[-348-]
A WEST-END CHOLERA STRONGHOLD.*
[* This paper was written during the last visitation of this terrible epidemic.]
LAST Tuesday I looked in at a dirty public-house in
Hare-Street. There never were such roaring times for a poor neighbourhood
publican. He is never the poorer for a cholera visitation, for, although his
trade in beer at such periods is lamentably injured, it has always been the
fashion to recommend brandy as an anti-choleraic, and under the management of
the knowing proprietor of the Pig and Whistle a quartern of brandy sold may be
made to yield as much profit as four retailed pots of beer, and so the matter
was as nearly as possible equalised. But with this season's visitation of the
scourge a new fashion in drinks has been introduced. "The safest and
simplest drink during the prevalence of the epidemic is a mild compound of good
rum and pure water, taken in moderation," is the formula promulgated by
certain well-meaning M.D.s, furnishing a hint not likely to be thrown away,
either on the landlord of the Pig and Whistle or his dram-drinking customers,
who, so long as they are permitted to guzzle until they are drunk, are quite
indifferent as to the means employed. So I found matters at the dirty tavern in
Hare Street, An atmosphere foul of reeking sawdust and rank tobacco, and
goodness knows what besides, filled the place, and the limited space before the
bar was occupied by draggletail women, and shambling, slouching, fishy-eyed men,
chiefly of the coarsest labouring and costermonger order, and at least
seven-tenths of them were [-349-] indulging in the
"safe and simple" drinks prescribed by the doctors. They were,
however, taking the rum neat - a departure from the prescription, excusable,
perhaps, on the ground that it was impossible in such a locality to find pure
water to mix with it. Likewise, they were taking it immoderately, as the thick
cluster of pewter measures and glasses on the counter went to show. But if such
a vague term as "moderation" is given for construing to such folks,
what better may be expected? I may consider a glass of beer a moderate quantity
to be taken at dinner, while the ballast-getter of Radcliffe will take a quart
of fourpenny with his mid-day meal, and another quart afterwards to wet his
pipe, and still remain sober enough to refute any allegation that may be made as
to his immoderation.
If the maritime superstition that whistling a tune will at
certain times provoke the rising of a storm might be applied to all other
plagues, it would have been no wonder if the one under discussion had risen and
confronted the noisy squalid group there assembled. A puncheon of "fine old
vatted rum" was under-labelled in great chalk letters "Cholera mixture!"
there was a placard of the Local Board of Health suspended from the same hooks
that upheld a flaming show-board concerning somebody's famous "old tom",
while another board concerning the advantage of becoming a member of the Hearts
of Elm Burial Club was ominously ticketed "Now's your time." Cholera
was the one prevailing topic. It was solemnly discussed by the pimplefaced,
double-chinned landlady and her barmaid, as the former, with a great dish on her
broad lap, was engaged in sorting mulberries for a pie for supper; it was
chattered about and wept about by the draggletail women whose relatives very
possibly had helped to swell the registrar's last week's terrible "returns;"
it was argued by the men with grave sippings of the "mixture and knowing
nods and winks, and noisy talk, and flourishing of dirty pipe-stems: as though
it had been a mere Chartist question.
[-350-] "What I ses is
this," exclaimed the noisiest ruffian of the company, as he emptied his
half quartern glass and passed the back of his dirty hand across his still
dirtier and unshaven mouth "What I ses is this, we've got it hotter in
these parts than anywhere else, and why is it? Why, cos it ain't like a district
where nobs and swells lives; we're all factories, and breweries, and manufactories,
and the rich uns what belongs to 'em hooks it away at evenings, and goes away to
Peckham and them airy parts. What do they care about the smells and that so long
as they pulls in the a'pence? We're nothink but a great large muck-bed what they
grows their musharooms on - that's what we are. If they had to live here amongst
us, with their kids and their missuses it would be werry soon altered. Look at
the West-end, they ain't had no cholery. Oh dear, no and what's the
reason on it? Ask Belgravy, and Great Wictoria Street, and them slap up parts; that's
what's the reason on it."
If "that's the reason on it," said I to myself, I
am very glad of it, since it is significant of the fact that all those hideous
slums that once disfigured and endangered the district between Westminster Abbey
and Pimlico have been routed and destroyed. Peter Street no longer exists there,
nor Tufton Street, nor Strutton Ground, nor Old Pye Street, nor that most foul
and disgusting of thoroughfares, St. Anne Street. The parochial guardians of the
West-end were wise in time. It is gratifying to find at least some few
exceptions to the bungling batch. I must go and see these mighty improvements,
and how they have covered the old ground. And shortly afterwards I went.
Alas it is my melancholy duty to inform you, Mr.
