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Sanitary Conditions
The picture of town life represented in the Report (First Report of the Health
of Towns Commission 1844) is thus one of the drains being few and inadequate,
with open ditches and stagnant pools abounding, refuse left to rot in the
streets, and water available to the poorer classes to only a limited extent. It
is no wonder that in these circumstances many working men and women were
habitually dirty. The lack of water must also have been heartbreaking for the
conscientious housewife who had her floors sullied by filth brought in on boots
from the street, and her clean washing spoilt by smuts from local chimneys. But
there was a worse horror as yet unmentioned - the nauseating state of the
privies. These were the earth closets set up in the courts and shared by all the
houses nearby. In theory, these were emptied regularly by night soil men who
sold the contents to farmers to use as fertiliser. In practice, the privies were
often neglected and overflowed into the courts, and in summer the smells and
flies could turn the strongest stomach. The same could be said of the numerous
middens or dung heaps, and of the cesspools of liquid filth. The fact was often
commented on that immigrants from the countryside soon lost the colour from
their cheeks, and became pale and wan in this atmosphere. Presumably the only
creatures who could remain indifferent to these conditions were the pigs which
were kept in the sties near at hand or were left free to roam about.