Report of the Health of London Association on the sanitary condition of the metropolis; : being a digest of the information contained in the replies returned to three thousand lists of queries, which were circulated amongst clergymen, medical men, solicitors, surveyors, architects, engineers, parochial officers, and the public.

  • Health of Towns Association (London, England)
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Health of London Association on the sanitary condition of the metropolis; : being a digest of the information contained in the replies returned to three thousand lists of queries, which were circulated amongst clergymen, medical men, solicitors, surveyors, architects, engineers, parochial officers, and the public. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/70 (page 40)
    Five per cent, of the replies state that the poor in their various neighbourhoods have separate privies to each house, while 95 per cent, state that the poor are compelled to make rise of a common one indiscriminately. The general statement is, that many houses have no privies at all ; that a few have separate holes, from two to three feet deep, with no drain from them. That, generally, each cluster of houses constituting “ a court,” has a common privy, but not always: and that where the houses consist of several rooms, with, of course, three or four families resid¬ ing in them, there is usually—but by no means always—one privy in common for them all. In low neighbourhoods, one privy usually serves for eight, or ten, or twelve, or even more houses, each containing several families. No one knows of a case where there is a separate privy for the two sexes. The common privies are stated to be often in a very wretched condition, with no fastening to the doors, or the doors themselves in such a condition that they scarcely, if at all, serve their purpose of concealing from view the person within. They are generally in a most filthy condition, so filthy that some poor persons have said it was impos¬ sible to use them. These observations refer more particu¬ larly to Newton-place, St. George’s-in-the-East. Newton's Rents presented lately one of the grossest scenes of abomi¬ nation, from the want of the simplest conveniences, of mere barbarous life that could possibly be conceived to exist. It is stated by one respondent, that in a case where two privies are attached to twelve dwellings, nothing but com¬ pulsion will make the landlord alter them, and that he has constructed a surface drain which runs into the bye-road, which is no sooner pulled up by order of the trust, than in defiance he repairs it. None are aware of the privies being trapped, which can now be effected for 6s. each. [19.] Are uncleanly and indecent habits created by the want of separate privies ? It is the general opinion of rather more than 96 per cent, of the respondents, that the want of such arrano-e- ments must necessarily have a very injurious tendency, and that the indecency which common privies produce is quite horrible.