which cannot be conveniently removed for that purpose);
or wet, slack, or mix any lime; or wet, mix or make any mortar; or
shoe, bleed, or farry any horse or other beast, unless in case of
sudden accident; or clean, dress, drive, or turn loose any horse, or
other beast, or cattle; or show or expose any stallion or stonehorse;
or show or expose, or exercise or expose to sale any horse or other
beast; or kill or slaughter, or scald, singe, dress or cut up any
animal, either wholly or in part; or cause or permit any blood to run
from any slaughter-house, butcher’s-shop or shamble into any of the
streets or places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge;
or shall sell or assist in selling by auction or public sale, any
cattle, goods, wares, merchandize, or thing or things whatsoever; or
hang up or expose to sale, or cause or permit to be hanged up, placed
or exposed to sale, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, or any
fruit, vegetables, or garden-stuff, butchers’ meat, or other matter or
thing upon the said bridge; or in, or upon, or so as to project over
or upon the footway or carriage-way of the said streets or places
within the distance aforesaid, or beyond the line, or on the outside
of the window or windows of the house, shop, or place at which the
same shall be so hanged up, placed, or exposed to sale, or so as to
obstruct or incommode the passage of any person or carriage: or leave
open after sunset the door or window of any cellar, or other
underground room or apartment, without having placed or left a
sufficient light therein to warn and prevent persons passing in the
streets and public places within the distance aforesaid from the said
bridge, from falling into such cellars or other underground rooms or
apartments; or bait, or cause to be baited any bull or other animal;
or throw at any cock or fowl in the manner called cock-throwing, or
set up any fowl to be thrown at in such manner; or play at foot-ball,
or at any other game on the said bridge, or within such distance as
aforesaid, to the annoyance of any inhabitant or inhabitants, or
passenger or passengers,” * * * * “or wilfully permit or suffer any
horse, or other beast or cattle which such person may be riding or
driving, or leading, to go thereon; or shall tie or fasten any horse
or other cattle to any house, wall, fence, post, tree, or other thing
whatsoever, across any of the highways, footways, or foot-pavements of
the said bridge, or within the distance aforesaid.”
Footnote 43:
Pay of the corps of Royal Engineers for the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, consisting of 241 officers, viz.—5
colonels-commandant, at 2_l._ 14_s._ 9½_d._ per diem each; 10
colonels, at 1_l._ 6_s._ 3_d._ ditto; 20 lieutenant-colonels, at
18_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 5 lieutenant-colonels, at 16_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 40
captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 40 second captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._
ditto; 80 first lieutenants, at 6_s._ 10_d._ ditto; 40 second
lieutenants, at 5_s._ 1_d._ ditto;—total, 48,093_l._
Pay of the corps of Royal Sappers and Miners for general service,
consisting of 961 men, officers included; viz.—Staff: 1 brigade-major,
at 10_s._ per diem; 1 adjutant, at 10_s._ ditto; 1 quarter-master, at
8_s._ ditto; 2 serjeant-majors, at 4_s._ 6½_d._ ditto each; 3
quarter-master serjeants, at 4_s._ 0½_d._ ditto; 1 bugle-major, at
4_s._ 0½_d._ ditto;—total 972_l._ One company consisting of—1 colour
serjeant. at 3_s._ 0½_d._ per diem; 3 serjeants, at 2_s._ 6½_d._ ditto
each; 4 corporals, at 2_s._ 2½_d._ ditto; 4 second corporal, at 1_s._
10¾_d._ ditto; 75 carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, wheelers,
coopers, collar-makers, painters, tailors, miners, and 2 buglers, at
1_s._ 2½_d._ per diem each;—total 3,465_l._—_Ordnance Estimates_ for
1841.
