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that is to say, about 23 per cent, of the population died off. Of these nine were infants
under five years of age, and one half of the deaths were due to measles or some other
form of zymotic disease. This court is, then, as fatal to young infants as is the first
part of Smith's Buildings; they cannot live there—all that are bom there or are
brought to reside there are doomed to die within two years.
Parsell's Court is a narrow court with five houses on each side, and entered by a
narrow arched passage from the High Street. The rooms are all small and low.
The only house which has any ventilation at all through it is No. 10. At the further
extremity of the court, opposite No. 5, is a common privy designed for the use of four
persons at once, disgustingly filthy, and an open dust bin. Nos. 3, 6 and 10 are the
only houses which death has not visited during the last four years. The population
is 104 of whom 16 are under five years of age. The people are dirty in their habits
and houses. The total number of deaths in the four years was 23, or over 22 per cent.
Of these 14 were of infants under five years of age. So here, again, the chances of an
infant living four years in the court are exceedingly small. The largest number of
deaths, namely, six in the four years, occurred in No. 5, opposite the common privy;
four of these deaths were of infants, one death was from small pox, and the only death
from diarrhoea occurred in this house. No. 1 is an intensely dark house besides
being badly ventilated, and here three deaths occurred, of which two were infants,
from some form of pulmonary disease. Another contrast. Nos. 8, 9 and 10, form the
sides of a little blind passage on one side of the court. In No. 10, which is tolerably
ventilated, no deaths occurred, while in Nos. 8 and 9, which are dark and badly ventilated,
three deaths occurred, of which two were due to consumption. No less than five deaths
from tuberculous disease of one kind or another occurred in this dark, unventilated
court.
Water's Court i3 the last to be noticed, and the phenomena it has presented
during the past four years are such as, if standing alone, would suffice to demonstrate
the fatal operation of the several causes of disease whioli I have been tracing out in the
preceding instances. The court is very much of the size and shape of Rose and Crown
Court. It is entered by a tolerably wide covered passage from the High-street. The
houses lie on three sides of an irregul ar quadrangle. Those on the South side, numbered
from 1 to 5, are in the same lino as the entrance passage; the eastern side is occupied
by a high wall, and there are houses numbered from 6 to 15 on the remaining two
sides. None of the houses have any ventilation through them. The rooms are very
small; they vary in capacity from about 830 to 1,600 cubic feet, but however small, we
almost contantly find each room occupied by a family. The rooms in Nos. 6 and 7, and
No. 15, appear the smallest of any, and during the past year we have found in single
rooms of these houses, families numbering from four to six persons, exclusive of friends
now and then accommodated for the night. Thus occupied we have found as little as
147 cubic feet of air allotted to each inhabitant of a room measuring 18 feet long by
7 feet wide by 7 feet high. None of the houses are particularly well lighted, but
Nos. 12 and 15 some rooms are so dark that a person entering must often remain
some minutes before he can clearly distinguish their contents. At the further end of
the South side of the court is the common privy, than which I can conceive of nothing
much more disgusting. It consists of an iron tank intended to hold water, but never
containing any, and seats of the ordinary character are dispensed with as a luxury the
low Irish of this court did not appreciate. Even the tank appeals superfluous,