UNHEALTHY HABITATIONS IN GREAT TOWNS.

In consequence of the attention which had been called by the Poor-law Commissioners, and others, to the state of the poorest population in London, from defective drainage, confined air, and other causes of active disease or general constitutional depression, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in the pre- sent session to inquire into the Health of the inhabitants of Large Towns, with a view to improved sanatory regulations. The Com- mittee sat for sixteen days, and examined nearly fifty witnesses- for the most part medical men, professional builders, or persons connected with some public institutions, which gave them a know- ledge, more or less intimate, of the condition of the most desti- tute classes of this country. The Evidence collected and the Re- port of the Committee are now before us; and, though much of the evidence partakes of individual notions, having but a slight bearing upon the main purpose of the inquiry—though much of it consists of repetitions in substance, and frequently in words—and though there are occasional traces of an understanding with the 'witnesses— the whole is well entitled to consideration. The Report has a number of curious facts, and is sensible and judicious

in its advice: the evidence discloses a state of dirt, and of squalid degradation, accompanied with constant exposure to the elements a disease, in large numbers of the people, to which the physical and we had almost said the moral evils of slavery itself are nothing. In Liverpool, there are more than 7,800 cellars, occupied by upwards of 39,000 persons, being one-fifth of all the working- classes of that town : in Manchester, nearly 15,000 persons live in cellars, being about 12 per cent. of the working-classes. The mere residence in underground apartments, apparently paved with brick at best, is not, however, the heaviest of the evil, any more than these numbers measure its extent. In the low districts of London, especially St. Giles, Saffron Hill, and Whitechapel—in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and, more or less, in many other manuflicturing towns—the labouring (not the mechanical) popula- tion, and the wretched mass of creatures below them, who " live, men know not how, and die, men know not where," are exposed to evils as great in reality as the Cimmerian dwellers in cellars. They reside for the most part in courts, whose entrance is gene- rally under an archway little higher than a man, and frequently one end is entirely blocked up by a house, rendering a free current of air unattainable. The houses are often built back to back, so that ventilation is impossible : the courts are mostly very nar- row, and some, which had once open places in the middle, have lately been built upon, so as to form an oblong of houses within an oblong. These places are never drained by under-ground

drainage ; some have no drainage at ; but others have an open kennel running down the centre of what must be called the way : in many cases the houses are devoid of separate conveniences, one or two public places serving for the whole neighbourhood ; dust, refuse, and filth of every kind obstructing the path, and compelling the visitant to pick his way with difficulty. In Manchester, there seems, from some local cause, a habit of leaving large holes in the street, which get filled with carrion and stagnant water. Some- thing similar is alleged of parts of Bethnal Green : in two or three courts in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane matters are yet worse,— so disgusting, in fact, that we will not quote the particulars. These places are beyond the range of the scavengers, who never visit them, unless by some accident the attention of the authorities is roused. The impurities from the body, and from the domestic concerns of the poor people, are thrown out into the passage-way ; where they remain till they are decomposed by the atmospheric action, or carried off by the rain, or trodden into the soil. The streets inhabited by the same class of persons are a few shades better, inasmuch as they are unclosed at the ends, are generally wider, and the kennel-drainage is often somewhat more efficient. On the other ham], they are more obnoxious to effluvia from open ditches, stagnant pools, and the other nuisances of an unformed neighbour- hood.

In these places the inhabitants are crowded together, and the Inevitable evils and impurities are aggravated by numbers. There is always a tinnily in a single room ; but amongst the very poorest the same room serves for several thmilies. " I have seen," says Mr. PENNLTUORNE, " three and four beds, and more than that, in each room: they are all as dark as possible, of course, and as filthy as it is possible for any places to be." The nightly lodging-houses, where any one is accommodated, we be- lieve, with clean straw for 3d. a night, are more crowded still. In such a state of physical foulness and moral degradation, thousands of the lowest classes of London, and a large portion, it would appear, of the inferior operatives in manufheturing towns, pass their short and wretched lives ; even their very existence is unknown to all, as (sae of the witnesses pointedly puts it, save to medical men and parish-officers.