Footnote 44:
It may be of interest to observe that as the whole population grows in
age, the annual increase in numbers may be deemed to be equivalent to
an annual increase of numbers of the average ages of the community. If
they were maintained on the existing average of territory to the
population in England, the additional numbers would require an annual
extension of one fifty-seventh of the present territory of Great
Britain, possessing the average extent of roads, commons, hills, and
unproductive land. The extent of new territory required annually would
form a county larger than Surrey, or Leicester, or Nottingham, or
Hereford, or Cambridge, and nearly as large as Warwick. To feed the
annually increased population, supposing it to consume the same
proportions of meat that is consumed by the population of Manchester
and its vicinity, (a consumption which appears to me to be below the
average of the consumption in the metropolis,) the influx of 230,000
of new population will require for their consumption an annual
increase of 27,327 head of cattle, 70,319 sheep, 64,715 lambs, and
7894 calves, to raise which an annual increase of upwards of 81,000
acres of good pasture land would be required. Taking the consumption
of wheat or bread to be on the scale of a common dietary, _i. e._, 56
oz. daily for a family of a man, woman, and three children, then the
annual addition of supply of wheat required will be about 105,000
quarters, requiring 28,058 acres of land, yielding 30 bushels of wheat
to an acre; the total amount of good land requisite for raising the
chief articles of food will therefore be in all about 109,000 acres of
good pasture land annually. If the increase of production obtained by
the use of the refuse of Edinburgh (that is, of 3900 oxen from one
quarter of the refuse of Edinburgh) be taken as the scale of
production obtainable by appropriate measures, the refuse of the
metropolis alone that is now thrown away would serve to feed no less
than 218,288 oxen annually, which would be equivalent to the produce
of double that number of acres of good pasture land.
Footnote 45:
Vide Report.
Footnote 46:
By the statute of 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 57, power was given to
undertakers to contract for the improvement of land in Ireland, on
condition that they should receive a profit which was in no case to
exceed 15_l._ per cent. on the outlay. The undertakers, on the consent
of two-thirds of the proprietors or of the lessees, were to apply to
the Lord-lieutenant for a commission. Individual proprietors or
lessees, not exceeding six in number, upon receiving the assent of
two-thirds of the proprietors or lessees, might also apply for a
commission. To the reason above assigned for the failure, these must
be added—that the machinery of the Act is considered complicated; that
it nevertheless contained no provisions for ascertaining boundaries,
without which in Ireland it would be unsafe to raise any annuity upon
the lands; that the mode of repayment, _i. e._, that if the landlords
did not within a certain time pay the gross sum assessed, the
undertakers were entitled to a redeemable annuity upon the lands
drained; but there was no provision to compel the landowners to pay
the gross sum, and the annuities might be small and numerous.
Footnote 47:
Except in endeavouring to give more emphatic recommendations as to the
importance of making all the paid officers really responsible, I
should not vary the representation I had then the honour to make in
respect to the means of giving efficiency to local administration.
“With respect to the allusion of Mr. Earle, as to the cry of
centralization, I conceive that it is a cry to which the few who use
it can attach no definite ideas, and it has certainly had little
influence except with the most ignorant. The phrase has been used
abroad against the destruction of the authority of local
administrative bodies, and the substitution of an inefficient and
_irresponsible_ agency by the general government. But even abroad, all
those who call themselves the friends of popular liberty do not
declaim against centralization, but against _irresponsibility_. Here
the phrase is used against a measure by which strong local
administrative bodies of representatives have been created over the
greater part of the country, where nothing deserving the name of
systematised local administration has heretofore existed. The central
board may be described as an agency necessary for consolidating and
preserving the local administration, by communicating to each board
the principles deducible from the experience of the whole; and, in
cases such as those in which its intervention is now actually sought,
acting so as to protect the administration being torn by disputes
between members of the same local board; between a part or a minority
of the inhabitants and the board, and between one local board and
another, and in numerous other cases affording an appeal to a distant
and locally disinterested, yet highly responsible authority, which may
interpose to prevent the local administrative functions being torn or
injured by local dissentions. I feel confident that the more the
subject is examined, the more clearly it will be perceived that the
great security for the purity and improvement of local administration
must depend on a central agency.”
