Part 49

Mr. James Murray, the Registrar of the Hackney-road District, in answer to the question, In what parts of your district, has the number of deaths registered in the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, and 1842 been the greatest, in proportion to the population? states, “The greatest number of deaths registered, in proportion to the population, have occurred in all the streets leading into Old Cock-lane, especially the courts therein, and in all the streets leading into the Hackney-road as far as Strout’s-place, viz., Old Nichol-street, New Nichol-street, Half Nichol-street, Vincent-street, Mead-street, Turville-street, and courts therein, Collingwood street, Old Castle-street, Virginia-row, Austin-street, Gascoigne-place, and Weatherhead, Nova Scotia, Green Gate, and Cooper’s-gardens, and Wellington-row.” In what parts of your district has the greatest number of deaths occurred from small-pox, measles, scarlatina, hooping-cough, diarrhœa, dysentery, cholera, influenza, or fever (typhus)?—“The greatest number of deaths from the diseases named have occurred in precisely the same parts of my district, especially in the courts and in those anomalous assemblages of small cabins built on low and undrained ground, called gardens.” And in what parts have epidemic diseases been most fatal?

“Epidemic diseases have been most fatal wherever the greatest number of people are congregated on the smallest space, which is again the identical spot mentioned above, with the exception of Wellington-row and the gardens, where the deaths appear to be chiefly caused by their low, damp, and almost swampy condition during winter. Pneumonia being there the prevailing cause of death, with occasional instances of putrid sore throat.” And state generally the condition of those unhealthy streets, courts, and houses, as to drainage, supplies of water, cleanliness.—“These streets and courts have generally an imperfect drainage, suitable only to a former state. These drains are very near the surface; and some of the houses are built over them, so as to communicate a dampness prejudicial to health. The gardens herein mentioned appear to be entirely without drainage. The supply of water in the streets is generally good, but in the courts and in the gardens is derived from a main, to the cock of which the inhabitants have common access while the water is on, and have to fetch it in pails to their houses, which mode of supply I consider to be insufficient for health or cleanliness. The population is very dense, in some cases amounting to nearly 30 persons in a single house. As an average, an enumeration district may be taken, 57 houses, 580 persons. On taking in a larger district, 30,000 people congregated on a spot about half a mile square. The houses are universally let out in rooms, a custom apparently introduced by the French refugees; the houses built by whom are all on the Edinburgh Old Town or French fashion, with large rooms on each floor, intended for a family, with a common staircase. A single room now generally contains a family, with tools of trade, bed, and kitchen, which, coupled with uncleanly habits, occasions a constant effluvium, very oppressive, and, I doubt not, unhealthy. In the larger houses, the lowest grade live in damp under-ground kitchens.”

Footnote 66:

The Average for the previous six Years was £405.

Footnote 67:

Increase of 1840, from two tablets.

Footnote 68:

Extra-Parochial.

Footnote 69:

Private.

Footnote 70:

Collegiate.

Footnote 71:

Private.

Footnote 72:

Private.

LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford-street. For Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Changed ‘of great part’ to ‘of a great part’ on p. 235. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors. 3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.