Two lectures on the defective arrangements in large towns to secure the health and comfort of their inhabitants ... / by Humphry Sandwith.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two lectures on the defective arrangements in large towns to secure the health and comfort of their inhabitants ... / by Humphry Sandwith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    tion of his hero’s emotions, both when, on approaching Car- thage, he . “ saw the stately towers, Which late were huts and shepherds’ homely bowers,— The gates and streets,—and heard from every part The noise and busy concourse of the mart; ” *— and when, on a closer inspection, he marked the variety of the citizens’ labours in house-building, fortifying their city, adorning it with works of art, and providing for themselves the bless- ings of just laws, and a free constitution. As a comparative stranger, I, too, may be permitted to congratulate the autho- rities of this great commercial town on the pleasing progress which has been made in scientific and literary pursuits, in elee- mosynary and educational efforts, and in consolidating the social fabric by the imperishable cement of religious principle. Nevertheless, much yet remains to be done, not in Hull only, but throughout Great Britain, by improved municipal regula- tions, and otherwise, to relieve the humbler classes from the pressure of those adventitious evils, which greatly aggravate the ordinary privations of their lot. Nor can there be any ques- tion, that the neglect of some sanatory provisions is a source of great dissatisfaction to the poor, with regard to those above them in authority. This fact stands on record in the evidence adduced before one of the Select Committees of the House of Commons. Thus Joseph Fletcher, Esq., in describing the feel- ings of the operatives of the midland districts, as in Coventry and elsewhere, asserts, that “ discontent among the lowest classses of the people does not express itself in complaints of those things into which you are now investigating; but they immediately find another subject for their excited passions, and express their dissatisfaction with the constitution of the country, and the frame-work of society.” f The joint testimony of Dr. Williamson, Mr. Walker, Mr. Ellison, and Mr. James Riddall Wood, connects these exasperated feelings with the neglect of pro- per remedies to ameliorate their condition ; and establishes the fact, that many of them “ are alive to their degraded condition, and often aver, that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.” Nothing is more easy of comprehension, than that an undefined feeling of misery may vent itself in most incorrect language, and take any shape which the turbulence of our times may impress upon it. It was thus, we are told, that “the politics of the people of Lyons, when they acted so conspicuous * Dryden’s Virgil, TEncis I. -(- Health of Towns Kcport, pp. 7G, 103, 91, 135, 100.