The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-21 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY PAFERS.

FIRST REPORT OF THE COMMISSION-VW
FOR INQUIRING INTO THE STATE OF
LARGE TOWNS AND POPULOUS DI&
TRICTS.
We proceed at once to quote, from the interesting
evidence of Dr. Southwood Smith, the following pas-
sages, as illustrating the almost inconceivable condi-
tion of wretchedness which prevails among a numerous
community in one of the largest suburban districts
of London :

The evils which you descriLed in 1838 ne referable
to these districts still continue, and with increasing viru-
lence ?—At the present moment with increasing' viru-
lence, certainly.
The districts referred to contain a vast populatioil,. --
not in one part of London, alone, but in different parts
of it, to which the same considerations apply ?—Th e -
fever districts of the metropolis are situated in different
parts of it ; and it is in accordance with ordinary ex-
perience to find fever raging in some of these districts,
at the very time that others are enjoying a temporary
immunity from it. In former years I have found, on my •
personal examination, some localities in which there was
not a single house in which fever had not prevailed, and
in some cases not a single room in a single house in
which there had not been fever. I observed this parti-
cularly in certain localities in Bethnal-green and White-
chapel ; now, during the present year, there has been
very remarkable absence of fever in these its ordinary
seats, while in other districts it has been more than come
manly prevalent.
Did you attribute that, in those districts, to bad
drainage, or want of water, or some causes of that kind?
—ln every district in which fever returns frequently,
and prevails extensively, there is uniformly bad sewage,
a bad supply of water, a bad supply of scavengers, and
a consequent accumulation of filth ; and I have observed
this to be so uniformly and generally the case, that I
hare been accustomed to express the fact in this way. If
you trace down the fever districts on a map, and then
compare that map with the map of the Commissioners of
Sewers, you will find that, wherever the Commissioners -
of Sewers have not been, there fever is prevalent ; and,
On the contrary, wherever they have been, there fever
is comparatively absent.
" This statement is made in your report—' It appears
that the streets, courts, alleys, and houses in which fever
first breaks out, and in which it becomes most prevalent
and fatal, are invariably those in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of uncovered sewers, stagnant ditches and
ponds, gutters always full of putrefying matter, night-
men's yards, and privies, the soil of which lies openly
exposed, and is seldom or never removed. It is not pea-
Ale for any language to convey an adequate conception
of the poisonous condition in which large portions of -
both these districts always remain, winter and summer,
in dry and in rainy seasons, from the masses of putrefy-
ing matter which are allowed to accumulate.' Does much
of that to which you refer still remain in the same state?
—lt is essentially the same. I have very recently been
over the same places with a distinguished foreigner, who
takes an interest in the welfare of the humblericlasses, and
who was desirous, his attention having been drawn to •
these reports, to test their accuracy by a personal in-
spection of the places described. Before we set out on
our visit he could not conceal that he thought the de-
scription exaggerated. From the cleanliness, neatness,
and apparent healthfulness of the main streets and
thoroughfares in London, he could not bring himself to
believe that there could be large districts containing
hundreds of thousands of the people allowed, year after
year, to remain in such a neglected and poisonous con-
dition. It would be incredible,' said he, it would be
unworthy of your state of civilisation, were such descrip-
tions true, even of a few isolated places; but when it is
asserted that they are true of the localities in which s
very large proportion of the population resides, I own I
feel curious to see these places.' It so happens that the
district over which I took this gentleman has been im-
proved in some respects since these reports were written.
A common sewer has been made in the most densely
crowded and filthiest locality; and the very worst place
I ever saw, namely, Baker's Arms-alley, a narrow court
in Rosemary-lane, Whitechapel, has been materially
changed for the better, by the building of the Blackwell
Railway directly through it. But these improvements
relate only to a few of the larger thoroughfares ; the
places most concealed from the public view, the most
close, crowded, and filthy districts, remain wholly un-
altered.
When my foreign friend saw these places, he
admitted that the wretchedness of their condition had
been understated—when he expressed his astonishment
that a concern for the common safety had not induced
the authorities to attend to the sanatory condition of
these extensive districts, I told him (but he thought the
statement scarcely mended the matter) that these places
were as unknown to our legislators, to almost all our -
people in power, as, an hour ago, they had been to
himself.
" Have you, from your experience in these matters,
formed a strong opinion that fevers and other diseases
to which the humbler classes in these populous districts
are subject, might .be, to a great extent, removed by
cleansing, draining, and improvements in building ?
Every day's experience convinces me that a very large
proportion of these evils is capable of being removed ;
that if proper attention were paid to sanatory measures
the mortality of these districts would be most materially
diminished, perhaps in some places one-third, and in
other places even one-half.
