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widow and her four children aged 9, 6, and 3 years, and 10 months
respectively. The back room (capacity 940 cubic feet) was occupied, by night
only, by this woman's son and her stepson, young men both of the age of
21 years, who used the front room when at * home' by day. The slip
room (capacity 650 cubic feet) was occupied by a man and his son, aged 16
years ; the first floor front room (capacity 1584 cubic feet) was occupied by a
married couple and their two children, aged respectively 14 and 12 years.
The back room on this floor (capacity 940 cubic feet) was occupied, normally,
by a married couple and their child, aged 5 years. The front room on the
second floor (capacity 1444 cubic feet) was occupied by a married couple and
their three children, aged respectively 8, and 3 years, and 5 months ; the
back room on this floor (capacity 855 cubic feet) Mas occupied by a single
man. These, the usual occupants of the house, thus comprised 22 persons,
viz., 12 adults and 10 children. There appears, however, to have been a
system in vogue of taking in lodgers, in some at least of the different rooms*
but to what extent I have been unable to ascertain. On the 11th January,
however, the occupier of the back room on the first floor (capacity 940 cubic
feet), whose family comprised three persons, was giving hospitality to another
family of five or six persons, including one, or, more probably, two adults, the
parents of four children. From information I received, on the 11th January,
it appeared that there had been many cases of illness in the house, extending
over a considerable period ; but no case of infectious disease having been
reported, my attention had not been drawn to the house, which is situated in
the B division of the North-West district, the sanitary inspectorship of
which was vacant at the time when these illnesses were occurring. Upon
enquiry, I ascertained that the husband of the woman who occupied the
ground-floor front room, had died on 22nd November. 1894, the registered cause
of his death being pneumonia. At some period in December his widow took in,
as lodger or guest, a young woman, aged 19, who, having fallen ill, was taken
by her mother to her own home, where she died, 30th December, of pneumonia.
The mother herself also died of pneumonia on 12th January. I subsequently
learned that a woman aged 62, who had been removed—from the slip room—
to the Parish Infirmary. 17th December, died four days later, also of
pneumonia. There can be no doubt that the illness in these cases was
aggravated—it was probably caused—by the insanitary conditions in which
the victims had lived. It is quite probable, moreover, that infection was the
immediate cause of illness in the last three cases. It is stated, and no doubt
is true, that all of the widow's children had been more or less seriously ill in
December ; and I find that between 4th December and 15th January, seven
cases of sickness, including that of the woman who died of pneumonia, were
admitted to the Parish Infirmary from four rooms in this house. Five of
these cases were of children, aged 12, 7, 6, and 2 years, and 5 months,
respectively. Two cases, from two families, were admitted on account of
eczema, one for bronchitis, and one (who died) for a scrofulous disease. The