The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-16 00:00:00

CO RR h SPONDENCE.

ON THE SANITARY STATE OF SOME PARTS
OF LIVERPOOL-LETTER X.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL. STANDARD,

EDGE-HILL DISTRICT

The condition of High-street, though better than it
used to be, yet requires much further attention to its
gutterage, and especially to the state of its courts. A
narrow lane, called Back High-street, presented a heap of
manure, lying exposed, in the forenoon, equal to two cart
loads, and the gutter full of its drainage, the neglect of
some tenant in the vicinity. A court in High-street had
been visited by fever, in a corner house of the court, close
adjoining a privy. Both the out-offices belonging to this
court were quite full, and called for immediate attend-
ance. The entrance to the court is arched, and the court
itself cramped up by buildings. The tenants had paid,
but a short time ago, nearly 4s. among them, for the
emptying of their ashpits. Of these two fever cases, Mr.
Greatrex informs me, one died, the other, on recovery,
went into the country, and nothing is now known of the
case further.

Another court, having an archway entrance, and being
very much built up, had its offices similarly circum-
stanced ; doors could not be closed. A narrow lane,
leading out of High-street into Mason-street, is composed
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passable. Numbers of pig-styes existed : four in one
yard, two in another. The scavengers never visited it,
according to the evidence of the people there. In fact,
if they did, it must have been in better plight. The width
of this lane was hardly more than a yard wide. As a
thoroughfare, it may be comparatively useless, except just
for the occupying tenants ; but, then, as a grouping of pig
styes, and other uncleanliness, it is dangerous as a focus
of decomposition and effluvia. Pig-styes there must be,
and outlets for soil, &c., &c. It is the neglect of keeping
such as they ought to be which is the evil. I used to at-
tend many sick cases in High-street, the poorer classes
especially, either as connected with dispensary or parish
duty, and I can say that fever was seldom absent from
some or other of the court-houses. From one of the
courts alluded to above, I have had to send off a whole
family to the fever-wards, from a fever-contaminated
house, whose prior inmates had fared hardly better.
Blucher-street is, and has been for a long time, in a
disgraceful state altogether. No proper water coursing
or cleansing. One court here is ornamented with pig-
styes, &c., &c., to a most prejudicial extent. An over-
flow upon the pavement, from a supposeable place, did
endanger the health of the inhabitants adjoining. Mr.
G. reported it to the inspector, and it was attended to.
A court, containing three privies, a midden, and a pig-
gery, is about fifteen yards in length, and three or four
wide, and though flagged properly, yet has always some
illness or other within its precincts.