Footnote 48:
The parish doctors in England were often paid only 20_l._ per annum
for attendance in parishes of considerable extent. The payments to
medical officers who have their private practice are generally
quadrupled, as compared with the parish doctors. The medical
arrangements in Glasgow will illustrate the frequent state of the
existing arrangements in Scotland. The burgh of Glasgow, exclusive of
the suburbs, is divided into 12 districts, to each of which a medical
practitioner is appointed, who is paid for his services out of the
poor’s rates. Dr. Cowan stated of them in his report,—“The duties of
the district surgeons are laborious and dangerous. Nearly all of them
take fever, which involves a heavy pecuniary loss. Their salary is
less than 21_l._ per annum, being less than 1_s._ for the treatment of
each case.” For an equivalent district in population under the New
Poor Law in England, namely, in Lambeth, there are four out-door
medical officers, at salaries of 107_l._ each, and two in-door medical
officers, at salaries of 128_l._ each. They have in addition their
private practice and fees for vaccination, and special cases. The
usual rate of medical allowance to the resident medical officers of
dispensaries, who are excluded from private practice, has been from
60_l._ to 70_l._ per annum.
Footnote 49:
After the great fire of London, had the plan of Sir Christopher Wren
been adopted for the reconstruction of the City, that circumstance
would have saved the great expenses which have lately been incurred in
rendering the communications commodious; but no price could now
achieve the conveniences and facilities which his plan would have
conferred on the inhabitants during the long interval.
Footnote 50:
The Nungate is situated along the edge of the mill-pool.
Footnote 51:
In dry weather the abrasion of the stones is much less.
Footnote 52:
Scotland Yard, Finsbury Circus, and the north side of St. Paul’s
Churchyard afford partial illustrations of this arrangement.
Footnote 53:
General Average.
Footnote 54:
Mr. Terry, who is a very extensive farmer in Cookham, and was present
during this inquiry, explained this, and, in corroboration of Mr.
Whateley’s evidence on this point, stated that he, as a farmer, could
not make any profit by growing pigs beyond a certain size. The only
advantage which he had from keeping them was in using them to collect
the refuse corn, which would otherwise be trodden under foot at the
barn-door and rendered unmarketable; the office of the pig was to
gather up this refuse, and convert it into a marketable commodity,
pork. To fat the pigs beyond a certain size required more than the
refuse of the farm-yard; and, therefore, would not pay the farmer. It
was therefore, the practice of the farmers to sell the pigs to the
millers, who were enabled to fat them on another description of
refuse. Now if the labouring man kept a pig, as he had no farm-yard,
and no refuse to feed it with, he must either buy the food or steal
it. If he were honest and bought the food, his pork would, as Mr.
Whateley has stated, cost much more than he could buy it for. A pig
could only be kept on the produce of such a piece of land as a
labourer could not well cultivate whilst he attended to his other
duties. In this state of things, the temptation to pilfer for the
support of the pig was considerable. Other witnesses incidentally
corroborated this statement, and I found that with many farmers the
circumstance of a labouring man having a pig was an objection to
giving him employment. The Rev. Mr. Faithful, of Hatfield, Herts,
stated, as the result of his observation, that the keeping of pigs was
decidedly not profitable to cottagers; and such was the temptation to
steal which their possession of pigs created, that he had known a
labourer, who had a pig given to him, to steal from the donor the wood
to make its sty, the straw to litter it, and the food to feed it. The
farmers ridiculed the prevalent statements as to the small cost at
which pigs could be kept,—statements commonly made to the gentry by
roguish rustics, who profited by these delusions; a pig was not
accommodating enough to fatten on less for the cottager than for the
farmer.
A friend, who writes from Wiltshire, observes,—“I cannot make out who
it is that does fatten pigs to a profit. I asked a brewer the other
day if, with his grains, he did not make it answer; and he told me
that, on the contrary, he was always out of pocket, and only kept a
pig for the pleasure of eating his own pork. ‘Private individuals,’ he
added, ‘feed their pigs with what should rather be called spoilt malt
than grains. I cannot afford to do that; I must get out all the
goodness for my beer, and then there is not sufficient nutriment left
to fatten without the addition of things which I must purchase.’ It is
not unlikely that many persons, who fancied they kept pigs to a
profit, have fed them on this ‘spoilt malt,’ in ignorance that they
were, in fact, giving their swine valuable beer instead of refuse
grains.”
A gentleman, speaking of such appendages to labourers’ tenements in a
manufacturing district, states,—“Formerly most of our houses had them,
but they are terrible things for getting out of repair, and we are
pulling them down a good deal, and clearing the ground; for I know,
from intelligent, clear-headed workmen, that the manufacturing
families cannot grow their pork nearly so cheap as they can buy it.
