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17
" On inspecting the courts along Rosemary-lane, I found that several
of the worst of them had been improved since the last epidemic cholera. I
have already mentioned Blue-anchor-yard and courts amongst the number,
but some are as bad in a sanitary point of view as they were in 1849." All
these Courts, although still in a very unsatisfactory condition, have been
improved.
" I went into a court called Peter's-court, and began to look about,
whereupon a number of women came round and began to complain of the
wretched condition of their houses. They said they had no water, and one
woman asserted that she had been glad to go to an adjoining court and lift
the water off the paving stones. Others said they had an irregular supply
of about a pint a day each from a tap which gave out water three times a
week from an iron tank. In Peter's-court and "Wells-court, containing in
all 33 houses, there is no water supply. I went to a man of the name of
Solomon, who keeps a shop in a narrow street adjoining, and he said he had
made inquiries on the subject, the result of which was that on an estate of
100 houses, in Cartwright-street, Turner-street, Darby-street, Peter's-court,
Wells-court, &c., with a population of 1,200 persons, there was no water
except from a well, and that it furnished no more than from a pint to a
quart a day to each inhabitant. He stated that a steam engine had been
ordered to pump up the water; but such is the present condition of these
poor people with the prospect of another epidemic of Cholera before them.
As might have been anticipated, the houses in Peter's-court are in a
very deplorable condition. They have neither drainage nor water supply,
and the cesspools are in dark underground cellars directly under the living
rooms. I descended into one of these, but the odour was so horrible that I
had to make a precipitate retreat."
This locality is now improved, and all the houses are supplied with water
chiefly on the constant service, but such is the condition of most of the
houses, owing to their age and faulty construction, that they cannot be made
into healthy habitations.
" The courts running up behind the docks are generally well flagged
and clean, although they are very narrow, dark, and badly ventilated. As
a whole, the flagged courts all over the Union present a remarkable contrast,
in a sanitary point of view, with those which are either unflagged or only
partially or imperfectly done. The immediate effect is visible in the removal
of a filthy evaporating surface covered with soil, house refuse, and pools of
foul water, keeping the atmosphere constantly charged with foetid vapours,
and rendering cleanliness in the houses impossible, and substituting for it a
smooth, even, properly levelled surface, adapted for surface drainage, and
on which the least impurity is at once detected, and can be easily removed by
water. In several instances large gutters have been made in the flagging for
the purpose of facilitating the surface drainage; this, however, is an error
in construction. In nearly every case where it has been adopted water and
filth have accumulated in the gutter. The best practical result I have found