Second report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the housing of the working classses : Scotland.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Housing of the Working Classes
- Date:
- 1885
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Second report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the housing of the working classses : Scotland. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![Mr. Alderman W. Meagher, M.P., Professor C. A. Cameron, M.D., F.R.C.S.I., Mr. J. Beveridge, Mr. P. Neville, C.E., Mr. S. Harti/. 23 May 1885. good local Act with regard to ruinous dwellings, a much better Act than the Act commonly called Torrens' Act, upon which I have submitted a s]_iecial memorauchim. We have tried to use it and found it unworkable. 22.107. You have not tried to use it, have you, since the amending Act of 1882 ?—We have not. 22.108. Has your attention been called to the amending Act ?—It has ; but I do not thiidc that removes the difficulties of woiking the Act. 22.109. Of course you are aware that those Acts are worked to a certain extent in London ?—I have heard that they have,been worked with great difficulty in London; but Dublin is peeuliarily circumstanced ■with regard to the great number of the owners of houses, and I lia-ve stated the great difficulty, almost amounting to an impossibility, that there is of apply- ing it in Dublin where we have sometimes six owners of one house. It might take about three years' pro- ceedings to get a house re-constructed. 22.110. What are the main provisions of your local Act which you consider bear upon this question ?— The sanitary authority can, after a very short notice, cause a house to be repaired under the Towns Im- provement Act; and if a house is in a ruinous state (evidence I believe will be given with regard to that by Mr. ; Neville) the lord mayor can go in and summarily eject the inhabitants ; and he frequently does so. If the house is in such a bad state that it is likely to tumble down the lord mayor has power at once to summarily turn out every one in it, at the request of the engineer ; but he must attend per- sonally for that purpose. 22.111. Is that in a very old Act ?—It is not a very old Act. I believe it is the Act of 1864 ; it is a local Act. 22,112 person ?— 22,113 . The lord mayor has to attend himself in -Yes. {To 3Ir. Spencer Harty.) Do you know of any similar provision anywhere else ?—I do not. It is the Dublin Improvement Act of 1864'. 22.114. Is it put ill force ?—Constantly. {Dr. Ccuneron.) It was put in force the other day. {Mr. Spencer Hartij.) It is the 27 & 28 Vict. c. 305. (Dr. Cameron^ In order to save the valuable time of the Commission I have shown in the memorandum the powers that we have under the Dublin Improvement Act, 1849, which is a local and particular Act, I may say arising out of the Towns Improvement Act, 1847. Then witli regard to the defective sanitary accom- modation of the Dublin tenement houses, I suppose Dublin a few years ago was in a worse condition than probably any town in tlie United Kingdom in that respect. 22.115. There were about 1,500 houses that had no closet of any kind, were there not ?—That was so. 22.116. And the tenement houses were altogether without them ?—A great number of them were. 22.117. Where tiiere were privies they were gene- rally in a dilapidated state, and they communicated with the ashjnis, did they not P—Almost invariably. 22.118. And those ashpits were not provided with roofs and the contents tiierefore were rendered fluid by ofE very offensive smells ?—Very rainwater and gave oll'ensive. 22.119. The jjits were mere excavations which per- mitted the escape of the offensive liquid contents into tlic sewer which became saturated willi one of tlie uu)st deadly forms of organic matter ?—Precisely. 22.120. 'J'hcre has been a great deal of work under- taken during the last four years, has there not, in the abolition of the worst of the privies ?—I may say that these are now nearly all removed, and waterclosets have been substituted. 22.121. In the year 1882 you had them all ex- amined, had you not?—Every house in Dublin, from Dublin Castle down to the smallest cottage was ex- amined. 22.122. Yon found over 15,000 waterclosets and 1],0()0 privies, did you not ?—Yes. 22.123. People are gradually becoming accustomed to waterclosets, and are becoming careful in the use of them?—They are. At tirst they abused tiiem very much, I think more from ignorance than from design. 22.124. Whatever may be the case with English towns the situation of Dublin makes it easy to carry off sewage by the watercloset system, does it not ? Undoubtedly; the situation of the city is well adapted for the water carriage of excreta. 22.125. What decline in the death-rate has there been in your time?—The statistics of Dublin were rather inaccurately collected a few years ago. Tlie rate formerly was represented to be lower than it really was. It Avas found that for many years the burials exceeded the number of registered deaths by about 11 per cent. Owing to the improvement in the law all the deaths are now registered, so that the burials now no longer exceed the number of registered deaths, which of course makes the death-rate now apparently greater, even supposing the same number of persons die now as died 10 or 11 or 12 years ago. But, making all allowance for that, there has certainly been an improvement in the sanitary state of Dublin, and more especially in regard to those diseases that are termed filth diseases there has been a decided im- provement. With regard to what are called constitu- tional diseases, such as kidney diseases and diseases of the lungs, I believe that there has not been any very great improvement. The causes wliich produce those diseases are to a great extent beyond the power of sanitary authorities to deal with, arising as they do from poverty, intemperance, and want of clothing, but there is undoubtedly a great decrease in the mortality from filth diseases. Our death-rate is on the average about 26 per 1,000, which is somewhat higher than the death-rate which prevails in English towns ; but it is a great deal lower than the death-rate which pi-e- vails in continental towns, in German and Italian towns, for instance. 22.126. Can you state the death-rate of the last four 01- five years ?—.It varies from 28 to 26 per 1,000. The death-rate in 1873 v/as 26*1 ; in 1874 it was 26-00 ; in 1875 it was 27-00 ; in 1876 it was 25-7 ; in 1877 it was 25-00 ; and in 1878 it was 29-5 ; then it rose to 35-7 in 1879; tliat is the year when we commenced operations. 22.127. Was there an epidemic of typhus that year?—No, there was not; but there was a iiigli death-rate from all causes, more especially from measles and scarlet fever. In this year, 1879, we began to deal seriously with the tenement houses. In the next year the new Act came into force with regard to the registration of burials and deaths, making it obligatory upon all persons concerned v/ith burials to notify them to the authorities, and therefore there was a corrected death-rate from that time, and the difference of 11 per cent, nominally between the burials and the registered deaths disappeared. Then, starting with what we may call our unhealthy years, the death-rate in 1878 was 29-5, and in 1879, 35-7 ; the next year, 18S0, it was 35-OC; then in 1881 it Avas 27-00; in 1882 it was 27-G; in 1883 it was 29'8 ; and last year it was 26-1; so that the yearly average from 1873 to 1882 was 28-9. 22.128. The corporation obtained a loan of 1,000/. with which to construct the sanitary accommodation of the tenement houses, the owners of which were unable or unwilling to do the work themselves ?— Yes ; we are using that money at the present time to enforce the construction of waterclosets. 22.129. With the exception of Birmingham, Dublin is the only town which has done that, I think ?—So far as I am aware, that is so. 22.130. Y^on think, do you not, that the corporation would do well to provide dwellings for their own labourers ?—I have a rooted conviction that that is what ought to be done. 22.131. Youyour.self would be willing to go further, and see the cori)oration undertake housing itself, would you not ?—Undoubtedly, for a certain class](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24398329_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
