4
10. The population of the Sudder Bazar at the time of the census of 1872
amounted to 22,046 persons, of whom 11,507 were males and 10,539 were
females, being in the proportion of 91 females to every 100 males. It con-
sisted Of—
Males.
Females.
Total.
Hindus
6,873
6,461
13,334 Who formed 60.48 per cent.
of the entire population.
Mussulmans ....
2,440
2,295
4,735
21.48
Jains
49
26
75
0.34
Christians
1,582
1,279
2,861
12.98
Others
563
478
1,041
4.72
Total
11,507
10,539
22,046
11. 4,107 persons resided in 868 houses of the better class, whilst 3,391
houses of the inferior sort contained 17,939 inhabitants. There were therefore
on an average 4 . 7 persons living in each of the better sort of houses, and 5.29
residents in each house of inferior description. The houses facing the princi--
pal streets preserve regularity as regards their frontages, but with respect to
their elevation and the line in the rear no attempt at uniformity has been made.
The consequence being that next to a house perhaps consisting only of a ground
floor and about 30 feet deep, there is not unfrequently found one perhaps
two or three stories in height which may extend back for some 70 or 80 feet,
and from the upper windows of which much of the household refuse finds its
way on to the roofs of the adjoining houses, but in the heart of the bazar in many
places no attempt at regularity of any kind has been made, and the houses have
been allowed to be built on the ground where I have no doubt the owners
originally squatted, and thus clusters of houses form complete labyrinths. The
different warras however have for the most part been laid out in straight lines,
so that the unmade streets between them extend parallel to or at right angles to
the principal streets to which they are adjacent, but the lanes between the rows
of huts frequently end in a cul de sac.
12. Each house is generally speaking tiled, though it is stated there are
about 3,000 thatched residences in the bazar, but no record has been kept
of the number of stories, and the figures given regarding the material with
which they have been built are not trustworthy though it is stated there are
about 760, which consist only of mud walls. The floors of the houses in the
warras where the mass of the population live, were too frequently seen to have
been built below the level of the adjoining street, and the surface was damp.
The absence of means of ventilation in the houses is also much to be regretted
and renders them very unhealthy. The following description is not at all an
uncommon example of a tenement in the warras in the Sudder Bazar. In a row of
about 30 houses a tiled house consisting only of the ground floor was entered by
a door 3' 4" high and 16 inches broad. The floor is about a foot and a half
below the surface of the road in front, which is only about 6 or 8 feet wide. The
room is 7' 10" long by 7' 6" broad and 7' 7" in height, at the back is another
room of similar dimensions and between the two is a mud wall extending up to the
roof. The back room opens into a yard enclosed by a mud wall, in one corner
of which are laid two stones where the occupant, his wife and 4 children bathe
and in the opposite corner is a place shut off by a mat where they pass their fæces
and urine and where they wash their bodies after defæcation the water from
which place runs out into a cesspool which is not built but consists of simply
a hole dug in the street at the back, into which the water soaks as best it can.