Household words, No. 20, August 10, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
General
Household words, No. 20, August 10, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
English literature -- Periodicals
A practical example of the impossibility of confining noxious nuisances
to the boundaries whence they originate, is afforded in the immediate
neighbourhood of one of the most beautiful parts of the metropolis. In a
neighbourhood studded thickly with elegant villas and mansions—namely,
Bayswater and Notting Hill, in the parish of Kensington—is a plague spot
scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London: it is
called the Potteries. It comprises some seven or eight acres, with about
two hundred and sixty houses (if the term can be applied to such
hovels), and a population of nine hundred or one thousand. The
occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig-fattening; many
hundreds of pigs, ducks, and fowls are kept in an incredible state of
filth. Dogs abound for the purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere
is still further polluted by the process of fat-boiling. In these hovels
discontent, dirt, filth, and misery, are unsurpassed by anything known
even in Ireland. Water is supplied to only a small proportion of the
houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains,
smelling most offensively, and generating large quantities of poisonous
gases; stagnant water is found at every turn, not a drop of _clean_
water can be obtained,—all is charged to saturation with putrescent
matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have
become, in many instances, useless from organic matter soaking into
them; in some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The
paint on the window frames has become black from the action of
sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy,
the women especially complain of sickness, and want of appetite; their
eyes are shrunken, and their skin shrivelled.
The poisonous influence of this pestilential locality extends far and
wide. Some twelve or thirteen hundred feet off there is a row of clean
houses, called Crafter Terrace; the situation, though rather low, is
open and airy. On Saturday and Sunday, the 8th and 9th of September,
1849, the inhabitants complained of an intolerable stench, the wind then
blowing directly upon the Terrace from the Potteries. Up to this time,
there had been no case of cholera among the inhabitants; but the next
day the disease broke out virulently, and on the following day, the 11th
of September, a child died of cholera at No. 1. By the 22nd of the same
month, no less than seven persons in the Terrace lost their lives by
this fatal malady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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