" Are you aware that the rate of mortality is actually •
found to be nearly double in some of the neglected dis-
tricts in the east, compared with what it is in the western -
part of London ?—I am ; and this interesting and im-
important fact is dependent on several circumstances,
and not on any one cause. Thus a larger proportion of
the people who reside in the western part of London con-
sist of the wealthier, while the eastern part is prin at-
pally inhabited by the poorer classes. The higher value
of life indicated in the western district is partly owing to •
the better food and clothing of the wealthier classes, to
their more temperate habits, and less exhausting labour,
and especially to the better care taken of their infants
and children, and, in general, to the more favourable
circumstances under which infancy and childhood, the
most precarious and mortal epochs of human life, are
placed. But still the poorer classes, in these neglected
localities and dwellings, are exposed to causes of disease
and death which are
.peculiar to them ; the operation of
these peculiar causes is steady, unceasing, sure ; and the
result is the same as if twenty or thirty thousand of
these people were annually taken out of their wretched •
dwellings and put to death, the actual fact being that
they arc allowed to remain in them and die. I am now
speaking of what silently, but surely, takes place every •
year in the metropolis alone, and do not include in this
estimate the numbers that perish from these causes in
the other great cities, and in the towns and villages of
the kingdom. It has been stated that " the annual
slaughter in England and Wales, from preventible
causes, of typhus fever, which attacks persons in the
vigour of life, is double the amount of what was suffered
by the allied armies in the battle of Waterloo." This
is no exaggerated statement • this great battle against 's
our people is every year fought and won ; and yet few
take account of it, partly for the very reason that it takes -
place every year. However appalling the picture pre-
sented to the mind by this statement, it may be justly
regarded as a literal expression of the truth. lam my-
self
convinced, from what I constantly see of the ravages
of this disease, that this mode of putting the result does -
not give an exaggerated expression of it. Indeed the
most appalling expression of it would be the mere cold -
statement of it in figures.
" But great. as the mortality from these causes may be, -
do you think the mortality alone includes the whole of
the evil?—Certainly not; the number of people who die
can be taken only as an indication of the much greater
number who fall sick. The mortality, even of the
London Fever Hospital, to which the worst cases of fever •
in the metropolis are sent, is not, on an average of ten
years, more than one in seven; in some years it is not
more than one in ten or twelve, and, comparing the
number attacked wil4 the number that die over the
whole kingdom, the mortality would not, in ordinary, --
years, amount to one in twelve ; so that the number of -
sufferers from this disease is at least twelve times greater
than the number of persons that actually perish from it.
" The classes of the population referred to are chiefly. -
those occupied in labour; in case of their being affected •
by fever they 'are, of course, disabled from obtaining sub- •
sistence for their families?—This is among one of the
most powerful causes of pauperism. The returns made
in the year 1838 to the Poor-law Commissioners from
the twenty metropolitan unions, in answer to queries! .
sent to the medical officers, with a view to ascertain the
actual prevalence of fever during one year, contained in •
the several unions, as well as the number actually
attacked with fever. From these returns it appears, that, -
of the total number who received parochial relief in most -
of the districts, a very large proportion received it in con- •
sequence of their being ill with fever; but in one district,
namely, St. George's, Southwark, out of 1,467 persons
who received parochial relief, 1,276, that i§, the whole
number with the exception of 191, are reported to have
been ill with fever. This is an unusually large propor-
tion ; but these returns in general place in every striking
point of view the pauperising influence of fever.
" If this be the case, the power of the humble classes
,of miffing their bread and maintaining their familio
extremely diminished by the neglect of sewage, ierg
and cleansing which exists in these localitieesn?—
gethl
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venes between puberty (when the dangers of infancy and
childhood have . been passed) and old age—of an the -
acute diseases which cut short this, the most precious
part of the term of existence, and the only part of that
term which it is in the power of human precaution and
wisdom to extend indefinitely, fever is incomparably the
most prevalent: so prevalent, indeed, that it may be said
to be the disease of adolesence and manhood. I was -
first taught this fact while making some researches intO•
the cause and results of fever, derived chiefly from the
records of the Fever Hospital, and as long ago as the
year 1830 I published a table exhibiting the evidence of =
it. I took out one by one the ages of all persons who -
had died of fever in this hospital during the four years
from 1825 to 1828, both inclusive, being the four years
immediately preceding the year in which I was making
the investigation." • •

We are able to state, from authority, that one day
next week a marriage will take place between the Hon.
Horace Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald,
and Mrs. George Carnegie, widow of the late George
James Carnegie, Esq., nephew to the late Earl of Nor•
thesk.—Court Journal.

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