I was astonished at the immense numbers of pigs which these people seemed to keep, and I asked the old woman how they managed to find food for them all; she said—
“We most of us keep a horse, or a donkey and cart, and we go round early in the morning to the gentlefolk’s houses, and collect the refuges from the kitchens. When we comes home, we sorts it out; the best of it we eats ourselves or sells it to a neighbour, the fat is all boiled down, and the rest we gives to the pigs.”
“Do you go to the same houses every day?” I asked.
“Why, you see, ma’am, that depends upon how much refuge they have. When they have lots of company, then they gets a deal of refuge. I have been to the Duke of —, whenever he has been in town, for the last thirty years. Last week one of his daughters was married, and the house was full all the week; then there was plenty for me. But, do you know, ma’am, for all I’ve been in the habit of going backwards and forwards to that house so many years, them servants, that they have now, never had the manners to give me a bit of bridecake. I couldn’t help speaking about it. I says to them, ‘Well, this is something to think! I have been in attendance on the Duke this thirty years, and can’t get a bit of bridecake when his daughter is married.’ Of course that wasn’t the Duke’s fault, you see, ma’am; it was all a-hoeing to them servants. When the families goes out of town, the servants is put upon board wages, and they skrimps and saves everything; we aint wanted to call then, ’cause there’s not a scrap left for us. Oh no, it aint no use then.”
Although, as years rolled on, London continued to come further out of town, till those pig-feeders found themselves again surrounded by streets, squares, and terraces, inhabited by the “quality,” little attention was directed to the place, till the visitation of cholera in 1849. Then the eyes of the newly arrived were opened, and many were horrified at discerning what a plague-spot they had in their midst.
In one of the first numbers of Dickens’s “Household Words” the following passages appeared, which at once brought the place into notice; and, both in and out of Parliament, plans for its improvement were discussed:—
“In a neighbourhood studded thickly with elegant villas and mansions, viz., Bayswater and Notting Hill, in the parish of Kensington, is a plague-spot, scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London; it is called the Potteries. It comprises some seven or eight acres, with about two hundred and sixty houses (if the term can be applied to such hovels), and a population of nine hundred or one thousand. The occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig-fattening. Many hundreds of pigs, ducks, and fowls, are kept in an incredible state of filth. Dogs abound, for the purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere is still further polluted by the process of fat-boiling. In these hovels, discontent, dirt, filth, and misery are unsurpassed by anything known even in Ireland. Water is supplied to only a small number of the houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains, smelling most offensively, and generating large quantities of poisonous gases; stagnant water is found at every turn; not a drop of clean water can be obtained; all is charged to saturation with putrescent matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have become in many instances useless, from organic matter soaking into them. In some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The paint on the window-frames has become black from the action of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy; the women especially complain of sickness and want of appetite, their eyes are sunken, and their skin shrivelled.
“The poisonous influence of this pestilential locality extends far and wide. Some twelve or thirteen hundred feet off, there is a row of clean houses called Crafton Terrace: the situation, though rather low, is open and airy. On Saturday and Sunday, the 8th and 9th September 1849, the inhabitants complained of an intolerable stench, the wind then blowing directly upon the terrace from the Potteries. Up to this time, there had been no case of cholera among the inhabitants; but the next day the disease broke out virulently; and, on the following day, the 11th September, a child died of cholera at No. 1. By the 22d of the same month, no less than seven persons in the terrace lost their lives by this fatal malady.”
It will be supposed that, after this, the law of self-preservation induced the surrounding inhabitants to be very urgent with parochial and all other officials who had any authority in the place. In a short time a good road was made, and supplies of fresh water were introduced. The drainage was found very difficult, from the low level of the ground; and it certainly could not have been thoroughly completed; for in the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Parish of Kensington, for the year 1856, by Francis Goderich, M.R.C.S., L.A.C., Medical Officer of Health, the following passages appear:—
“One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the whole metropolis, is the Potteries at Notting Dale,—a locality which is from its position difficult to drain. It occupies eight or nine acres of ground, and contains about 1000 inhabitants, the majority of whom obtain a living by rearing and fattening pigs upon the house-refuse obtained from club-houses and hotels, and upon offal, entrails, liver, and blood from slaughter-houses. This offensive food, often in a high state of decomposition when brought to the place, is boiled down in coppers and the fat separated for sale.
“The number of pigs varies from 1000 to 2000 (as many as 3000 have been kept), in filthy and badly-paved styes close to the houses. The drainage, in nearly all cases very defective, permits the liquid manure to run over the yards, saturating the ground to a great depth, contaminating all the wells with putrid matter, and polluting the atmosphere for a considerable distance around. There were, till lately, several immense accumulations of stagnant water, into which this pig matter found its way. One immense piece, called the ‘Ocean,’ formerly occupied nearly an acre of ground; it was covered with filthy slime, and bubbling with poisonous gases, caused by the drainage of pigstyes, &c., flowing into it. Till lately, the want of water was most severely felt by the inhabitants, and even now many of the yards in which the pigs are kept are entirely destitute of it. Many of the houses are in a most dilapidated state. Old railway-carriages and worn-out travelling-vans may be seen taken off their wheels and converted into dwellings.
“The people in general look sallow and aged; the children pale and flabby, their eyes glistening as if stimulated by ammonia. Small-pox is ten times more fatal than in any of the surrounding districts.
“The general death-rate varies from forty to sixty per 1000 per annum; of these deaths the very large proportion of 87.5 per cent. are under five years of age; and nearly all the deaths, I again observe, occur from zymotic diseases. The most appalling fact, however, connected with this subject, and one most likely to make a deep sensation in the public mind, is, that for a period of three years the average age at death is under twelve years.”
After this, great efforts were made to get rid of “the swinish multitude” altogether; but the shrewd chimney-sweep, Lake, seems to have foreseen this evil day, and “for the purpose of pig-keeping” had been inserted in the very leases which the people were able to produce; so that nothing but a special Act of Parliament could remedy the existing evil. The number of animals was, however, somewhat reduced; and, by additional drainage and further supplies of fresh water, a decided improvement has been effected. The inhabitants have become much healthier, and for the last year or two the number of deaths has scarcely exceeded the common average.