Great Horwood History |
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It was an underlet tenement, and in some respects in a shocking condition. Some of the family slept in an upper room, large enough indeed, but dirty. The floor is old and bad; the ceiling below is not plastered: the area beneath this floor was nearly a foot deep in black stagnant water, into which from without, filth oozed. All who slept in the room over this swamp were taken ill, and three of the family died.
Lately, I asked during a sanitary enquiry in a house ... where the privy was placed; the answer was “Mine ain’t a privy, it’s a tub!” The tub was among other articles of domestic use at the back door. The object was to collect the manure for the garden.
“We can do no more,” said one admirable woman, “than keep clean that which we have. We cannot get our landlord to give us more air, or make the windows we have to open. ‘Women’, he said, ‘are best shut up.’”