Andrew Carrick and John Addington Symonds

“ We have often been astonished at the minimum of clothing to which individuals in these ranks reduce themselves, when pressed by the calls of hunger, far more imperious than the urgencies of frost and snow. ”

“ In the summer time we have seen the stream shrunk to a width, scarcely exceeding that of a large gutter, and trickling between two mounds of mud. At all times it is almost impossible to cross the bridges by which it is concealed from sight in the midst of streets and lanes, without being reminded by particular odours, of its propinquity. ”

“ With regard to the workmen engaged in the various preparations of shipping, we are inclined to think that their labours are rather conducive than prejudicial to their health, since, on the one hand, they are not subject to long or close confinement, nor, on the other, are they too much exposed to the atmosphere; in addition to this, their occupations are, for the most part, the reverse of sedentary, and yet are not attended with inordinate or exhausting exertions. ”

“ On the whole, then, we are decidedly of opinion that the occupations of the population of this locality, bear but a small proportion in the causes of disease, if we compare it with other cities peopled to an equal amount.
The kinds of subsistence used among the lower classes, are constantly varying with the demand for work and the rate of wages. When the latter are not very low, the families of the poor contrive, for the most part, to obtain animal food three or four times a week. ”

“ The channel through which the water here escapes, is formed by a fissure in the flat limestone ridge called Durdham-down, Leigh-down, Cleve-down, &c. which skirts the Bristol Channel for almost twenty miles below the embouchure of the Avon, serving as a wall to defend the vale or basin in which Bristol is situated, from the chilly breezes and stormy winds blowing in from the Atlantic, and essentially contributing to the well known comparative mildness of the climate of Bristol and its vicinity. ”

“ Those who have the slightest knowledge of geology, will not need to be reminded that while the mountain or carboniferous limestone forms the outer shell, as it were, of a coal basin, it is lined within by the rock called millstone grit, immediately upon which the other coal measures are arranged, consisting, in this district, of lower coal shale, pennant, and upper coal shale. ”

“ On looking at them, and considering the filthy, careless habits of the occupants, the medical observer is puzzled to imagine how any degree of health can be preserved, in places where exhalations from the soil, and every description of human miasmata must be almost constantly detained and concentrated. ”

“ Occasionally the fish-market is overstocked, and the poor have then an opportunity of purchasing herrings, mackerel, and such kinds of fish, at a very low rate, but too often not till the delay in the sale has occasioned the commencement of putrefaction. We have been informed that frequently late at night they are tempted to buy tainted meat, which the sellers did not dare to expose in their shambles by day, at two-pence per pound; and that in the like manner the farmers in the neighbourhood occasionally dispose of the carcases of cattle which have died of disease. ”

“ So striking has the effect of this geographical barrier been sometimes observed to be, that invalids and valetudinarians who resorted to Devonshire for mild winter quarters, and who felt well and comfortable during the proper winter months, have been compelled to run for their lives, when the chilly and parching March winds began to blow, and have sought shelter at Bristol or the Hotwells, where they have described the difference in the temperature and constitution of the atmosphere, according to their sensations, to be very decided. ”

“ As there is no staple manufacture in Bristol, the occupations of the working classes are very various. There are, however, as might naturally be expected in a city of such magnitude, many extensive manufactories, which give employment to a large proportion of the population. ”

“ The water obtained from the millstone grit is, for the most part, extremely pure. It occasionally, however, puts on a different appearance, from being tinged with iron, which abounds in this rock. The grit is a compact siliceous stone, and contains large quantities of quartz crystals called Bristol Diamonds, which are six-sided pyramids, frequently deposited on needles of iron, or manganese, or sulphate of strontia. ”

“ Omitting the febrile exanthemata, together with infantile remit tents, and diseases connected with dentition, which constitute so large a proportion of medical cases in all parts of the kingdom, we find, among the most frequent of our patients, females labouring under some form or other of hysteria, considering this term as generic for all those neurotic, atonic, anomalous ailments, to which females are so obnoxious, and which are all less or more related with catamenial deficiencies and disturbances. ”

“ The physiologist has no need to try experiments upon the capability which the human system possesses of resisting low temperatures, when he can enquire into the circumstances of a poor population during an inclement season. ”

“ If the enquirer into the condition of the poor is amazed at their achievements in abridging the necessaries of life, he will experience no less surprise at the ingenuity which they manifest in accommodating crowds of living beings in a small compass. ”

“ When it is borne in mind that the areas are often half-filled with deposits of the refuse of animal and vegetable matters, as well as with other impurities, it must be evident that few circumstances are wanting for the production of all the morbific agency of which buildings are capable. ”

“ It is difficult to conceive a locality more advantageously circumstanced as to shelter, the boundary being, on all sides, sufficiently high to arrest or moderate the winds from whatever quarter, and not high enough to cool, sensibly, the atmosphere by its elevation. ”

