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15
No. 15. This house consists of seven rooms, and is occupied by thirtyone
persons. The house has no yard, and is badly ventilated. The water
supply and privy accommodation are placed in the passage on the ground
floor, and an offensive smell generally pervades the house, which renders it
unfit for habitation.
Nos. 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 27. These houses consist of thirty-six
rooms, and are occupied by sixty-two persons. These houses, as -well as
Nos. 14 and 16, on the east side, arc of a somewhat better class, and are
tolerably well ventilated; each house having a yard, in which the water
supply, privy accommodation, and dust bin are placed; but being situated in
a street from which offensive emanations are almost always given off, they
are rendered unhealthy.
The rate of mortality in this part of the street was, for the year ended
3rd January, 1874, 29.2 per 1000. The rate of mortality for the entire
District, excluding the deaths in tho London Hospital, was, for the same
period, 23.9 per 1000. The unhealthiness of this locality is however more
satisfactorily proved by the following letters, kindly given to me by Dr. Dyte.
Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor.
Medical Department, 8 a, Duke Street, Aldgate, E.C.
Monday, Nov. 8th, 1875.
Dear Sir,
Reporting at your request, on the condition of the Houses at the
south end of Goulston Street, I beg to say that, as Medical Officer of this Board, these
houses have been constantly under my notice during the last ten years ; and I can
unhesitatingly assert that throughout the whole of the district over which my official
duties extend, (a space of which the radius is one mile from Aldgate Church) there
is no locality of the thoroughly unwholesome condition of which I have had more
reason to complain, that that now under consideration.
The want of cleanliness, of light, of ventilation, the filthy condition of the waterclosets
and their approaches, the rickety (and in some cases, dangerous) condition of
the staircases—everything in fact, which can make a dwelling-place the reverse of
healthy is to be found here.
Accordingly, as might be expected, when there has been an epidemic of smallpox,
fever or cholera, this has always been the place in which the disease has first
appeared, and here also it has been more prevalent than elsewhere.
Under these circumstances therefore, being of opinion that these houses are
wholly unfit for human habitation, I cannot but think it highly desirable that the
proposal to pull them down and widen the street should be carricd out.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
J. H. DYTE.
Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London ; Medical Officer to the
Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor.
To John Liddlb, Esq.,
Medical Officer of Health.
P.S.—I append hereto a memorandum from Dr. W. G. Tiley, who assists me in
my duties as Medical Officer to the Board, and who has, for the last nine months,
performed the greater portion of the work.