Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-29 00:00:00

THE HEALTH AND MORALS OF TOWNS

ALL of us who live in towns must be interested
in their health and morals The subject is
one which, in its practical. details, bears more
closely, it may be, upon situations in towns which
are principally, if not wholly, occupied by the
poorer classes, than upon other situations. But
surely this Were no reason why any of us should
be indifferent about it. If Providence has merci-
fully cast our lot in happier circumstances, our
gratitude, if nothing else, ought to prevent us
being selfish. Besides, it is one of those matters
which will not let us be unconcerned about it,—
at least, with impunity. It concerns us all, more
or less, as a community, in that respect in which
we may be said to be one body, though many
members ; and in which, if one member suffers, all
the members, directly or indirectly, suffer with
him. The unhealthiness of one portion of the
town in which we live, cannot but exert a baneful
influence, in a greater or less degree, upon the
other portions. And, moreover, there is the duty
under which we all lie, of caring one for another.
He must be a very indifferent member of society
indeed—very wrong-principled, and very cold-
hearted—who can see his poorer fellow-citizens
suffer from being obliged to live in an unwhole-
some situation, which he himself has the means
and the opportunity of escaping from, while the
poor man has not, and yet feel careless about
remedying the cause of his neighbour's suffering.
The question of the health and morals of towns,
then, is one of general interest and concern ; and
it may well be a subject of public congratulation
that it is one which at the present time, more than
at any previous, period, in this or perhaps in any
other country, has occupied so much attention, on
the part both of the Imperial Legislature and the
local authorities. This legislative regard for the
health of towns, we say, more particularly, is of
very recent date. It was not until the year 1848
that the principal attempt at sanitary legislation
received the unwilling assent of the House of
Commons, and the Public Health Act became law,

—that Act under which general powers were

gictm to local authorities for constructing certain

permatont works of sanitary improvement, among
which draii2_affe ail(' water supply naturally held

the first place. The great principle having thus
been recognised, there has been no great difficulty
experienced in carrying other congenial sanitary
measures ; and now, as well as the Baths and
Wash-houses Act passed in
_1846 and 1847, we
have the Public Health Act of 1848 and supple-
mental Acts ; the Common Lodging Houses Acts
of 1851 and 1853 ; the Labouring Classes Lodging
Houses Act of 1851; the Burial Acts of 1852 and

1853, and subsequent Amendments ; the Smoke
Nuisance Abolition Act of 1853, and Amendment ;
the Nuisance Removal Act of 1855 ; the Diseases
Prevention Act of 1855, and the Local Government
Act of 1858. And there can be no doubt that a
proper administration of the extensive powers for
sanitary improvement granted by these several
Acti; is calculated ultimately to effect a very great
amelioration in the physical condition of the people
of this country generally, but more especially of
the crowded populations of our large towns, and

to produce eventually a corresponding improve-
ment in their moral and social state also.

It is instructive to observe occasionally the
different operations that are now going on, all over
the country, in pursuance of those Acts of Parlia-
ment relating to the Public Health. One instance
that has just attracted our attention, is that of the
proceedings of the Commissioners of Sewers of the
City of London. They employ a regular medical
officer, and they have taken care to select a man of
considerable eminence in his profession for th•

important post—Dr. LETHEBY. This most effi-
cient public functionary made his Report to the
Commissioners a few days since ; and it contains
one or two remarks which have, we think, so
close a bearing on our own town, that we would
briefly notice them here. He is alluding, for
instance, to the increased mortality
-of this season
of the year, when he says,—" The high mortality
in the season is due not merely to the trying
influences of tile weather, but also to the circum-
stance that this is the season when there is always
a large congregation of poor in the city, and with
it the evils of overcrowding. Besides which the
condition of the weather does not permit of those
sanitary operations which are so largely employed
in the summer and autumn." Now here we have
a hint which applies, we say, with great force to
the case of Liverpool. It is a point that is scarcely
yet sufficiently thought of, or attended to. No
one, however, can read such a description as the
following, which has fallen into our hands, of that
overcrowding in the dwellings of the poor, more
especially in lodging-houses, which was found to
prevail before the Act was in force, and remain
insensible to its vital importance as a sanitary
matter, and a question of morals :
No description can properly realise their condition,—
sufficient to say, that where filth and bestiality, sin,
misery, and dirt ware in the ascendant, now order and
cleanliness, comfort and good behaviour, are the rule.
Formerly these places were known as the hot-beds of vice
and crime, the very breeding-places of fever and disease.
The Magistrates are • now rarely troubled by their in-
mates, and a case of fever is scarcely known among them.

