The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-24 00:00:00

COR.I4,OONDENCE,

ON THE SANITARY STATE OF SOME PARTS

OF LIVERPOOL

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

LETTER II

Medical inspectorships must follow in the wake of me-
dical commissionerships and medical coronerships, and
the parchment advocate sometimes yield to the health
advocate.
The interests of the community require that the legal
opinion should be sought upon a legal case, and a medical
opinion upon a medical case. I am at a loss to under-
stand why to cross these opinions, like the letter X,
should not be as great an error in the one case as in the
other.

The chances of the probability of certain bad police regu-
lations developing some epidemic or contagious disorders
in a crowded population, the practised eye of the medical
practitioner can surely best calculate ; in fact, this comes
in as a branch of the subject of what is called " medical
police," and has long been properly understood on the
continent, and in Austria especially. The state there
never interferes with the condition, habits, or manners of
the people, without first duly consulting the Professors of
Medical Police ; in Germany no interment can take place
upon the certificate of a private medical practitioner alone,
the State Physicianof the district must endorse it; so wisely
jealous is that enlightened government of the rights and
interests of all the subjects. In the provincial towns of
Great Britain, especially, although her metropolitan cities
are probably nothing better in this respect, what a crudity
of legislation has each place borne witness to.
The necessity for a full revision of all our police mat-
ters bearing upon life and death, health and disease, is
demonstrable from whatever side we examine into the
condition of the body social.

In order to prove what I have advanced, I shall now
endeavour to describe some of the non-sanitary states of
this good old town forthwith; but, in justice to the sub-
ject, as Liverpool ranks so low in the scale of health of
towns, I claim a right to compa.-e London with her in the
very points I am about to broach, for a reason obvious
when done, and shall quote for this purpose the last evi-
dence on the matter, respecting the condition of certain
courts and cellars, laid before the Common Council of tl'e
city of London, by Dr. Lynch, who presented a petition
from the Heath of Towns Association, for some increased
attention to the state of the crowded neighbourhoods—
(to the grounds of that petition the attention of the pub-
lic will be called here, and in every parallel case.) The
Times newspaper, of the 13th instant, reports that Dr.
Lynch, in a speech after presenting the petition, amongst
other facts, referred to the condition of a certain " Plum-
tre Court" (in Blackfriars, I think), wherein he states—
" Houses in the court were built back to back, and the cellars.
which contained an accumulation of every filth, were never
cleared out. (Hear, hear.) From these nests of pestilence
were hourly issuing poisonous gases fatal to animal life. *
So fatal were the results of the poison to which he alluded, that
medical men were afraid of applying a blister to a patient from
the fear that it would run into a mortification. The mortality
amongst children was appalling, and the ravages made by all
preventible diseases exceeded what the most powerful imagina-
tion could conceive. Similar close courts in an equally bad
state were to be found off that street. In the Old Bailey there
were nine courts, all without sewers. Contagious diseases were
never absent."
Dr. Lynch was gratefully met by some councilmen,
who spoke of his " circumnavigation of charity." The
petition was agreed to by a large majority, no more than
three hands being held up against it !
These facts are appalling, and this last fact the worst
of all. What a lamentable exhibition of human nature,
that three hands could be found held up against the peti-
tion of humanity itself. It only shows that the facts re-
quire to be reiterated and quoted until these deaf hear the
cry of wretched humanity ; it must be thundered in their
ears till the very timbers of their council raof groan again.
Such are the facts, then, in reference to the COURT 3
and CELLARS of some districts of London, and they are
yond the possibility of denial or dispute; and the conta-
gious haunts will eventutlly be purified, it is to be ar-
dently hoped, for the Common Council's vote is a pro-
mise in itself that such abominations will be speedily
looked after. This is as it should be for London ; but
what has that to do with Liverpool and our own doors ?
It has to do with us and our homes here—everything to
do ; it is a faithful portrait of Liverpool proper—although
Liverpool did not exactly sit for it. How then is it a
portrait of her ? In this way : there is so strong a family
likeness, that the one may sit,for the portrait of the other.
The difficulty is, to discover a difference, or to identify
such portraits; but there is one point of difference, the
one from the other, viz., the costliness. Liverpool has to
pay about four times more than London.
1, If we take the whole area of London, built and unbuilt, and
compare it with the same area of Liverpool, we shall find that
the population is nearly four times as dense in Liverpool as it
is in London. In the houses alone, area for area, Liverpool is
above two-and-a-half times more densely populated. As all the
evils that afflict the town are more severely felt in some locali-
ties than in others, we find that this holds good al,o in the pre-
sent instance. Dr. Duncan mentions a district in Exchange
Ward, containing about 12,0 inhabitants on a surface of
105,001 square yards, which is in the ratio of -00,0, 0 to the
square mile. That part of the district bounded by Addison-
street arid Great Crosshall-street, contained. in 1841, 811 houses
and 7938 inhabitants, on an area of about 49,000 square yards,
which gives a density of 657,963 to the geographical square
mile! It requires some effort to grasp such an idea, and we
shall illustrate it by reference to London. In the same year
London contained 1,900,000 inhabitants, and every square mile
of building accommodated about 50,000 people. Now, by the
last census, Great Britain and Ireland contained 'Ai millions ;
and if we could suppose 25 millions of these crowded into the
present houses of London, we should have some conception of
the condition of the people in that district of Liverpool. This,
however, is not the worst. One instance is given by Dr. Dun-
can, out of a number of others, of a court in Crosbie- street, con-
taining 118 inhabitants, on au area of 150 square yards. The
usual average is nearly seven inmates t, each house, while in
this court it Is fifteen to each; and there are entire streets where
the average is nearly as high.—(Liverpool Health of Town's
Advocate, No. iv., p. 26.)