The immediate, or at least the more directly visible effect of this condition, is physical: " fevers and other disorders of' a contagious and &tut nature arc shown to prevail to a very alarming extent." The annual mortality of Whitechapel is nearly four per cent.; that of Hackney, Camberwell, and St. George's, Hanover Square, is less than half that amount. Out of 77,000 persons who have re- ceived parochial relief from certain Metropolitan Unions, 14,000 have been attacked with fever, and 1,300 have died. But whilst.

the proportionate attacks were one-fifth of the whole number, in Bethnal Green the proportion was one-third, in Whitechapel one- half, and in St. George the Martyr it was 1,276 out of 1,467. In

Liverpool, Dr. DUNCAN rates the cases of fever " amongst the in-

habitants of cellars at 35 per cent. more than it ought to be, calculating the proportion of the inhabitants of the cellars to the whole population." Typhus fever never leaves Glasgow, and the rate of mortality is rapidly increasing : in 1821 it was 1 in 39; in 1830, 1 in 31; in 1835, 1 in 29; in 1838, 1 in 26; being an in- crease from 1 in 39 to 1 in 26 in seventeen years.

:Acute disease and death are not, however, the only physical evils. Mr. WALKER, a surgeon, gives it as his opinion that the depression consequent upon breathing a corrupted atmosphere i•e., one main cause of the great increase of spirit-drinking. The wretched creatures feel a prostration both of' mind and body, sad fly to stimulants as a source of relief. Whether a coincident es a corollary, spirit-drinking has rapidly increased. The consumption 'S in Great Britain and Ireland has risen from 9,200,000 gallons is S 1817 to 29,200,000 in 1837 : the Poor-law Commissioners estimate the money annually spent in ardent spirits at twenty-four millions; and Mr. Symms states that the quantity consumed in England is in the ratio of' 7 1-9th pints per head, in Ireland more than 13 pints • per head, and in Scotland 23 pints per head per annum. Bodily evils, however, are not the only ones. In such a state of filth and accommodation decency is out of the question. Some of the witnesses give it as their opinion, that neither education nor any other external advantage could counterbalance the effect of the home scenes upon children. They consider it impossible for any (supposing there was the desire) to live in greater cleanliness and comfort, surrounded as they must inevitably be by dirt and eonta. gious example. If a family with somewhat better habits were reduced to one of these places, they conceive it, not a difficulty which the generality of mankind cannot be expected to overcome, s but an actual impossibility for them to keep themselves above the condition of their neighbours, much less to traits their children in other habits. No woman, it is observed, could resist the in- fluences around her, or make a room comfortable for a maa on his return house. The public-house seems to be a necessity, to escape from the depth of discomfba as long as possible. It was not the purpose of the Committee to pursue the moral part of the

inquiry ; but the scenes in such places, within a few yards of the most crowded thoroughfares of the most civilized city in the world, are no doubt of' a revolting Isisid, from the absence of servation and the deadening nature of their daily life to all sense of

decent shzune. " I am told," says Mr. PENNETUORNE, " by a man

whose property overlooks the courts, (between Whitechapel and Wentworth Street) that frequently on a Sunday morning he sees a dozen women perffletly naked, without the least dress at all, dancing to a fiddler."