The trade in bacon is quite different to what it was 20 or 30 years
ago. Now it is a great business, and the quantity of the improved
Irish pigs brought even into smallish cottages is very large. In such
villages where yard-room is not very large, swill and manure make a
terrible stink. Only such of our people keep pigs as have a fondness
for it, and as a sort of hobby, but believing that it does not pay.”
Footnote 55:
The plan of Gourlier was simply to divide the receptacle into two
parts, an upper compartment and a lower. The contents of the
water-closet were discharged into the upper portion, and the water
drained into the lower, through holes pierced in the partition. In the
barrack plan there was no division in the receptacle, but, instead, a
leaden pipe pierced with holes was carried perpendicularly through the
midst of it, into which the water filtered from the receptacle, and
was conducted anywhere at pleasure. Neither of these systems obviated
two principal evils—the necessity to empty the receptacles, and the
stagnation of the water, from the night-soil, round the foundations of
the houses, from whence it worked its way up into the walls. The
annoyance always felt from the removal of night-soil in Paris, and the
ineffectual efforts of scientific men, for a long course of years, to
discover a remedy, is a sufficient proof of the imperfection of all
other methods except sewers. There has never indeed been a question
that this last system was incomparably the best. But it has not
occurred to men of science at Paris, that there could be any other
outlet for the sewers besides the Seine, and the popular apprehension
that the water would by this means be polluted, combined with the
unwillingness to sacrifice the manure, have been always viewed as
fatal objections.—_Translator._
Footnote 56:
The disinfection is produced by mixing the night-soil with calcined
mud, or burned turf, or saw-dust, or refuse tan, and various other
substances. A commission of the Conseil de Salubrité found that a
large barrel of fecal matter was deprived of all smell in five minutes
by this process; and even putrefied entrails, the severest test by
which it could be tried, yielded equally to its influence. The
commission, however, doubted the success of the application where the
water was in large proportions.—_Translator._
Footnote 57:
Classes Dangereuses, tom. ii., p. 126.
Footnote 58:
Parent Duchâtelet, de la Prostitution, tom. i. p. 504.
Footnote 59:
Classes Dangereuses, tom. i., p. 135.
Footnote 60:
Even in case of the existence of water companies for the supply of
towns, there should still be public springs or wells, which would
furnish at least the absolutely necessary quantity of water, free of
_all_ expense. In this case, any one who wished to have greater
abundance, or wished the water to be introduced into his house, might
have it by paying for it.
Footnote 61:
The instances of towns having gained very essentially by drainage are
Stuttgard, which has, in consequence, entirely lost a peculiar endemic
fever; and Pavia which, by the filling up of the city ditches, has had
its average duration of life much raised.
Footnote 62:
Supposing the number to be 1½ daily out of 170, that would give little
more than half a week’s sickness yearly to each individual employed.
This is a very low average. The sickness found to prevail in ordinary
times amongst the labouring population of two parishes in Westminster
was at the rate of between 5 and 6 days to each individual. The
sickness of the Metropolitan Police is 10½ per annum to each
individual. The proportionate mortality of 13 annually out of 550 is 1
to 42, which it will also be perceived, on reference to the standards
previously given, is a low proportion of mortality for a manufacturing
population.
Footnote 63:
Dr. Currie’s Medical Reports, chap. xxii. Liverpool, 1797.
Footnote 64:
Formerly the mortality on board convict ships amounted to 50 and even
60 per cent. during the voyage; under the more recent arrangements
they have amounted only to about 1½ per cent.—E. C.
Footnote 65:
Ten has been the average deaths, taking the last three years.
Footnote 66:
I am of opinion that this Table does not afford sufficient data to
warrant general conclusions being deduced from it after the age of 36,
as the number of prisoners above that age is too small. In proof of
this it may be stated that one person experienced 18 days’ sickness
out of the 30 days in the class from 41 to 46, and that another had 18
days’ sickness out of the 36 in the class from 56 to 61, while in the
class 76 to 81, one person experienced 3 days, being the whole
sickness. J. SMITH.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street,
For Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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