This applies more particularly to London. Let
us hope that of Liverpool also much the same can
now be said,—though one would certainly like to
have some authentic assurance of it.

The subject of overcrowding, generally, in the
dwellings of the poor, is being attended to very
carefully, we find, in the City of London,—as well
it deserves to do. Dr. LETHEBY thus speaks of it
in his Report to the Commissioners :—" In the
course of the year I have laid before you certifi-
cates of the overcrowding of 66 houses, in which
there were 116 rooms occupied by 184 men, 219

women, and 138 children. The inmates were
distributed somewhat as follows : One man with
two, three, or four women ; two men and two or
three women ; and sometimes three men to two or
more women. This is the kind of unwholesome-
ness which I am most anxious to put an end to,
and I hope to be able to gain the assistance of the
landlords of such places in my endeavours to
check the evil, for I am sure it is their interest to
see it abated." Some idea of the evils may be
formed from this statement. Let us hope that in
Liverpool also such unwholesomeness is not neg-
lected.

It is to be remembered then, let us repeat, in
considering this subject of the Health of Towns,
that it is not merely the physical condition of the
people, and more especially the poor, with which
it has to do, but their moral and social condition
likewise. The " kind of unwholesomeness," for
instance, of which Dr. LETHEBY speaks—that,
namely, arising from the overcrowding of houses
is an unwholesomeness which must corrupt the
mind, as well as impair the body. Men and
women huddled together in the same room, and
young people and children often mingling in the
revolting scene, cannot but be most injurious to
the morals of all involved in it. The evils of this
overcrowding, as we have seen, affect, in an
important degree, the rate of mortality. But they
also do what is still more baneful,—they demora-
lise, they brutalise the people, and thereby consti-
tute one of the greatest curses which society can
have inflicted upon it. In the whole range, then,
of the extensive question, there is perhaps no
feature of the case so important as this„affecting
as it does so fearfully both the health and the
morals of often very large portions of our town
populations.

THE DISGRACEFUL " AFFAIR" AT ST. GEORGE'S HALL.
—ln reference to the above affair, so much talked of and
so properly and universally condemned, Mr. M'Bride, the
honorary secretary of the centenary ovation, called on us
last night, and requested us to state the following :
`• That, after a long sitting of the committee yesterday,
and a thorough investigation into the whole circumstances

that led to the hat and coat emote, Mr. Mgienzie and the
other officials of the hell were completely acquitted of
any blame or neglect, and that the whole affair arose in
consequence of a few turbulent persons having broken
into the room at first, which caused the whole row ; and
that the committee would be happy to receive any coats,
hats, or other garments that might be in wrong hands, and
distribute same to the proper claimants." Mr. M'Bride
asked us to publish the above paragraph unconditionally
and absolute. We told him very plainly that we would
do nothing of the sort—if he wanted us to publish the
paragraph, we would do so to oblige him, but that we
should accompany it with our own comments, and on
these conditions he consented. Now, our opinion is by
no, means changed by the "long sitting of the
committee," nor the self-acquittal of Mr.
M'Benzie. We never accused Mr. M'Kenzie
in the matter, but now that such unheard-of efforts are
being made to exonerate him from blame, we say at once

tiid he should have attended to his business as the keeper
of the Hall. It may do very well for Mr. M'Kenzie to
shunt over the blame on the committee as a body, and it
may be all right for the committee, as a body,
to acquit Mr. - M'Kenzie. The committee and Mr.
M'Kenzie should, however, remember, that the public
do not acquit either the committee nor Mr. M'Kenzie—
one or the other must have been the accountable party
to the public, and it will take a vast deal more than the
Verdict of the committee to acquit Mr. M'Kenzie, and
most assuredly the public will never acquit the com-
mittee. Who was responsible ? That is the question.
Mr. McKenzie is the paid keeper of the hall, and if he
thinks he can shirk the responsibility on the committee of
management, the sooner he does so the better for his
own reputation. But both committee and Mr. M'Kenzie
are now trying to dodge public indignation, but neither
will succeed. We think one just as bad as the other;
and both equally deserving of public condemnation, and
so we told Mr. M'Bride last night. Should any great
public event take place at the Hall in future, we trust
Mr. M'Kenzie, the paid keeper of the establishment, will
know his place, and attend to his business in a more
becoming manner than he did on Tuesday night last ; and
that any committee that may have the management will
be judicious enough to avoid a shout of public indigna-
tion, by adopting something like proper arrangements
and the selection of proper persons to see all done with
order, decorum, and decency.