The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892Engels, Friedrich
History
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892
Engels, Friedrich
Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Working class -- Great Britain
If I may use the word at all in speaking of this district, the
ventilation of these streets and courts is, in consequence of this
confusion, quite as imperfect as in the Irk region; and if this quarter
may, nevertheless, be said to have some advantage over that of the Irk,
the houses being newer and the streets occasionally having gutters,
nearly every house has, on the other hand, a cellar dwelling, which is
rarely found in the Irk district, by reason of the greater age and more
careless construction of the houses. As for the rest, the filth, debris,
and offal heaps, and the pools in the streets are common to both
quarters, and in the district now under discussion, another feature most
injurious to the cleanliness of the inhabitants, is the multitude of pigs
walking about in all the alleys, rooting into the offal heaps, or kept
imprisoned in small pens. Here, as in most of the working-men's quarters
of Manchester, the pork-raisers rent the courts and build pig-pens in
them. In almost every court one or even several such pens may be found,
into which the inhabitants of the court throw all refuse and offal,
whence the swine grow fat; and the atmosphere, confined on all four
sides, is utterly corrupted by putrefying animal and vegetable
substances. Through this quarter, a broad and measurably decent street
has been cut, Millers Street, and the background has been pretty
successfully concealed. But if any one should be led by curiosity to
pass through one of the numerous passages which lead into the courts, he
will find this piggery repeated at every twenty paces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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