“ Before the floating harbour was constructed, every facility was afforded for the removal of filth, by the unobstructed course of the rivers; but after the accomplishment of that work, the accumulation of the matters discharged by the drains in a stagnant body of water, occasioned no slight inconvenience to the citizens for many years. It is proper, however, to mention that, previously to the formation of the floating harbour, those parts of the city which stand upon the banks of the Froom were liable to serious inundations, the effects of which were highly prejudicial to the inhabitants. ”

“ Great as are these evils, the lot of the poor half-fed people would be comparatively happy, if the practice of spirit drinking were not prevalent. No tongue can tell the miseries induced by these poisons among the unthinking wretches, who often resort to them at first for the relief of gnawing hunger, and the fancied obviation of the results of deficient clothing. ”

“ Next to rheumatism in the order of frequency, we must place those gastric derangements which pass under the denomination of pyrosis, gastralgia, morbid sensibility of the stomach, &c. It very seldom happens that a patient complains of a gnawing pain in the stomach, without also mentioning that he is subject to the ejection of a clear glairy fluid. There is often tenderness at the epigastrium, but the tongue, which, for the most part, assumes a pale, pasty, sodden look, occasionally, however, presenting nothing uncommon, has very rarely the red tip and margin, indicative of mucous inflammation. ”

“ It is a common circumstance for a house to be tenanted by five or six families. In their arrangements there are many grades of landlords or letters; thus, one individual, not much higher in the world than his tenants, rents the entire house of the landlord, and lets the floors to other individuals, who, in their turn, let single rooms to families or single persons ”

“ When to such examples of diet we add the sweepings of green-grocers' stalls, which are often insufficiently boiled for want of fuel, some idea may be formed of the innutritious, or even noxious, character of the aliment on which a large portion of the populace subsist. ”

“ On taking a survey of the tract of country immediately surrounding Bristol, we observe an irregular plain, bounded to the west by the mountain limestone and millstone grit, to the north by the lias, to the north-east and east by pennant, and to the south by lias again. ”

“ They are such as may be found in almost every populous district; in this place they consist principally of unemployed labourers, artisans, and seamen, among our own people, and of hordes of Irish adventurers, whose existence seems to have no other object than that of showing upon how little extraneous material their athletic frames can be maintained, and how little derived from outward sources of enjoyment is the current of their happy spirits. ”

“ The deaths being registered at the places of burial, no estimate can be formed of the proportionate mortality of a parish, from an inspection of the register in that parish, because a large number of the inhabitants may have been interred in other parishes, or in private burial-grounds, or in those attached to dissenting places of worship. ”

“ We have found thirteen individuals, men, women and children, living promiscuously in one garret of no very large dimensions. On one occasion it happened to us to discover that thirty individuals had, on one night, slept in a room, the measurements of which did not exceed 20 ft. ”

“ The streets are, for the most part, narrow, and the houses of considerable height, and in those parts of the city inhabited more especially by the lower orders, we find courts and close alleys very frequent. ”

“ They can have no tendency to produce calculus diseases, which were once imputed to them, but which have been shewn to be produced by causes quite independent of the qualities of water, and to depend on morbid operations of the animal economy. ”

“ Vincent's Rock, and after an interruption of dolomitic conglomerate, of small extent, stretching over Durdham-down, and on to Cook's Folly, below which it is seen to rest on the old red sandstone. On the cliffs formed by this rock, along the southern bank of the river, hang the beautiful Leigh Woods. Below Prince's Buildings and the York Crescent, which stand upon the mountain limestone or superjacent limestone shale, we find the millstone grit, which may also be seen on the other side of the river, reposing upon the limestone. ”

“ In the winter of 1831 and 1832, when engaged with others in enquiries into the condition of the poor, with a view to arm them, if possible, against the threatened pestilence, we frequently found a family of five or six persons with one threadbare blanket between them, and the mother with a single flannel petticoat in the same predicament ”

“ The triple use of potatoes, tea, and gin, will reduce the hardiest stomach to the painful condition we speak of. The great frequency of the disorder in Bristol, evidently results from the poverty of the people, and its relation with alimentary causes. ”

“ All their unavoidable ills are increased a hundred-fold. The evils of a spare maintenance might be to a certain degree endurable, with bodies not subjected to worse agencies, with passions under control, and with families peaceable and well-regulated ”

“ The most numerous of the trades prosecuted upon a large scale, are those which depend upon the port; such are the building and fitting-up of vessels, rope-making, chain and anchor works, &c. From the connection of the place with the commerce of the West Indies, sugar-refining occupies a conspicuous place among our local manufactures. Glass-works are carried on to a great extent ”