662 THE CATASTROPHE OF TWELVE HOURS. 



very best sites for the development of disease, and is a prototype, 

 both in its wretchedness and the miserable character of its inmates, 

 of too many other neglected and secluded spots that may be found in 

 the very heart of most of our large towns. Eleven separate tene- 

 ments composed the buildings in the court, occupying a length of 

 thirty-six yards, and separated from each other by a causeway par- 

 tially paved, little more than five feet in breadth, in the middle of 

 which ran, or rather stood, a gutter, forming a receptacle for the filth 

 and ordure of the inhabitants. The houses are lofty ; but the upper 

 stories are much dilapidated in consequence of a> dispute concerning 

 ownership ; so that although somebody has always appeared to claim 

 a pittance of rent, no one has been found to keep them in decent re- 

 pair. The roofs of most of them are almost entirely destroyed, and 

 little left but bare and blackened rafters, affording a resting-place for 

 a colony of rooks, which have, from some strange freak of fancy, 

 taken up their residence amidst the noise and smoke of the town. 

 Fortunately, however, for the indvvellers, the upper floor is formed 

 of thick oaken planks, which are likely to resist the ravages of time 

 and exposure quite as long as the outer walls may stand, and these, 

 with a layer of soot and other debris, compose a very tolerable roof. 

 Except during the continuance of very heavy rain, little moisture 

 finds its way below in a direct form, but gradually percolates the 

 mud walls, and drops into the court. If, however, little moisture 

 finds its way in a direct form to the inmates, it reaches them, if 

 possible, in a much more obnoxious form. Gradually oozing into 

 the structure of the walls, these have become little else than damp 

 earth, and, sheltered as they are from the influence of the sun, 

 evaporation goes on very slowly. Their cold feel and miserable 

 aspect render them, in reality, no better than graves or charnel- 

 houses. To one, indeed, who has never been in a thoroughly damp 

 house, words can convey no idea of the strange and death-like 

 chillness ever pervading it. Firing, clothing, every thing is in vain 

 to keep out the insidious vapour, while the rapid decay and fungous 

 appearance of all around, indicate but too truly that destruction is 

 busily, though silently, at work. 



The first floor of these houses is alone habitable, and it is almost 

 needless to say, that none but parties in the severest gripe of penury 

 or crime would ever live in situations which have long since been 

 deserted by " rats and mice, and such small deer" the pests it may 

 be, but the never-failing attendants on man, in nearly all the localities 

 where he is to be found. The furniture is in strict keeping with the 

 dilapidated and mouldering walls ; a few broken rush-bottomed 

 chairs wooden stools a rude settle an old bedstead, with a straw 

 mattrass a tattered blanket or two no sheets, and a coverlet, once, 

 no doubt, capable of confining animal heat, but long since reduced to 

 a skeleton of its former self a grate built up with loose bricks, 

 in the enormous original fire-place, with a piece of a broken iron 

 spike, forming the entire complement of fire-irons a few potatoes, 

 covered with tallow, as substitutes for candlesticks a broken pitcher 

 a few fragmentary articles of brown earthenware an old frying- 

 pan, miserably battered the remainder of a tin kettle, with the 