Thus, from the quadruple density of our population
over London, space for space, we are standing in quad-
rupled danger from the obtaining of the same causes com-
monly infesting each.
For this reason, it behoves us to investigate our own
sanitary state with quadrupled vigilance. I concede, most
cheerfully, all abundant praise to the voluntary associa-
tion of gentlemen, of all parties, who are united together
for this express object, under the name of The Liverpool
Health of Towns Association, and from whose organ, the
Advocate, I have just quoted. They are doing a great
and godlike work in their own department, but they have
no authority to regulate or touch anything ; yet, by the
moral vis a tergo of opinion and disseminated knowledge,
they will eventually obtain the doing of all desirable to be
accomplished, and become, no doubt, the helm by which
the masses may be steered safely towards health and en-
joyment of the common, and therefore most valuable,
blessings of life. I concede, also, that the municipal
authorities have felt very anxious to discharge their one-
rous duties as the executive rulers of the town. Ido not
pretend or wish to cast any, even the least, reproach upon
parties, high or low, in office, it is only i (-sanitary sys-
tems which are to be accused, and, as far as possib,e, im-
proved ; and it becomes necessary for this to be done
without delay, because the foci of contagious fever are
accumulating to an extent never known in Liverpool be-
fore, and my attempt to describe what I have been eye-
witness to, will fail to picture adequately the reality at
our very doors. Language can never fully describe the
disgusting and abominable scenes—the accumulated muck
—a strong and vulgar, but the only full Saxon term which
may not be diluted by criticism and refining away, until it
be supposed fitting to describe, in boudoir phraseology,
the decay of a humming-bird's wing or of a jessamine
leaf—or the apotheosis of a caterpillar. The purlieus
of Liverpool Proper are auful in capability far de-
veloping fevers of all kinds and of the profoundest
intensity of destructive form I To the proof, then, of
this, and of all else I have advanced, and to make all more
than good in statement, and, failing which, I will consent
to be silent—with the word "not-proven" inscribed pub-
licly upon this attempt.
I repeat, then, we have the copious elements of all
manner almost of contagious and epidemic diseases, to
which every class in the community are obnoxious, when-
ever the focus of the malarious poison acts with great in-
tensity, or broods suspended, like a cloud, over the doomed
district. Once, perhaps, the malaria may have existed in a
preventible shape, like "a cloud the size of a man's hand."
Unchecked—unprevented, it arose, and expanding upon
the currents of air and the wings of the wind, it gathered
blackness of horror, and bursts in a storm of fearful fury
upon the devoted region of its birth—though not always
worst jusipin the precise district of its nativity.

I commence with a street leading frona-141arybone to
Scotland-road, called HARRISON-STREET. This is an
exceedingly narrow street, about 3,1 yards in width, and
has a gutter or channel running down the centre of it, re-
sembling the old-fashioned streets of Paris. It has a gen-
tle declivity quite sufficient to form a water descent, if the
channel were paved with square stone, so as to present a
level bed instead of the present round bolders which form
the only pavement of the street, and as respects a water
course, do present constant impediment to the fret course
of superficial drainage, so that the natural advantage is sa-
crificed by ill-suited paving ; were it not for this, the
street might almost clean itself in spite of the accumulated

contributions of all manner of garbage and filth ejected
from the houses. The houses occur for by far the greater
part on one side only of the street, and the blank side op-
posite to them presents the gable ends of houses compos-
ing the several corresponding courts leading from the ad-
joining street (Milton-street), as well as the back walls of
those courts, which run up very high, and conclude these
latter into so many of those notorious cul-de-sac arrange-
ments of Liverpool groups of building. These walls are,
however not quite so innocent as they might appear at
first sight; for on observing them, they are found to pre-
sent in many places a leakage of an offensive description,
and this in some places in spite of roman cementing,
which does not fulfil the intention for which such was put
there : the source of this disgusting and unhealthy nui-
sance is evidently arising from the ash pits and privies be-
longing to the above-mentioned courts. The occurrence
of this might not strike a cursory passer by possibly,
but it is not the less prejudicial in its nature; if still
worse, it might have attracted the attention of the autho-
rities ; as it is, it is capable of developing unhealthiness in
the street, whilst escaping notice.

I do not find that this street is swept daily, as from its
accumulations it ought to be entitled to ; even in the'bld
town of Edinburgh, the strets so notoriously similar in
domestic accidents are all visited daily by the besom of
the scavengers : by comparison, therefore, we are behind
the modern Athens, the recent improvements in which are
fast elevating it into the' rank of a comparatively clean
town, whilst formerly it used to rank with Madrid, Lis-
bon, Paris, and other continental cities, as types of all
abominations of this kind. _

There are small courts of a very cramped description
here, the entrances proportionately narrow. One of these
courts has four houses in it, and the entrance or passage is
arched above : it is only a yard wide, and is tanked by
a privy on each side. In another court there is a gallant
assemblage of pig-stye, privy, water-tub, and odd-house.

The contents of the tub can hardly be supposed tobeinre