The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-10 00:00:00

H ,V THE POOR LIVE.

The Times of yesterday contained some lamentable
particu'ars o ,Le condition of the people living in Church-
street and Carrier-street, situate on the extreme verge of
St. Giles, and within 20 yards of handsome buildings,
lately erected in New Oxford-street. The reporter who
gathered the statistics was accompanied by a police-officer.
Church-street is about 15 feet wide, very ill-paved,
and containing ruinous houses, having generally five
rooms, but sometimes more. These houses are let by the
owners to men and women, who again let out the rooms
singly and by twos, and these rooms are again sublet by
the occupants to those outcasts and trampers who are in
want of a night's shelter. These are charged id., and
sometimes 2d. per night, and many are admitted for
"anything they can give," or for nothing, according to
their state of poverty and destitution. No limit is placed
to the number of persons so admitted, except the capacity
of the room ; and men, women, and children, more or
less naked, repose nightly in these places, occasionally on
old beds stuffed with straw, sometimes on straw and
shavings, without covering, but by far the larger part
sleep on the bare boards, and in the back rooms, which
are destitute of boards, on the bare earth.
In the house, No. 3, Church-street, there are fire
rooms. The landlord, or occupier of the ground-floor,
stated the average in summer to be thirty, but much more
in winter. There are no drains, and there is no privy, the
door leading to the space dignified with the name of a
yard having been locked to make room for the " improve-
ments." The inmates of this and the two adjoining
houses go to a privy at a shop at the corner of the street,
at which shop they sometimes leave the rent. The stairs
are so incrusted with dirt that weeds might grow upon
them, and are also so dilapidated as to make it a matter
of risk to ascend them. The rooms vary from six to
seven feet in height. It is scarcely possible for them to
be dirtier, and the atmosphere is unendurable. The filth
and offal are thrown into the street or court, from which
it is swept by a man who is engaged for the purpose. All
the inmates joined in condemning the atmosphere as
" enough to poison anybody," and in a hearty wish that
something might be done to alleviate their sufferings from
this cause. Any inquiry as to the existence of fever was
met by the reply, " Oh, they are all taken to the hospital ;"
but the mephitic air was often too sudden in its action to
allow of these cases being taken in time, as will hereafter
be seen.

This house is a sample of the rest of the street.
Carrier-street contains about 20 houses, and is perhaps
the most digustingly filthy spot that exists any where in
London. At the corner of the street, or rather a few
yards from it, there is a narrow bricked alley,--not wider
than a doorway. On going down it, as soon as the eye is
enabled to perceive anything, in tLe dim light, an opening
is seen on either side, each being an entrance to a staircase
so filthy, so offensive, so repulsive to every sense, as to
render it impossible to give an idea of it. On going up
one of these—a matter of risk and difficulty—five or six
different doors are perceived leading to as many rooms,
and each of these again let to as many families. In one
room, not ten feet long and less than five wide, lived
four families, comprising in all sixteen persons, eight
adults and eight children. One corner of the room was
occupied by a heap of straw used as a bed, and near
it, on some old rags, was lying a child sufferingapparently
from fever. The mother was crying near it, and,
pointing to a small mouldy biscuit from which a small
portion had been taken, said that that was all she had had
to give her child for many days. A man who was lying
on the floor in a corner of the room corroborated this
statement, and said that he would be very glad to work
for anything instead of starving in that den. The appear-
ance of the inmates was a guarantee for the truth of their
assertions, want being to be seen in every countenance.
A stout young Irishwoman, who seemed better off and
more intelligent than the rest, complained bitterly of the
smell which pervaded the house (it was so bad in this
room as to render it difficult to breathe.) There was no
water in the place. Some medicine had been given to the
mother of the child by a dispensing surgeon to whom she
took it. The medicine when brought into the room in
the evening was quite red ; in the morning it had turned
quite black. It was no doubt the air which had changed
it, poisoned as it must be by the breathing of so many
persons in one room. It appeared at the first sight of
this room to be physically impossible that 16 persons
could sleep in it •, and indeed there could not be room
unless some of them rested in a sitting position in the
angles of the wall with their children on their knees. In
the room next or next but one to this, and of much the
same size, three families resided. There were not so many
to sleep in it at night—the number stated was eight or
ten persons. On a bed of shavings, and covered
only with a sack and some cotton fragments sewn
together, lay another child, also suffering from low
fever and diarrha. It was a boy about seven
years old. He was quite naked. The father could get
no work, and they had nothing to give him. The poor
child seemed to gaffer much from the fever. In a room
above these, and nearly as large as two of them put toge-
ther, several Irish families resided. In a corner, with
only a few rags to support her head, in her day dress, and
with a sack thrown loosely over her, lay a woman, whose
features indicated the rapid avroach of death. She said
that she was a stranger—a poor widow with one child.
She had applied to the inhabitants of the room for shelter
on the previous night. They said that she had " not long
to live by the looks of her ; but they could not refuse
her." No one had sent for the doctor. Her child, a girl
of about 15, sat by her side crying as if her heart would
break. This woman laboured under symptoms of cho-
lera. In another corner of the room was a long bag
stuffed with straw, and on this a woman, her husband,
and two children slept. One boy in the room was
pointed out as having slept on the stairs for the last
twelve nights. He was a " strange boy," no one knew
where he came from. He had had nothing to eat
for two days except a crust of bread given to him by a
woman who pitied him, though she could ill spare
the morsel she gave from her own children. This woman
said that they seldom tasted meat—hardly ever. They
did not expect it. They were glad to get bread, and they
had not often enough of that. At the bottom of the
staircase, and about two feet below the landing, from
which it was entered by the door, was the bedroom of a
tailor named John Crow. Ties room had a bed in it.
It was about six feet square, with no window, and it was
impossible to see anything in it without a candle, even on
the most sunny day. This unfortunate man complained
that the landing outside his room door was used by the
residents as a privy. The poor man spoke very angrily
of the annoyance he was put to by the soil running into
his room. It came in at night under the door; the smell
was almost suffocating; and he was obliged often to rise
and clean out his room—at least to clear away the soil—
before he or his wife could sleep. The next house to this
was, with the exception of the cases of fever, &c., a repe-
tition of the last. There were four or five houses at the
extreme end of the street, which were a degree better than
those described. The man who was the landlord of them
pointed in triumph to a clock and some crockery in one
of the rooms—a miserable place enough in itself, but a
paradise compared to many near it.
The cellars in this street are the next object of attention.
A flap in the pavement being opened, it rather surprised
the bystanders to find that the cavern below was in-
habited. It was about 11 feet square, and when the flap
or lid was down must have been quite dark. There were
women and children in it, and the atmosphere was thick
and moist with offensive effluvia and exhalations. There
were two beds filled with shavings in the corners, and
when the tenants came in shavings were spread over the
floor generally, and they lay down to sleep. There are
ten or twelve of these cellars.
A list in the possession of the police sergeant returns
the average of the inmates in this locality at from 16 to 18
per room. The same sergeant states that in 14 small
rooms he counted one night 150 people—men, women,
and children, nearly all naked. and sleeping in promiscu-
ous heaps. At many of the houses the police-sergeant
was obliged to assure the inmates that "no harm was
meant" before those who went on this sorrowful expedi-
tion were admitted.

It is worthy Qf observation that the Rev, Mr. Watts, a
clergyman who resided in Endell-street, and officiated at
the new church there, died about eight months since in
consequence of visiting this locality.