[147] “Also without the bars both sides of the street be pestered with cottages and alleys even up to Whitechapel Church, and almost half a mile beyond it, into the common field: all which ought to be open and free for all men. But this common field, I say, being sometime the beauty of this city on that part, is so encroached upon by building of filthy cottages, and with other purprestures, enclosures and laystalls (notwithstanding all proclamations and Acts of Parliament made to the contrary) that in some places it scarce remaineth a sufficient highway for the meeting of carriages and droves of cattle. Much less is there any fair, pleasant or wholesome way for people to walk on foot, which is no small blemish to so famous a city to have so unsavoury and unseemly an entrance or passage thereunto.” Stow’s Survey of London, section on “Suburbs without the Walls.”
[148] The line of an old field walk can still be followed from Aldermanbury Postern to Hackney, Goldsmiths’ Row being one of the wider sections of it.
[149] Luttrell’s Diary 10 June, 1684.
[150] Roger North’s “Autobiography,” in Lives of the Norths, new ed. 3 vols., 1890, III. 54.
[151] Willan, 1801: “The passage filled with putrid excremental or other abominable effluvia from a vault at the bottom of the staircase.” See also Clutterbuck, Epid. Fever at present prevailing. Lond. 1819, p. 60. Ferriar, of Manchester, writing of the class of houses most apt to harbour the contagion of typhus, says, “Of the new buildings I have found those most apt to nurse it which are added in a slight manner to the back part of a row, and exposed to the effluvia of the privies.”
[152] C. Davenant to T. Coke, London, 14 Dec. 1700. Cal. Coke MSS., II. 411, “I heartily commiserate your sad condition to be in the country these bad weeks; but I fancy you will find Derbyshire more pleasant even in winter than the House of Commons will be in a summer season. For, though it be now sixteen years ago [1685], I still bear in memory the evil smells descending from the small apartments adjoining to the Speaker’s Chamber, which came down into the House with irresistible force when the weather is hot.”
[153] Report on the Diseases in London, 1796-1800. Lond. 1801.
[154] John Ferriar, M.D., Medical Histories and Reflections. London 1810, II. 217.
[155] Heysham, Jail Fever at Carlisle in 1781. Lond. 1782, p. 33.
[156] John Howard, State of the Prisons.