Another set of building's, forming a narrow court, has
the graceful flanking so characteristic of Liverpool
Proper at the entrance. At the top of the yard, the ash-
pit of a privy, not belonging to the premises of the yard,
is sunk so as to have a trap-door covering, almost level
with the flags. This nuisance often overflows, and runs
down the flagging to the entrance of the court—the plat-
form of the court-yard having a gentle sloping towards
that entrance. This overflow has run down in this man-
ner for three months at a time. One family was taken
so ill in consequence, that they abandoned the court.
Three cases of typhus fever, which occurred in it, were
sent to the fever wards recently, by Mr. Greatrex. The
house is rather celebrated apparently, and no wonder.
The whole court would be a nice specimen to preserve as
such for the instruction and warning of future generations.
The inhabitants of adjoining houses and yards, further
bring their filth, ashes, &c., and leave them at the en-
trance of the court, in the channel. The inhabitants of
the place complained bitterly to Mr. Greatrex and myself
of these nuisances, and which they were utterly unable to
get redressed. The stench was said to be unbearable at
times, from the above-named annoyance. If landlords
only saw their true interests, they would listen more fre-
quently to the just complaints of their tenants ; but where
there is a laxity on the part of authorities, the landlord is
encouraged in his delay about proper and obligatory at-
tention to the cla;ms of cottage property. The poor
people have no knowledge how to get things righted.
The channel which drains the court thus contributes its
sundry materials towards forming, with the assistance of
another gutter or two, a large pool of some yards square,
when we sawit. The water is in a horrid state, and it bathed
the foundations of some garden back walls. The whole
extent of its disgusting features need not, cannot be des-
cribed, but may be inferred very correctly. The people
assured us that, in sunshine and at night, or the first
thing in the morning, there was a heavy smell, and, it I
did not mistake, a cloud hung upon it tn the earlier part
of the night. They had complained to the police on duty
(the extent of their ability or knowledge how to complain
effectively), and they were told that there was " no
remedy." It might be certainly true that, in the light of
immediate abatement of it, it could not be his particular
duty—for him to remove the flood were an impossibility.
But why should not such complaints be reported like
every thing else to the inspectors and superintendents,
just as well as the neglected fastenings to a stable, or yard
door, or window, carelessly left open by a servant in any
respectable house in the town. The latter kind of service
is always well reported, as it ought to be, and 1 speak this
with approval ; but why are the complaints of the poor
people not reported, and landlords informed of their duty,
or Highway Boards made acquainted with facts so dis-
graceful, so dangerous, to the common health. Do not
the police know that " robbers" of life and limb—worse
than mere burglars—lie ambuscaded in such nuisances ?
Whilst pointing out common omissions in police duty,
yet the inspector's office ought to have justice done in the
same breath with complaint ; for I know that proper com-
plaints, lodged there by a competent party, say a medical
man, or the district surgeon, had speedy attention. In a
few hours, nuisances so represented, have been removed.
The reporting of the police on duty should equally avail.
If so, even the common sense of the poor classes would
point out the more flagrant nuisances, and one half of the
task of prevention would be done. I might refer to Bol-
ton-street, and other streets of Edge-hill, as unhealthy
from some cause or other; but the rendering of the fever
cases which occurred in the districts of Edge-hill and
Windsor, for the past year, will point out the unhealthy
localities. I shall now proceed to some disgusting mat-
ters in Windsor District.

Harding-street.—This street has a double elbow curve
in it, which is disadvantageous, apparently, for proper
drainage, and into this elbowing another street or two
also enter, which will derive no inconsiderable benefit
from further attention by the paviour and road engineer.
At one of the angles, a shippon, pig stye, &c., ornament
the ground, assisted by their natural appendages, unfa-
vourable to cleanliness and order.
A hollow waste ground, around this elbow of Harding-
street, is in the worst state I ever saw any waste ground,
for the extent of it. It is the receptacle for drainage from
two or three short streets, and the expanded puddle of all
indescribable abominations reaches the foundation walls
of a block of houses, which, from the porosity of the
brick, must be supposed to get a large share of the effects
of such a nuisance. The people of some six or eight
houses have ❑o other choice apparently but to furnish
their quota towards this general cesspool. On the autho-
rity of Mr. Greatrex, fever occurred in one house close to
this pool; one person died—a poor woman, whose pre -
sence possibly was necessary to the welfare of a family;
but as I do not know exactly what was her position, it
will be only fair to urge that a life, perhaps of a single
female, and not having several helpless little ones, has
again lapsed, through the apathy of landlords, authorities,
and society at large : yet it is but a drop in the bucketful
of squandered human life. It was to our minds a pre-
ventible case, most certainly. Will calm reflection bear
to picture to itself but this one case of sadness, and not
feel indignant at such an apathetic state of society—not
resolve to do something to wash its own hands of these
accumulating enormities of civil life in this century of
teeming human shoals? I envy not the public or the
private individual who can peruse the fact with indiffer-
ence, and I earnestly trust the time is come when the
sympathy of a real philanthropy shall have stripped off
its cumbrous garments, ready for the pulling-down and
building-up labours of a wise and paternal care.
This pool has been for years, we were told, a receptacle
for iron slag and cinders from some iron-foundry ; and
upon heaps of this stuff some little children were passing
hour after hour, looking for bits of iron, &c. Around
them, just under their noses, lay this very filthy slush of
all abominations. Whether the yellow tinging of part of
the water from the slag, &c., indicated a beneficial che-
mistry for the spot, or the contrary, may be doubtful.
The remainder of the nuisances in this street and neigh-
bourhood I shall resume next time.