French-polisher, or Birdfancier, or whatever you were, that you are altogether
mistaken when you suppose that the immunity from cholera enjoyed by the
inhabitants of the West-end is due to the destruction of the old hot-beds of
disease above enumerated. I have been there to see. Alighting at Great Smith
Street, I [-351-] found my way to Peter Street, the
filthy and thief haunted, and there were Cook's Court, and Leg Court, and
Shepherd's Place, and the Laundry Yard, exactly as of old, except that nearly
all of them wore a false front of white-wash that would scarcely bear scratching
with the nail without betraying the hideousness beneath. The faith of those whose
business it is to look to such matters in whitewash is wonderful. I met a man
and his labourer emerging from an alley, the one with a ladder and the other
with a great empty pail and a brush. "What have you been doing down there?"
I asked. "Polishing of 'em up a bit, sir," said he with a
satisfied air; "limewashed 'em back and front." "But how about
the insides ?" said I; "how about the rotten floors and the
leaky roofs? Pray have you done anything as regards the water-closet accommodation,
have you enlarged the little cistern that supplies the vast number of people
that live up here with water?" "How could I, sir? You can't do
all that with lime-wash. " "But surely you have other remedies for
these things besides lime-wash?" "Oh, yes, sir; there's Condy's fluid,
and there's chloride of lime ; no fear of anything breaking out while you let us
have enough of that sort of thing."
No fear of the mad dog biting while you muzzle him and hold
him down by the throat, but you can't be always holding him down; or even if you
had the time and the patience how foolish it would be to do so, when by a few
vigorous blows the ferocious brute might be put an end to and no more difficulty
over the matter. Cholera is this mad dog that periodically makes its appearance
amongst us worrying and ravaging; but we don't shoot it or knock it on the head;
we pat it and coax it to lie down, and after it has grown weary of running
a-muck, and probably bitten to death several kindly hands engaged in its
pacification, it consents to curl down to sleep-till dog-days come again.
That the mad dog has not at present extended its ravages to
[-352-] the west-end of the town is little short of miraculous, and would
really favour the idea that there is a degree of dirt and nastiness nauseating
even to cholera itself. Take Old Pye Street, with its foul kennels, its tumble-down
houses, and its swarms of unclean inhabitants teeming at the windows and
doorways. It used to be said that, like Fryingpan Alley, Bluegate Fields, and a
few other choice parts of the metropolis, Old Pye Street was a place into which
after nightfall no single policeman dare venture, and looking in at its mouth at
broad noon it would not be astonishing if the same condition of things still
existed. There is no mistaking the haunts of thieves and desperadoes. The
inhabitants, or rather the male portion of them, never seem at home. During
the day-time business is naturally flat with them, and after they have slept off
the fatigues of the preceding night they lounge about and amuse themselves till
it is time to go to work again; but, though they remain at their own doors,
chaffing or horse-playing with their mates and females, it is never in
dishabille. Middle-aged thieves, young prigs, and that prevalent specimen of the
order, the hulking, lanky big boy thief-they are coated and capped and booted
like firemen on duty at a station, never knowing one minute from another when
they may be wanted.
Explore crooked, filthy St. Anne Street, and wonder not so
much that it is spared as why it should be. Talk of Bethnal Green, talk of Club
Row, and Hare Street, and the courts and alleys to be found in these
thoroughfares, there is not one so shocking in its dirt and squalor as St. Anne
Street - which is within a couple of stones' throw of Westminster Abbey and the
Houses of Parliament. What the water supply of this locality is I cannot say,
but judging from the terribly dirty condition of the children, I should be
inclined to doubt its abundance. To call them "dirty" children, and
then to leave the matter, would be to convey a very inadequate idea of their
deplorable appearance. You, my dear madam, may have seen children in a [-353-]
state you would properly stigmatise as disgracefully dirty because their
hair was dishevelled and their face in a condition of grubbiness, but I question
if you can imagine the standard the dirtiest child in St. Anne Street attains.
You would scarcely take it to be a child at all. Its hair is thickly matted, and
overhangs its weak eyes; it has no more clothing than a ragged little petticoat
and frock, which are filthy to look at as its skin, which is saying a great
deal. But the most remarkable parts of its person are its feet and legs; they
are blacker than a negro's. For Heaven knows how long a time-since the warm
weather set in, probably, and admitted of such a luxury - has it waded in the
inky kennels, and the sun has baked on its feet the matter adhering, and it has
waded again, and the baking process has been repeated, until its toes are webbed
with dried mire, and there it rolls and gambols with half-a- dozen of its
fellows over the muddy stones in front of the houses in a worse plight than a
little pig in a sty. In St. Anne Street, as though mocking its beastliness,
there is a tremendous building, belonging to a baths and wash-house company; but
almost opposite to it, by way of balance, there is a dust-yard, with the usual
collection of filth and garbage, and old men and women squatting up to their
waists in dustbin produce, while they sift and overhaul it; and in the said
dust-yard there is a cow-shed, where something like a dozen cows are bred and
fed, and supply prime new milk to the hale and ailing of the neighbourhood.
