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12
The Sanitary Characteristics of Chapel Place, &c.
46. With the view of shewing some of the bearings of the facts comprised
in these tables, I will cite the sanitary characteristics of a few of the most
remarkable streets. Chapel Street is situated at the extreme North end of the
parish of St. George Bloomsbury, and is composed of 24 houses. These houses
have back-yards of fair size, and the domestic appurtenances are, mostly, iu good
condition, so that it would be vain to seek here for the cause of the excessive
mortality. The front court is narrow, and ends in a cul de sac; it is thus
deprived of ventilation. The chief fault, however, is in the houses themselves,
which generally consist of two storeys, with an underground cellar.
The rooms are very small; the front room on the ground floor of No. 3
(quoted as an example), yielding only 647 cubic feet of space, and the back
room only 443 cubic feet, so that if the two rooms were occupied by one
family, and both used as sleeping rooms, they could properly accommodate,
at the most, only two adults and one child. Houses, having rooms affording
such inadequate accommodation are quite unfit, as lodging-houses, for the
occupation of several families. Inspector Webb has made for me a census of
the population in this place, and he has returned a population of 244 persons,
or rather more than 10 persons to each house. The deaths from the three
classes of disease in Chapel Place having been 17, the death-rate to population
was in 1870, 70 per 1,000 persons. What the entire mortality would have
been, had it been calculated, I have already indicated. A new sewer was
made in the court, at the end of the year 1869, yet the death-rate does not
appear to have been reduced.
47. What can be done with courts like this ? They are certainly unfit
for human habitation; but how remove them ? The popular mind is not
sufficiently enlightened on sanitary subjects, to enable us to deal with these
difficulties in a way the public health demands, and if there were a disposition
to do it, there are no authorities to carry out the work who are
endowed with sufficient powers that can be applied with ready certainty.
Trifling changes will not meet the exigency, and large ones cannot be made.
I have given instructions for checking such overcrowding, as may be outside
the legal limit, but this is only a temporary expedient; and moreover, the
legal limitation is much within the amount of cubic space, necessary for the
healthy working of a human lung.
48. In Queen Street, consisting of 25 houses, there is a population, as
ascertained by Inspector Dixon, of 513 persons, at the rate of 20.5 persons to
a house. Of these 513 persons, 195 occupy common lodging-houses. The
death-rate, from the three classes of disease, is 1 in 1.08 houses, and 44.8 per
1,000 of population. This street is in the centre of St. Giles Parish, and
contains several common lodging-houses, in which the larger portion of the
mortality occurred. One of these houses for men, has about 100 lodgers, and
the only day accommodation provided for them is two kitchens, or more
properly, cellars of small size, and fitted up with separate compartments.
These cellars are used for cooking, taking meals, and lounging during the day,
and they are altogether unsuited and absurdly inadequate for these purposes.
This insufficient kitchen accommodation is a fault in all common lodginghouses.
The cubicles are also deficient of space; hence, disease and premature
death are easily accounted for.
49. We will now take another example of a high mortality in the group
of streets and courts bounded by Great Wild Street, Wild Court, Chapel
Yard, and Duke Street, in the parish of St. Giles. Inspector Dixon reports to
me a population in this section of 1,532 persons, who occupy 76 houses, being
at the rate of about 20 persons to each house. The deaths from the three
classes of disease were 41, which give a rate of 26.7 per 1,000 persons. The
mortality, however, differs very much in different courts of the section. The
average spacc is 400 cubic feet for each person.