I remain, sir, yours faithfully,
Bedford-street. GEO. C. WATSON, M.D.

TIIE RAGGED SCHOOLS

The following speech was delivered by Lord Ashley, at
the annual meeting of the Ragged School Union, last
week. His lordship said, " his personal experience,
(lilting the past year, had shown him the absolute neces-
sity of Institutions of this kind, which, at the present time,
enabled them to meet and abate the evils which pressed
upon them on every hand. The want of religious and
secular education for the rising generation was apparent,
and it was proposed to supply this deficiency by the
extension of the National School system on the one
hand, and by enlarging the operations of the British and
Foreign schools upon the other; but the class whose in-
terests they were met to advocate and support, was
one apart from those which formed the peculiar con-
cern of these great Societies—a class peculiar to
large towns—a class in an especial manner peculiar
to the metropolis ; and as it was a peculiar evil, they
were justified in attempting a peculiar remedy. (Cheers.)
He had drawn up certain queries which had been for-
warded to the different schools, to be able, by the returns,
to be in a condition to understand himself, and to make
the public and the legislature to understand, the condition
and necessities of that unfortunate class of their fellow-
creatures to which their attention was directed. These
returns were not yet complete, but he would read the
return from one school, which, from the circumstance of
its having been some time established, and other causes,
was rather a favourable specimen than. otherwise of the

general condition. Upon hearing the detail they would
reflect that if this was the condition of one, what must be
the condition of all the others. At that Sunday-evening
Ragged School, during the past year, the average attend-
ance was 260. Their ages ranged from five years to
twenty years. Of that number, forty-two had no pa-
rents, twenty-one had stepmothers, seven were children
of convicts. The answer to what were their apparent
means of subsistence was, that as far as could be ascer-
tained, they lived by picking up coals, and other things
on the banks of the river, and by strolling and other simi-
lar means. Of these twenty-seven had been imprisoned ;
and then he put the question. what drove these children
first to crime ? The answer was, that in some cases the
parents sent them out, saying that they must get their
living bow they could. Others had no parents, and were
unable to resist the temptations to which they were ex-
posed ; thirty-six had run away from their homes; nine-
teen slept in lodging-houses; forty-one lived by begging ;
twenty-nine never slept on beds; seventeen had no shoes
nor stockings ; thirty-seven had no hats, caps, or bon-
nets, and twelve bad no body linen. That was the
class of individuals in whom they were interested,
and he asked whether that did not prove the necessity
of such schools, open at all times, and not subject to
strict and pedantic rules of discipline, and where it was
not necess iry, as in other schools, to appear with
clean hands and faces, and decent apparel, as was the
rule in nineteen-twentieths of the Sunday schools, and
which excluded the vast majority of children in that
particular class of life? If they took children at all, they
must take them as they are, and their object was by de-
grees to clothe them and give them those habits of de-
cency and order which would raise them to that particular
scale which others have attained, and to fit them for par-
ticipating in the blessings offered by other schools. in the
metropolis. (Hear, bear.) During the last year, 7,899
persons under the age of twenty years had been in custody,
and of that number there passed through the prisons of
this metropolis, for longer or shorter periods, no fewer
than 6,073. (Hear, hear.) Now, if the process of im-
prisonment had a curative tendency, they would rejoice,
but if, from the most authentic sources of information it
appeared that these 6,073 prisoners came cut of their
gaols in a far worse moral condition than when they
entered them, the absolute necessity to make some effort
to stop this evil at the source became apparent. (Hear,
hear.) The population of this country was rapidly in-
creasing, and the juvenile population had no inconsider-
able share in those outrages which had occurred of late
years in Bristol and Nottingham ; and unless steps were
taken in time, what was there to prevent a repetition of
those horrible tragedies by the 40,000 or 50,000 of this
class of the metropolitan population? If they were actu-
ated by no other feeling than the safety of society, they
would give to these children some principles of self-
controul. (Cheers.) He was delighted to sav, that in
many instances they had succeeded in their efforts, and
done more than could have been expected by the small
means at their disposal."