Note 48 — APPENDIX. (continued 2)

Mr. E. Jay, Registrar of Hanover-square District.—Name any particular streets, courts, or houses which, from the number of deaths occurring therein, and the nature of the diseases, appear to you to be unhealthy.—“I should therefore say that the most unhealthy streets, &c., in my district are Oxford-buildings, Brownstreet, Toms-court, Thomas-street, Grosvenor-market, Grosvenor-mews, George-street, and Hart-street; and to these, perhaps, may be added North-row, and Dolphin-court, and Providence-court, also the north end of Davies-street, adjoining Oxford-street. I have observed small-pox always to exist, when prevalent anywhere, in No. 24, George-street (Grosvenor-square); and much sickness and mortality have occurred in No. 18, Oxford-buildings. Oxford-buildings consist of 18 inhabited houses, containing many wretched families, principally Irish labourers; it was improved lately, in consequence of the exertions of humane individuals, but is still the seat of great poverty and vice. The ventilation here is so bad, that even visiting the houses is a disagreeable duty, from the foul air breathed even for a short space of time. The supply of water is good, and the drainage is reported by those who attend to the subject to be perfect, as it is throughout the parish; but the bad effluvia show that there must be some defect in this point. Three families frequently live in one room, some of the houses containing upwards of 50 persons; many of them live almost entirely on potatoes and herrings, and beer when they can get it. Want of fuel in many cases in winter. Brown-street.—Occupied by the poor and working class; the rooms very small, badly ventilated, and cleansed; the damp kitchens, with frequently stone-doors, are lived and slept in. Living is bad, from the poverty which prevails here. Hart-street.—Many poor families reside here, often in great want. Tolerably well drained. Toms-court.—Contains eight houses; inhabitants in a wretched state in many cases, partly from want of employ, partly from intemperance. Small-pox and epidemics have raged here. George-street.—Some of the houses here are inhabited by working men of a better class, but it also contains others in a wretched condition, in point of cleanliness and ventilation, and much privation is suffered by the inhabitants. Grosvenor-market.—This spot is particularly close, being built almost in cul de sac; the houses are dark, badly ventilated, and most unhealthy; the food of some of the poorest principally potatoes; a large slaughter-house situated here adds to its unhealthiness; great want of fuel in winter. Grosvenor-mews.—Here the inhabitants are very thickly crowded, and among the children there is always much mortality; in one house, at the time of taking the census, there were 80 persons. The inhabitants consist of coachmen and their families, as do many of the mews in this district. This class is frequently intemperate: they live over stables, are ignorant of the necessity of free ventilation, and many appear to suffer in consequence. New comers from the country complain of the want of free air, to which they ascribe their deteriorated health. Thomas-street.—Some of the houses in bad condition, and inhabited by the poorest families. No attention to ventilation. Supply of butchers’ meat casual and infrequent. Pneumonia and bronchitis are frequently fatal in these poorer districts; and he who enters the damp, dark, underground kitchen, in which all the occupants live and sleep, in which the room is made more close by a fire required for their cooking, the atmosphere is loaded with moisture from wet clothes hung across the narrow space to dry, and probably some child ill of disease, sees that such a state of surrounding circumstances shuts out all chance of recovery in at least the majority of cases.”