Without any allowance for the diffisrence between savage and civilized:nen, slavery or serfdom has nothing to equal the scenes in- dicated by the evidence in this Health Report. The worst examples of Southern slavery, as painted by the Abolitionist author of Arch,' Moore, show that the Negro has the power of living in cleanliness it' he has the will ; and both Negroes and European serfs, be they as filthy as they may, have intervals between their dwellings, and full freedom of open air, which remove the mischievous effects of their impurities, though not the impurities t hemselves. But a neces- sity, which he cannot overcome or escape from, chains the British White outcast to his alley, his filth, and his fever : and the evil is increasing. There is no reason to suppose that these people, de- plorable as they are, are any worse than their prec:ccessors; but they have remained stationary whilst society has advanced, the very advance contributing to enhance the misery of their condition. As long as such rookeries were in the suburbs, all who desired it could at least get fresh air, and their situation prevented some of the ill effects of their dirt. Such has been the increase of buildings within the present century, that places once on the verge of town are now in its heart, and we have seen how courts Ibrmerly open in the centre have been built over as the demand for lodgings increased. Nor is this state of things confined to the Metropolis.

" Whilst the increase of population in England and Wides, in 30 years, from 1801 to 1831, has been something more than 47 per cent., the actual increase in the number of Mhahit ants of are of our most important provincial towns has very nearly doubled that mete ; being,

NThcliestcr 109 per cent.

1,1 1gow Birmingham 108 —

VI —

'weds — Liverpool 100 —."

From all this mass of disease and distress in large towns, Bir- mingham alone stands out ill rather favourable contrast. 'Wages arc comparatively high ; "time nature of the employment generally is not injurious to health; the general custom of each family living in a separate dwelling is conducive to comfort and cleanliness; and the good site of the town, and the dry and absorbent nature of the soil, are great natural advautngee."

The principal remedies proposed by the Commit tee are a general Building Act and Sewerage Act, operative wherever a town exceeds a certain number of inhabitants. By the contemplated provisions, no street should be built of less than a certain width, some witnesses suggesting, of' not less than two-thirds the height of' the houses, Mr. PENNErnorm of not less than the whole height, Mr. Cuntyr of a positive forty feet—for he apprehends that if the streets depended upon the height of the houses, they would resemble slave-ships, and be built with the ceiling and floor too close together fir a man to stand upright : but surely this could be as well subjected to regulation as the thickness of party-walls at present. This wit- ness, though foreseeing many difficulties, which we do not feel the force of, does not apprehend any considerable increase of rents from such an enactment, because when this class of houses arc first built the ground is of little value, its price only rising some yews afterwards, when the neighbourhood is formed. The acts would also forbid blocking up the end of streets or courts, or building houses back to back : they would also render drainage com- pulsory on the landlords, and the Committee lean to a regu- lation enforcing a provision for receptacles for dust and other conveniences. By the Sewers Act, they would give to towns

throughout the country a .general power of doing what can only now be done by special act of Parliament—enable a place to regulate its own drainage. They would also extend, or

the present law—for it seems doubtful whether rather interprets some of thc existing Commissioners of Sewers in London have a

power to construct new sewers ; they have certainly none to enforce drainage from houses. One sewer nearly a mile and a half in length was constructed on the requisition of some of the inhabi- tants : when made, very few of the houses were drained into it, yet the rents of these houses were estimated by tile witness at 601. to 70/. a year. When landlords and occupiers of this class of houses are so indifferent to health, for a small saving, we may judge what the disregard must be m the lowest houses, whose builders and owners, all the witnesses agree, are very small capitalists of an inferior class, disregardful of every thing save the weekly rent they can exact for their places. The Committee also suggest the appointment of a Board of Health in each town of a certain size, not nreatly dissimilar to the Boards of Guardians, and an Inspector to enti:ree the regulations of the new acts as well as the existing laws against nuisances; which last wouls), to a certain extent, remedy some of the existing evils ; but it is nobody's business to proceed upon them. The Committee close with throwing out a hint for further improve- silents, which may become desirable when those of the most press- ing nature have produced their effects. The custom of continuing burying-grounds, crowded with constant ad- ditions of corpses, in the midst or populous cities, is spoken of by several wit- nesses as most injurious to health. "4, The importance of an ample and due supply of water within the reach and means of the humbler classes has liten made evident to all who have attended to the subject, and appears lamentably- deficient in several populous and increasing communities.

