The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-24 00:00:00

LETTER XIX

" Property has its duties as well as its rights,"

THE DAMP, FOUL STATE OF DWELLINGS, AND THE

HASTY OCCUPATION OF NEW-BUILT IIOUSES, SOURCES
—(continued).

OF DANGER-

It is surprising to what extent the evils of premature
inhabiting of new houses may be, and has actually been
carried in the town of Liverpool alone. The dangers are
very great, a❑d the mistake not infrequently attended with
a fatal result, as the experience of every medical man will
shew. I don't suppose there is a medical practitioner who
has been resident here for a few months, and has not
witnessed some or other fatal or lamentable case from this
cause.

The people in general seem to be involved in ignorance
of the deleterious effects of living in new or damp houses.
The occurrence of several fatal cases has still been ineffi-
cient as a warning to the many who blindly rush in eager
haste to occupy what are technically termed " green "
houses! I shall first give a few instances of these sad ef-
fects, then 1 shall allude to the cause of them, and finally
what may be suggested for the cure of them.
Here is such a list as I have had either personal know-
ledge of, or have the best authority of others for. As for
the real extent of the evil, I cannot adequately report any-
thing like it. I cannot quote a number proportionate to
the new houses themselves. It would not gain credence
if I were to say that, in my own judgment, the fact of the
first tenants of a new house, especially if that be of the
smaller or cottage kind, escaping without prejudice to
their health, of some kind, would be as an exception to a
general rule. The larger calibre of house is not certainly
quite as obnoxious as the smaller to this evil of unwise
haste, mostly perhaps because the ornamenting, &c. &c.,
of it, consumes more time; partly because they are more
often built for a private owner; partly because the rough
drying of the walls, &c., is essential to the finishing work,
decorative or plain.
Mr. Blower, surgeon, gave me the following fact, which
illustrates the dangers I have so often alluded to :-
1. A poor woman he visited in a court in a street leading
out of Whitechapel, was a resident of a house so arranged
that most of the ventilation of her apartment was " by the
leave" of the ashpit. a circumstance neither creditable to
the house-builder nor to the town. The foul atmosphere she
was thus doomed to inhale was repugnant to her, in spite
of habitual endurance. She was confined; the infant
died in a fortnight (this is just like a case I very lately de.
scribed, where infant life fell an early sacrifice); the mo-
ther made a lingering recovery. Removal to the country
for a while restored her. " She returns back to her
house; she has an attack of slow fever. She retires to
Evertors, and improves. She returns home again, and
sleeps one night in the old effluvia, and again takes slow
fever !"
These are the very words of description I have down in
the handwriting of the narrator. They prove the fact so
conclusively, of the prejudicial nature of these stinks, as
a direct cause of a slow febrile movement, in the indivi-
dual exposed, whether for a constancy or for a single
night, to the poison, that I should, if I had introduced the
wording myself, almost begin to suspect that my own de.
cription was an over-statement, arising out of my eager-
ness to prove a certain point; in fact, if I had coined a
fictitious case, for the purpose of putting an extinguisher
upon scepticism, I could not have been as happy in my
bitting off the required links in the chain of demonstrative
evidence. Another furnishes the facts, and the public can
exercise a judgment free from any bias whatever. This

ranges in the very first order of the facts I have been ven-
turing to produce before the public. The first facts—the
child's death, and the lingering convalescence of the mo-
ther—might or might not be the effects of the cause sup-
posed, taking them ; but when the links of addi-
tional facts, testing all ambiguities, are rivetted succes-
sively one with another, a•chain results, of which the first
link may be considered to stand as a cause, and every
other following as effect.
2. A poor woman, in the greatest depths of poverty, was
twice confined in the Lying-in Hospital. On the last oc-
casion she was under the care of one of my colleagues,
who was requested to visit her afterwards at her cellar.
lie permits me to state, that he found her in the utmost
possible destitution ; her husband was a sailor, absent at
sea, without having left her anything to keep her from
starvation ; he had not left her any ship-note, the usual
provision for a seaman's family. She was lying in a dirty
damp cellar, in a little crooked street between Gloucester-
stre,,t and Copperas-hill. Her infant and self had come
out from the ho.,pital well. The infant died in a few
weeks, and it is no wonder. She had nothing to lie upon
at night, but a miserable shake down of straw on the
damp floor—the walls were damp also. As for the win-
dow, it hardly contained one pane of glass, old rags sup-
_

