City of York : report on the state of York, in reply to questions circulated by the Health of Towns Commission / By T. Laycock, M.D., Physician to the York Dispensary.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: City of York : report on the state of York, in reply to questions circulated by the Health of Towns Commission / By T. Laycock, M.D., Physician to the York Dispensary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/52 (page 4)
    Report on its Sanatory State, bj T. Lay cock, M.D. 4 APPENDIX to FIRST REPORT of the COMMISSIONERS of INQUIRY much greater, leaving their improved health out of consideration altogether. The extracts from the District Visitors’ books, previously referred to, further strongly elucidate this part of the Inquiry. The courts and alleys inhabited by the poorer classes are cleaned by appointed scavengers. The night-soil is retained, giving off its impurities, until a sufficient quantity is accumulated, when it is removed from the yard during the night in barrows (and this is the method also in private houses), and put into the street; from thence it is carted away to large dung-hills within the city. There is an immense heap of this kind at the side of the river Foss, close to Layerthorpe bridge, and the inhabitants all around com- plain loudly of the stench. There is another such dung-heap behind St. Margaret’s church, which quite pollutes the atmosphere around it. Minor similar heaps are placed (for the convenience of water-carriage) in the neighbourhood of the Foss, into which the liquid contents of all are discharged. The night-soil of the city is usually sold to the proprietors of these dunghills, who are manure merchants by trade. Sometimes the inhabitants of a court, having a common privy, sell the soil from the soil-hole, and appro- priate the proceeds to the payment of the water-rates; in other cases the landlord of the tenements takes the night-soil, and in return pays the water-rates. A load and a half is on the average taken from each house annually, and the cost of getting out and loading is about 2s. per load; so that the city pays at least 900Z. per annum for this labour. The annual value of the manure of all kinds made in the city cannot be less than 8,000Z. to 10,000Z. In addition to the night-soil, there is the manure bf pigsties, cowhouses, and stables, all which are found in great numbers in the courts and yards, especially of the poorer classes. The City Commissioners are vested with powers for the enforcement of cleansing and the prevention of public nuisances ; but it appears from the statements just made that these powers are inadequate to the full attainment of the object in view. Houses are built both in wide streets and in narrow courts. To some cottage tenements lately built there is no drain or sewer in the street, it is also unpaved and so full of ruts and ashes and all kinds of filth as to be quite impassable to pedestrians or even to persons on horseback. The road is higher than the adjoining yards, and the filthy mud flows into the back premises and even houses in the next street. A case of typhus fever in a father of a family inhabiting one of these houses terminated fatally, and subsequently, in the same house, a case of malignant scarlatina occurred.* The City Act gives no control over the builders of houses, nor can they be compelled to sewer, drain, or prepare the ground in any way for the health and convenience of the inhabitants except as their own judgment dictates. The consequence is, that several new streets in York are unpaved and undrained, full of deep holes, ruts, and mud, and traversed with difficulty even by carts. There are no cellar dwellings in York, unless the cellar kitchens of the more newly-built houses come under that designation; none are inhabited by the poorer classes. The latter principally occupy the large houses and their out-buildings, formerly the mansions of the wealthy, and now sublet as apartments. Houses of this kind abound in various parts of the town ; very few have sewers. Beddern (or as it was formerly called Beddern College) a cluster of buildings originally occupied by ecclesiastics attached to the cathedral, and once a fashionable quarter, is now sublet in this manner. Of 98 families living there, 67 have only one room for all purposes, 18 two rooms, and 13 three rooms or more. One entire building is let off in single rooms. The stair-case windows are so made that they cannot open, the rooms are low and confined, the light of day almost excluded, and the walls and ground damp and undrained. The building is occupied by 16 families, two abominably filthy privies being appropriated to all, and situate, with their accompanying “ ash-hole” or “ bog-hole,” in a little back court. As might be expected, the smell in rooms of this kind is most disgusting and oppressive. Against the back wall of a cottage there is sometimes a dung-hill, the fluid from which soaks into the house. Indeed, this circumstance is repeatedly complained of by poor people. Table 1 in Appendix shows the number of houses occupied by 2195 families in ten districts in York, and the number sublet; also the number with one, two, and three, or more rooms respectively, and the sleeping accommodation. The latter return is, however, imperfect. The state of the dwellings is also in some degree indicated in the same table. In the parish of St. Dennis, in which strictly accurate inquiries were made, from 8 to 11 persons slept in one room in 4^ per cent, of the families resident there; in 7\ per cent, from 6 to 8 persons slept in one room; of the total 2195 families visited by the district visitors, 26 per cent, had one room only for all purposes ; the highest proportion in one room was in Beddern, being 68i per cent, the lowest in the parish of St. George, in- habited principally by artisans and small shopkeepers, where it was per cent. Table 1, (Appendix) shows the average number of persons in one family in each of the districts inspected. The mean average is 4’ 12 persons; the highest (4’61) is in the parish of St. Dennis, the lowest (3 -24) in the Castlegate district. The rent of a single room used as a residence varies from 6d. to 2s. per week; the usual rent is Is. to Is. 3d.; in some clusters of buildings the amount of weekly rent is nicely graduated according to the comfort of the room or the accomodation it affords, one room being let for 9\d., while another adjoining is charged lOjcZ. per week. In 11 per cent, of 1545 dwellings reported on by the district visitors, the state of repair was * Since writing the above a sewer has been commenced.