As part of the Chadwick Report of 1842 examining the living conditions of the poor, this eye-watering account was submitted by W. L. Lawrie, a doctor in Greenock, describing life in this notoriously filthy town.
The great proportion of the dwellings of the poor are situated in very narrow and confined closes or alleys leading from the main streets; these closes end generally in a cul-de-sac, and have little ventilation, the space between the houses being so narrow as to exclude the action of the sun on the ground. I might almost say there are no drains in any of these closes, for where I have noticed sewers, they are in such a filthy and obstructed state, that they create more nuisance than if they never existed. In those closes where there is no dunghill, the excrementitious and other offensive matter is thrown into the gutter before the door, or carried out and put in the street. There are no back courts to the houses, but in nearly every close there is a dunghill, seldom or never covered in; few of these are cleaned out above once or twice a-year; most of them are only emptied when they can hold no more: to some of these privies are attached, and one privy serves a whole neighbourhood. The people seem so familiarized with this unseemly state of things, and so lost to all sense of propriety, that it is a matter of no small difficulty, in some of the back streets, to make your way through them without being polluted with filth.
Behind my consulting rooms, where I am now sitting, there is a large dunghill with a privy attached; to my knowledge that dunghill has not been emptied for six months; it serves a whole neighbourhood, and the effluvium is so offensive that I cannot open the window. The land is three stories high, and the people, to save themselves trouble, throw all their filth out of the stair-window, consequently a great part of it goes on the close, and the close is not cleaned out till the dunghill is full: the filth in the close reaches nearly to the sill of the back window of a shop in front, and the malarious moisture oozes through the wall on the floor …
There is one poor man who was under my care in the hospital with asthma for six months, he was dismissed an incurable, and is now living with his wife and seven children in a dark room on the ground-floor, more fit for a coal-cellar than a human being; it is lighted by a fixed window about two feet square; the breadth of the room is only four feet, and the length eight. There is only one bed for the whole family, and yet the rent of this hole is 5l.
As I was passing one of the poorest districts not long ago, a little girl ran after me and requested me to come and see her mother as she could not keep her in bed; I found the mother lying in a miserable straw bed with a piece of carpet for a covering, delirious from fever; the husband, who was a drunkard, had died in the hospital of the same disease. There was no fire in the grate; some of the children were out begging, and the two youngest were crawling on the wet floor; it was actually a puddle in the centre, as the sewer before the house was obstructed, and the moisture made its way to the middle of the floor by passing under the door. Every saleable piece of furniture had been pawned during the father’s illness for the support of the family. None of the neighbours would enter the house; the children were actually starving, and the mother was dying without any attendance whatever …
The first question I generally put when a new case of fever is admitted is as to their abode. I was struck with the number of admissions from Market-street; most of the cases coming from that locality became quickly typhoid and made slow recoveries. This is a narrow back street; it is almost overhung by a steep hill rising immediately behind it; it contains the lowest description of houses built closely together, the access to the buildings being through filthy closes; the front entrance is generally the only outlet; numerous foci for the production of miasma lie concealed in this street, I think I could point out one in each close.
In one part of the street there is a dunghill, yet it is too large to be called a dunghill. I do not mistake its size when I say it contains 100 cubic yards of impure filth, collected from all parts of the town. It is never removed; it is the stock in trade of a person who deals in dung; he retails it by cartfuls: to please his customers he always keeps a nucleus, as the older the filth is the higher is the price. The proprietor has an extensive privy attached to the concern. This collection is fronting the public street; it is enclosed in front by a wall; the height of the wall is about 12 feet and the dung overtops it; the malarious moisture oozes through the wall and runs over the pavement. The effluvium all round about this place in summer is horrible; there is a land of houses adjoining, four stories in height; and in the summer each house swarms with myriads of flies; every article of food and drink must be covered, otherwise, if left exposed for a minute, the flies immediately attack it, and it is rendered unfit for use from the strong taste of the dunghill left by the flies. But there is a still more extensive dunghill in the street, at least, if not so high, it covers double the extent of surface; what the depth of it is I cannot say. It is attached to the slaughter-house, and belongs, I believe, to the town authorities. It is not only the receptacle for the dung and offal from the slaughter-house, but the sweepings of the streets are also conveyed and deposited there. It has likewise a public privy attached. In the slaughter-house itself (which is adjoining the street) the blood and offal is allowed to lie a long time, and the smell in summer is highly offensive … I believe it to be a rare occurrence when fever is not to be found in [here] during any time of the year.