plying the place of broken glass. She had hardly any
food, but a poor woman, occupying the cellar, gave her a
share of her earnings to prevent her starving, and had
also taken nart of the straw from her own bed. in order

to afford the starving mother a most insufficient covering
of the damp floor for an apology for a bed. At first this
straw was not more than many a common sized dog gets
to lie upon. The matron of the hospital went first to
see her, found her in this pitiable plight, and saw reason
to recommend her to make a little sup of gruel for the
child. She replied she had not the meal to make it, nor
could she get it except by the charity of her kind hearted
fellow-lodger. She found her contending with this po-
verty ; and as a natural consequence of the want of pro-
per protection from damp cellar, shivered window, and
hunger, at this present inclement season last year, she
had become the subject of inflammation in her breast,
which went on to the formation of abcess, requiring to be
opened, &c., and she was some weeks before she was
well again. It is only justice for me to add, since I have
introduced the case, that when her want was made known
to the Ladies' Committee, suitable bed and bedding was
kindly provided for her, besides the needful temporary
assistance. The matrons of s

force of this case. It has been said that " one half of the
world ►snows not how the other half lives "—" starves"
would be the more correct term. It may with perfect
truth be added, that, a large proportion of this, the
wealthy balr, enhance. the fault of omission to inquire, by
the sin of "commission" in hardening itselfagainst poverty.
It sits clothed in the gay garb of eordid indulgence, and
turns the deaf ear to the poverty-stricken, or listens to it
often but to visit it with the penalty as of a crime. The
chain of social sympathy is thereby broken, and the spirit of
human nature, which submits not to want with a contented
and becoming grace, is branded as lawless and disaffected
towards that portion of society which revels in the lap of
luxury and sits at ease in high places. Some retrograde
movement will have to be made hack towards the hospi-
tality and alms of the older world. The new poor-law is

no fair substitute, and the masses of poverty feel it to be
so ; it may sometimes possibly goad on, the despondency
of indolence and the unsuccessful, to another effort, which,
when made, by many might be dignified by the name of
heroic ; but it fails to encourage. the struegles of industry,

or to energize the hard-pressed ; its grinding contest is
with human nature, and not with mere machines.

(7'o be continued.)
I am, sir, yours truly,,

Bedford-street, Nov. 15, 1846

C 7. C. WATSON',

DISTRESS AMONGST PROTESTANTS
IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND.

The following is an extract from a letter from Tyrone,
dated 13th November, 1846, from a clergyman who was
recently officiating at Woodside, but has now an incum-
bency near Tyrone:— _
_ _ _

My Dear 'Air. Grores,—The papers have no doubt
acquainted von with the great destitution in the south of
Ireland ; but of the Protestant north, or in particular of
this county (Tyrone), you hear little or nothing ; for
there is an honest pride in an Irish Protestant which
would induce him to starve rather than beg, by a spirit of
obedience to the law, which would restrain him from be-
coming notorious by crime. My object in troubling you
is to seek your interest and aid for starving fellow crea-
tures, who worship God under the same ritual as yourself.
I will state a few facts briefly :—My glebe and church
are in the mountains, five miles from any house. I mi-
nister alone over a district nine miles long by six and a
half, numbering over 1,000 souls in my care. We have
collected above £2.50 for thine by the Deanery parish,
and expended it in food and labour. The public works
are not yet begun, and when they do, Bd. or 10d. a day
will not support families. Mean-
while the cotters are starving. Several families whom
my wife visits almost daily, are reduced to one meal in
the day ; and I have seen w,ll-dressed men come into my
farm yard, and gather the bits of turnips, the refuse of
my cattle at night. Ido what I can. Seventy pounds a
year, badly paid, does not nearly meet the labour of my
glebe land. Money I have none. 'What I can, I give,
but I cannot reach all. My object now is to collect a few
pounds, and to keep these cotters alive till the public
works begin, and, if possible, to buy some meal and sell it
to them at half price when they are in work. They have
no potatoes—no meal—nothing to live on. The work-
house will now be quite full, and they who go there lose
their tenements for ever. My application is for no public
or general collection. It is a little private matter of my
own planning. I therefore expect but little. But a trifle
would go further in this way than more i❑ the public
funds. If you could do something for us promptly,
(meanwhile they are starving,) God would increase your
store and bless your Christian liberality. My heart is
sad when I think of it.—Ever yours faithfully,

We understand that C. Groves, Esq., Rumford-place.
will be happy to receive and forward any contributions
for the above object, and we are sure that many of our
friends will be glad of an opportunity afforded them of
contributing to the deep necessities of their Irish brethren.