"3. The augmentation of buildings in the vicinities of these crowded cities seems to call for provisions to insure some °pot space:: hein„:: preserved, calcu- lated for public walks, essential to the health and comfort of the poorer classes. This was adverted to and recommended by the Report of a former Committee ; it presses more and more as the population of these great towns rapidly in- creases, and many witnesses have spoken of the growing necessity for sonic such provision.

"4 Some inspection and power of regu'atien of the humbler class of lodging- houses seems absolutely, necessary fur the health of the people. They are shown, by evidence before your Committee, to be now utterly neglected ; that there arc many in all our great towns habitually b, n condition, the abode of fever arid other contagious disorders, destitute of all ,,anatory, regulations, and inhabited, from time to time, by a migratory and sl:ifVog population. Thus the diseases which are frequently taken in these dirty and ill-ventilated places are spread shout the country, to the maniti:st d:iti;7er of the people. Wherever local circumstances give the power to establish public bathing places for the use of the poorer classes, such a :top would be highly beneficial, and the cost in manufacturing towns, where many steam-engines are employed, would not, it appears, be considerable."

A good part of the Report 13 occupied w bit combating objections that may be raised againqt the proposed acts, either as an inter- ference with the rights of private property, or as tending to raise rents to the extent of their operation. The idea of allowing a per- son to cause the accumulation of filth of all kinds in a neighbour- hood, or to induce malaria by too close or improper modes of &e., under the plea of the rights of property, is not for a moment to be listened to. It may be questionable indeed whether the law is not already large enough to prevent or punish such conduct : its inoperativeness arises from the expense, the technical difficulties, and the want of sufficient interest to

enforce it. So far as the present status of things is con- cerned, the economical operation would be slight ; the landlords of this class of houses compound for the taxes, (from the tenants, in fact, they would never be gotten.) and any additional sewer-rate would fall upon them without much possibility of evading it, for we suspect they now get from their tenants the utmost the property will fetch. But as the regulations, divecting a superior class of houses to be built, would riot at the :'me time enable tenants to pay a higher rent, whilst they would compel a somewhat heavier outlay on the part of landlords, any increase of population would cause a rise in the rents of' the present abodes, till they reached a point when the new 110PSCS would pay the same rate of profit as the old houses did; unless a fall of profits, coincident with the increase of population, rendered this class of speculators willing to build at a lower rate per cent. The enhancement caused by mere drainage, ventilation and necessary conveniences, would not, however, he gm cat; tart:duly not enough to entitle a person to create nuisances under the plea of cheapness. At the same time, we do not amticipate anv imme- diate effects from legislation beyond greater public cleanliness, a freer circulation of air, and prevention to some degree of the gene- ration of the causes of disease —all most important and proper to he done : but we agree wit! i FM:Willie that much of the want of sense of propriety and decency ari,( from the circumstances in which " the poor creatures are placed," and that no legislation will work any considerable change. It cannot prevent poverty crowding into single rooms, or dressing in raas; nor is it likely to induce Cleanliness of rerson, whilst the clothes are dirty or the stomach empty. The people, unhappily, are born and bred to their dirt and their atmosphere—they scarcely think about them PS grievances; and when such of them are removed as legislation can remove, it is questionable whether the poor people will exert themselves to further its intentions : perhaps they have not the mental power. Their notions of grievance take another direction.

" _Have you met," said one of the Committee to Mr, Fr,vretinn, "with any expressions of discontent with their condition ? "—" Discontent among the lowest dosses of the people does not express itself in complaints of those things iuto which you are now investigating discontent shows itself in passions, not in reasoning ; and the discontent which they express is not a complaint of any such grievances as you are investigating; but they immediately find another subject for the excited passions, and express their dissatisfaction with the con- stitution of the country and the framework of society."