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work is scarce and provisions are high, become a burthen upon our
rates and swell our Bills of Mortality.
To remedy some of these evils, Kensington has nobly taken the
initiative in endeavouring to procure an equal assessment and rating of
all the parishes comprising the metropolitan area, under Sir Benjamin
Hall's Local Management Act. This will at once put an end to the
measures taken by parishes to eject forcibly from his work and home
every poor man who may require, perhaps, only temporary relief, and
will enable the labourer to select his own residence, irrespective of
which is and which is not his parish. It will also obviate the argument
frequently used, that by improving your poor man's dwelling in Kensington,
you hold out an inducement to others to make this place their
home, and thus, eventually, to become chargeable to the parish.
One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the
whole metropolis, is the Potteries, at Notting Dale, a locality which is
from its position, difficult to drain. It occupies eight or nine acres of
ground, and contains about 1,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom
obtain a living by rearing and fattening pigs, upon the house refuse
obtained from club houses and hotels, and upon offal, entrails, liver,
and blood, from slaughter houses. This offensive food, often in a high
state of decomposition when brought to the place, is boiled down in
coppers, and the fat separated for sale.
The number of pigs varies from 1 to 2,000 (as many as 3,000 have
been kept) in filthy and badly paved styes, close to the houses. The
drainage, in nearly all cases very defective, permits the liquid manure
to run over the yards, saturating the ground to a great depth, contaminating
all the wells with putrid matter, and polluting the atmosphere
for a considerable distance around. There were, till lately, several
immense accumulations of stagnant water into which this pig matter
found its way. One immense piece called '' the Ocean,'' formerly occupied
nearly an acre of ground—it was covered with filthy slime, and bubbling
with poisonous gases, caused by the drainage of pig-styes and privies
flowing into it.
Till lately the want of water was most severely felt by the inhabitants
; and even now many of the yards in which the pigs are kept,
are entirely destitute of it. Many of the houses are in a most dilapidated
state. Old railway carriages and worn out travelling vans may
be seen taken off their wheels and converted into dwellings.
The people in general look sallow and aged, the children pale and
flabby, their eyes glistening as if stimulated by ammonia. Small pox