FINANCIAL SUMMARY OF THE WEEK.

SATURDAY MORNING

The Consol Market has continued steady during the
last week, the only fluctuations having arisen from the
temporary influence of sales and purchases. Business
has generally been dull, and there has been but little
speculation.

The exchanges are still on the decline, notwithstanding
that the stock of bullion in the Bank is on the increase.
This may, in some measure, be accounted for by the con-
tinued demand for bills upon Holland. By the Gazette of
last night we perceive that the stock of gold and silver
bullion for the week ending Saturday last was £14,246,395
as compared with £14,235,885 in the previous week. This
shows an increase of £10,510 in the issue department,
while in the banking department the stock of gold and
silver coin has risen from £524,621 to £602,458, showing
a total increase of £88,347, thus proving that the Bank is
in a much more favourable condition than last week to
meet a demand for bullion.

Money remains much in the same condition as it has
been for some time past, a strong evidence of which has
been the readiness with which buyers have discounted
their purchases, instead of giving acceptances, as usual,
which has been one of the causes of the recent scarcity of
bills. First-rate paper is, however, easy at the minimum
Bank amount, and bills falling due this year have been
taken even below that rate.
The Morning Chronicle says :

" We are still firmlj of opinion that the great absorp-
tion of capital which is going forward in railways will tend
to an increase of interest, and to a turn in the exchanges.
We cannot apprehend an immediate action on the circula-
tion, nor do we think that the public are unmindful of the
prospect before them ; and, therefore, that there is no
danger of any such crisis as would otherwise have arisen."

Consols left off firmly last week at 94i for money after
very slight fluctuation. On Monday no alteration was
perceptible, with the exception that all were sellers at the
above prices. On Tuesday fluctuations took place, but
without any assignable cause than that above mentioned,
viz., the ihiluence of sales, &c. On Wednesday, from
the understanding that the Bank had received a larger
supply of bills than had been the case for some weeks past,
the impression arose that money was likely to become of
higher value. On Thursday a slight improvement took
place, but last night the prices remained nearly in stulu
quo.

- In the Foreign Market little has been done. Spanish
Five per Cents. have declined from 2611 to 25k. Dutch
Four per Cents have continued steady. In the remain-
ing stocks the prices have been merely nominal. Mexican
Bonds have been done for the account at 21, hut there
have been no transactions for money. Messrs. Schreider
and Co. have declined to deliver up the bonds and money
in their possession to Jose M. Mendoza, who has made a
formal demand for them, as consul for Mexico; the re-
fusal being made on the ground that they were trustees
for the bondholders. The course pursued by Messrs.
Schreider is universally approved of in all the respectable
circles in the city.
Monday was the settlement day in the Share Market,
which has, however, gone off very satisfactorily.
There has been a very unusual delivery of stock, which
would lead us to infer that speculators have been exten-
sively realizing the profits which the recent rise of price
placed within their reach.
There has been a considerable advance in Oxford and
Worcester shares. There has also been a further advance
in the price of North British shares ; Eastern Counties
have also been firmer. With these exceptions, the market
must be reported as dull, with a decided tendency down-
ward.

The Grain Markets remain in the same depressed con-
dition, but the prices range nearly the same as last week.
SATURDAY EVENING.

The English funds have been heavy throughout the
dav, but without variation from the closing prices of yes-
terday. Under ordinary circumstances the fall in the
French funds caused by the aspect of affairs regarding
Cracow might have been expected to produce a marked
decline, but the money purchases of the public continue
to counteract the operations of the speculators. The only
quotations for Consols were 911 to / for money, and 941
to 1 for the January opening ; Bank Stock left off 205 to
206; Reduced Three per Cents, 931; Three-and-a. Quar-
ter per Cents., 954; and Long Annuities, 9i, The Ex-
chequer-bill market is weak at Bs. to Ils. premium.
There was a degree of flatness in the foreign market
this afternoon, though the extent of business was by no
means important. The latest bargains were—Brazilian
at 854; Danish, at 86 ; Mexican, at 22 for money, and
211 for the account; Portuguese Four per Cents, at 36
for money, and at 361 for the account; Spanish at 254
for the account ; the Three per Cents., at 361 for the ac-
count; Dutch Two-and-a-half per Cents., at 59; and the
Four per. Cents.,. Certificates, at 91.