Dr. D. B. Reid made the following report on the Cholera Epidemic of 1831 - 32 in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The streets most densely populated by the humbler classes are a mass of filth where the direct rays of the sun never reach. In some of the courts i noticed heaps of filth, amounting to 20 - 50 tons which, when it rains, penetrate into of the cellar dwellings.
A few public necessaries have been built, but too few to serve the population. To take a single example of one of the more extreme cases shown to me when visiting them during the day, a room was noticed with scarcely any furniture and in which there were two children of two and three years of age absolutely naked, except for a little straw to protect them from the cold, and in which they could not have been discovered in the darkness if they had not been heard to cry.
Piggeries were also pointed out to me which added their offence to the causes already mentioned.
The absence of dustbins was everywhere a cause for great annoyance, and no such activity horrified me more than the attempts to keep the refuse of privies for the purposes of selling it to neighboring farmers. The landlords and farmers encourage the practice and the authorities are reluctant to stop it for fear the poor will loose this small source of income. They forget the much larger expense of disease and death which results from the cause.
Stagnant ditches may be seen in the vicinity of most of these houses and part of the ground in the lowest districts is apt to be flooded after heavy rains, and long open sewers cross the public paths. House drains, where they exist, have not been constructed properly and often become chocked.
In numerous dwellings a whole family shares one room. But no circumstance has contributed more to the injury of the inhabitants than the tax upon the windows.
The lodging houses for the extreme poor present the most deplorable examples observed in the whole of the city. They are badly crowded, dirty, badly managed, ill ventilated, and the sexes mix without control. They are generally favoured by the vagrants and trampers, many without employment, and act as nurseries for immorality as well as being a danger to the public health. In one there was neither windows nor fireplace.
On entering the lodging house, the residents were endeavoring to remove a woman who had been attacked with fever. She was most reluctant to leave without her clothing which i was told afterwards, had been pawned.
The most intolerable nuisance is certainly one resulting from a slaughter house situated in the very centre just off the most fashionable part of the town. It is close to Grey Street, and the nuisance consists in the presence of great qualities of animal matter, the offal of beasts heaped up in an ash pit. There it is left to rot until liquid streams down High Friar Lane and fill the neighbourhood with fearful odour.
Dense black clouds of smoke from manufacturing also prevail to a great extent in Newcastle and Gateshead. In the lower parts of the town the amount of black smoke is extremely great and their position renders it prone to retain it and other offensive smells. As much as 20 - 50 tons of acid are discharged into the atmosphere.
The streets most densely populated by the humbler classes are a mass of filth where the direct rays of the sun never reach. In some of the courts i noticed heaps of filth, amounting to 20 - 50 tons which, when it rains, penetrate into of the cellar dwellings.
A few public necessaries have been built, but too few to serve the population. To take a single example of one of the more extreme cases shown to me when visiting them during the day, a room was noticed with scarcely any furniture and in which there were two children of two and three years of age absolutely naked, except for a little straw to protect them from the cold, and in which they could not have been discovered in the darkness if they had not been heard to cry.
Piggeries were also pointed out to me which added their offence to the causes already mentioned.
The absence of dustbins was everywhere a cause for great annoyance, and no such activity horrified me more than the attempts to keep the refuse of privies for the purposes of selling it to neighboring farmers. The landlords and farmers encourage the practice and the authorities are reluctant to stop it for fear the poor will loose this small source of income. They forget the much larger expense of disease and death which results from the cause.
Stagnant ditches may be seen in the vicinity of most of these houses and part of the ground in the lowest districts is apt to be flooded after heavy rains, and long open sewers cross the public paths. House drains, where they exist, have not been constructed properly and often become chocked.
In numerous dwellings a whole family shares one room. But no circumstance has contributed more to the injury of the inhabitants than the tax upon the windows.
The lodging houses for the extreme poor present the most deplorable examples observed in the whole of the city. They are badly crowded, dirty, badly managed, ill ventilated, and the sexes mix without control. They are generally favoured by the vagrants and trampers, many without employment, and act as nurseries for immorality as well as being a danger to the public health. In one there was neither windows nor fireplace.
On entering the lodging house, the residents were endeavoring to remove a woman who had been attacked with fever. She was most reluctant to leave without her clothing which i was told afterwards, had been pawned.
The most intolerable nuisance is certainly one resulting from a slaughter house situated in the very centre just off the most fashionable part of the town. It is close to Grey Street, and the nuisance consists in the presence of great qualities of animal matter, the offal of beasts heaped up in an ash pit. There it is left to rot until liquid streams down High Friar Lane and fill the neighbourhood with fearful odour.
Dense black clouds of smoke from manufacturing also prevail to a great extent in Newcastle and Gateshead. In the lower parts of the town the amount of black smoke is extremely great and their position renders it prone to retain it and other offensive smells. As much as 20 - 50 tons of acid are discharged into the atmosphere.