There are many places in the neighbourhood more or less like
Old Pye Street and St. Anne Street, not forgetting Leg Court, the Laundry Yard,
and Elizabeth Buildings - all containing houses with the same absurdly
lime-washed faces, and all in reality foul and stinking as ever. That they have
no back yards at all at some of these places is evident, for there were to be
seen--it was Saturday, the washing day of the deeply poverty-stricken several
girls and women, with their tubs and [-354-] pails
out in the street, dabbing out their poor rags, to be presently suspended on
brooms and props from the windows above for drying.
The worst feature of all, however, and it was to be seen in
whatever direction one looked, were the swarms of half-naked, shockingly dirty
children. It was the worst feature, and the most painful, because it meant so
very, very much. And that I was not the first one to discover this it was my
great good fortune presently to be made aware.
In Peter Street, getting towards Tufton
Street, there is a quiet-looking house in a row with the others. It has a shop,
but the windows are now partially whitened, and nothing now is sold there. On
the door is a notification that this is the infant nursery, all information
concerning which may be obtained on ringing the bell.
I rang the bell, and a decent-looking woman answered, and in
reply to my inquiry, civilly informed me that the matron was from home, but that
I was very welcome to look over the establishment. The shop and parlour appeared
to be used as a sort of office and living rooms in one. The young woman took me
upstairs to the first-floor, where one of the oddest sights it was ever my lot
to witness immediately met my view In the front room, which is a large room,
there is a space in the middle railed round like a miniature horse circus, the
rail being about eighteen inches high, a netting of string extending from it to
the floor. Spread within this ring was first a wool mattress, theta an
indiarubber sheet, and over all a warm woollen rug. This was where the babies,
the tiny things from a month old up to toddling size, disported, and there they
were disporting-happy and contented, seemingly, as birds in a nest.
Toddling about the room, which was plentifully furnished with
comfortable little chairs, were several other little children, all with clean
faces and well-brushed hair, and all wearing an [-355-]
ample pink pinafore with the sleeves tied up with a bit of blue ribbon. There
were toys to play with, and pictures on the walls, and a swing, and a
magnificent rocking-chair, presented by some kind patron; and somehow the decent
little women in charge of them had such a capital way of managing them that they
were all as merry as grigs, and in the best of humours one towards the other.
Out of this room you came to one even prettier, for here
ranged along the walls were tiny iron cots with white sheets and feather
pillows; and this is where the youngsters tired of play were laid to rest of
afternoons. There was one so resting now, with an elephant out of Noah's Ark in
his chubby hand.
The civil young woman took me a little higher in the house,
and showed me a lead flat securely railed in, and on one side of which were
growing some blooming scarlet-runners. This was the babies' playground.
She took me to another room which was the bath-room, and the
water-closets were here too, but without the very faintest evil smell, a fact
accounted for, probably, by the existence of a capacious cistern, as large as
many in the neighbourhood, that had to do duty for an alley of twenty houses.
And when I had seen all that was to be seen the civil young woman told me what
it all meant.
Five years ago some kind ladies in the neighbourhood, pitying
the shocking condition of the little children such as I have endeavoured to
describe, and knowing that the mischief arose chiefly out of the circumstance of
their mothers being compelled to be out at work from morning till night, laid
their heads together and opened this babies' home. They undertook the charge of
little children from a month old and upwards from seven in the morning till
eight at night, to feed, tend, nurse, and wash them for the sum of threepence
per day. And ever since they stuck to the good work, with what blessed
result who can tell? The average attendance of children at [-356-]
the nursery I am informed is twenty; they have received as many as
thirty; and, without doubt, the greater part of these, had they not been
snatched from it, would have been shock-headed, black-legged, gutter grovellers,
like the poor little wretches to be seen all round about.
I have reason to believe that the good ladies who started and
persevered in this noble work would do more if they had the means, for it need
not be told that threepence a day per subject does not pay expenses or nearly.
It is not only the food that has to be bought. These pink pinafores, for
instance, were provided that the babies might appear uniformly decent; and the
feather pillows for the tired little heads were not procured without money. On
public grounds this tiny institution has a claim on public charity, especially
at this season; for who knows how much its exertions have effected towards
keeping the neighbourhood free of cholera?