AL0NG THE RIVER iRK: THE OLD TOI{N

I wiil give a description of the workinE-class districts of

now
Manchester. The first of them is the Old Tovrn, which Jies between
the northern'limit of the conmencial quar.ter: and the River lrk.
Llere even the better streets, such as Todd Street, Millgate,
fonn
withy Grove and Shudehill, are narrov{ and tortuous.' The houses
are dirty, old and tunbledcryn. '

The original inhabitants and their chi'ldren have '!eft for better
houses in other districts, whi'!e the houses in l-ong Mi'ligate,
which no longer satisfied them, were left to a tribe ofworkers
containing a strong Irish element. Here one is real'ly and truly
in a district which is quite obviously given over entirely to the
working ciasses, because even the shopkeepers and the pub1i.unr2,
of Long Millgate make no effort to give their establishnents a
senbl ance of cleanli ness.

The condition of this street may be deplorable, but it is by no

means as bad as the alleys and courts which lie behind it, and
which can be approached only by covered passages so namow that
two people cannot pass.

Anyone who has never visited these courts and alleys can have no
idea of the fantastic way in which the honrses have been packed
together in disorderly confusion'in impudent defiance of aIl
reasonable principles of toln planning.

And the fault lies not nere'ly in

the survival of old property
from earlier periods in Manchester's history. 0n1y in quite

'twi s ti ng
2owners ot-.tavems

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 modenn times has the poiicy of cramming as many houses as
possibre on to such space as was not
utirised in earJier periods
reached its climax. The nesurt.is that today
not an inch of
space remains between the houses, and any further
building is now
physically innpossible. To prove my point I reproduce
a small
section of a pran of Manchester. It is by no means the
worst
sJr.rm in l'lanchester and it does not
cover one-tenth of the area
of Manchester.

...There is a very sharp drop of some J5 to 30 feet down

to the
sottth bank of the lrk at this point. As many as three
nows of
houses have generaily been squeezed on to this precipitous
s1ope.
The lowest row of houses stands direcily on the bank
of the river
while the front walls of the highest row stand on the crest
of
the ridge in Long MiIlgate. Moreover, factory buirdings are
also to be found on the banks of the river. In short the layout
of the upper part of Long Mirlgate at the top of the rise is
just as disorder'ly and congested as the lower part
of the street.
To the right
and reft a number of covered passages from Long
Millgate give access to several courts. 0n reaching thern one
meets with a degree of dirt and revolting filtir,
tne like of
which is not to be found elsewhere. The worst courts
are those
leading down to the lrk, which contain unquestionably the
most
dneadful dwellings I have ever seen.

In one of these courts, just at the entrance where the covered

passage ends there is a privy without a door.
This privy is so
dirty that the inhabitants of the court can only enter or leave
the court if they a!^e prepared to wade through puddles of stare
urine and excrement. Anyone who wishes to confirm this
descript'ion should go to the first court on the bank of the
Irk
above Duc'ie Bridge.

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 The view from this bridge is quite characteristic of the whore
district. At the bottom the Irk fTows, on rather, stagnates.
It is a narrow' coar-b]ack, stinkirrg river fuJI of firth and
rubbish which it deposits on the more row-iying
right bank. I,
dry weather this bank presents the spectacle of a series
of the
most revolting b'lackish-g!^een pudd'les of slime
from the deoths
of which bubbles of miasmati.l gur., constantly rise and create
a stench which is unrbearable even to those standing on
the bridge
forty or fifty feet above the level of the water.. ..

Above Ducie Bridge the jeft bank of the Irk becomes f'latter and
the night bank of the irk becomes steeper and so the condition
of the houses on both sides of the river becomes worse rather
than better.

Everywhere one sees heaps of refuse, garbage and firth. There

are stagnant pools instead of gutters and the stench aJone is
so
overpowering that no human being, even part'ia1ry civirised,
wourd
find it bearable to live in such a district.

One walks along a very rough path on the river bank, in befueen
clothes-posts and washing lines,to reach a chaotic group of
little, one--storied,one-roomed cabins. Most of them have earth
floors, and working, Iiving and s'reeping a1r take place in the
one loom. In such a hold, barely s'ix feet long and five feet
wide, I saw two beds--and what beds and bedding!--which fil'led
the room, except for^ the firep'lace and the doorstep. several of
these huts, as far as I could see, were completely empty,
although the door was open and the inhabitants were reaning
against the door posts. In fronrt of the door filth and garbage
abounded. I could not see the pavement, but fnom
time to t.ime,
I fe'lt it was there because my feet scraped it. This whole
col I ecti on of cattle sheds f,on human beings was surnounded on

q.*trl to heatth

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 two sides by houses and a factory and on a third s'ide by the
nlven. . . .

Enough of this: AII arong the Irk srums of this type abound.
Thene is an unplanned and chaotic cong'tromerat.ion
of houses, most
of which are more or less unhabitable. The dirt.lness of the
interiors of t,hese premises is fully in keeping with the fitth
that surrounds them. How can people dwelling in such places
keep cleanl There are not even adequate facilities for satisfying
the most natural da,i-Iy needs. There are so few pnivies that they
are either filled up every day or are too far away for those who
need to use them. How can thesei people wash when all iliat
is
available is the dirty water of the Irk? purnps.,'and pf ped water
are to be found on'ly in the better-class districts of the town.
Indeed no one can blame these helots of modern civilisation
if
their homes are no cJeaner than the occasional pigsties which are
a feature of these slums

There are actual]y some property owners who are not ashamed to
rent dwellings such as those which are to be found below scoiland
Bridge, Here on the quayside a mere six feet from the water,s
edgb is to be found a row of six or seven cellars, the bottoms
of
which are at least two feet beneath the low-water level of the
Irk. : :

From Fri edri ch Enge'l s ,

Condition of the Working Class in
England, Trans. Henderson and Chaloner.
Published in 1845

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