Preston - Poverty: Smells & Stuff by Peter Fagg

Just to carry on this theme of squalor & poverty I just want to share two lists I discovered. These were compiled by a Prestonian called Joseph Livesey. He was a dynamo of a man who will be getting his very own post in the future, but for today I want to share his list of "Things I do not like to see" and another one entitled "I don't like the smell from..." I like these lists because they add a sense of smell and everyday life to the Victorian Preston picture.

Remember these were both written in 1838. My remarks are written in italics:

"Things I do not like to see..."

•  A workhouse funeral almost without attendance.
• an orphan girl tempted to walk the streets for the purpose of prostitution.
• a country overseer putting out a poor woman by her shoulders.
• a poor lad going to the factory very much out of health.
• the bailiffs carrying the bed and chairs of a poor widow to the obelisk, to sell for rent.
•  a street of houses nearly all uninhabited. (many families moved in with others so they could share the rent. This was called 'huddling', but left many homes vacant)
• all the public pumps dry in hot weather.
• a window blind drawn up on one side twelve inches higher than the other. (Right....now you're getting picky :0) 
• orange peels thrown on the footpath (!!)

Joseph Livesey, Moral Reformer, Saturday February 10, 1838, p.45

"I dont' like the smell from..."

• a bedroom where the windows have never been open for days and weeks together (this man obviously never had teenage sons)
• Dirty straw which has laid some time in a damp cellar.
• a cart taking away dung from the privies during the day time.
• wiskets filled with fish upon a coach. (Wisket? I think it is a basket?)
• the dead carcasses of dogs and other animals thrown into pools of stagnant water.
• the effluvia from a person who perspires freely but seldom washes. (Try Lynx)
• a drunkards breath in a morning after a fuddle. (Fuddle = a drinking binge... or so I'm told)
• a cart laden with gas tar. (What's that??)
• a corpse kept too long in hot weather. (I hate it when that happens)

Joseph Livesey, Moral Reformer, March 24, 1838, p. 10