[Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.].

Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/30 (page 45)
    “A DARK MERSEY.” 3VH .A. 3? or SPOT ON THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY IN LIVERPOOL, As the ‘‘ Artizans’ Dwellings Bill, ” introduced by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons this Session, has special reference to Liverpool, Members of Parliament and others will be interested in the following facts, which have a special bearing upon the objects of the Bill:— In June, 1871, Messrs. E. A. Parkes, M.D., E.R.S., and J. Burdon Sanderson, M.D., F.R.S., having been engaged by the Liverpool Town Council to investigate the causes of the exceptionably high death-rate which prevailed in the Borough, presented their Report. In their exhaustive Report Drs. Parkes and Sanderson enter fully into the various causes of the bad sanitary condition of Liverpool. Among other facts brought out by this inquiry, it is clearly shown that some Districts in Liverpool, such as Rodney Street, compare favorably as to their sanitary condition with the most healthy country villages, the death-, rate being: only 10-71 per 1000, while in Sawney Pope Street the mortality is 55-86 per 1000. Among the causes of this unsatisfactory state of the health of the people in the district around Sawney Pope Street the following are mentioned :— The density of the population, which is at the rate of nearly 1,000 to an acre; the bad construction of the houses, with other matters relating to the trapping of drains, &c. Ho fault is found with the general drainage of the district or with the water supply. DRUNKENNESS THE PRIMARY CAUSE. Special stress is laid in the Report upon the drunken habits of most of the inhabitants of this district as the principal cause of the prevailing mortality. On this point the Report states :— “We applied to the landlord of a small public-house in one of these streets; he had lived for years in the district and knew intimately the habits of the people. He told us that ‘ for one man who did not drink, there were fifty who took their share, they starve their wives and children, and must beg if they want a bit.’ “We select a few examples of workmen in whose cases there was no irregularity of employment:— No. 1. — “A tinplate-worker, in constant work, earns 22/ a week; he has a wife, evidently a careful, respectable woman, and four children. In reply to a question, she said he drank a little, then owned ‘he drank very heavy; sometimes he brought home 18/, sometimes 16/, sometimes 12/—last week he drank it all. If he would bring 22/ a week she should be as happy as the day is long.’ This family of six persons were living in one back room, for which they paid 1/6 a week. It was 10i feet long, 9 feet broad, and 8£ feet high. The furniture was a bed, a table, and two ricketty chairs. Two of the four children were sick. No. 2.—“ In the front room of the same house, the rent of which was 2/ a week, a man and wife, a daughter (17) and a son (15) lived ; the man earned 24/ a week, and passed his time in drinking hard, repenting and saving, and then drinking again. The wife drank all she could get.” No. 3.—“Another man earns regularly and spends as regularly 21/ in drink. His four children are in rags.” No. 4.—“In another instance, the wages are 30/ a week regularly; the father and mother are both drunken, and three children are in rags and half starved.”