The Adventures of the SCSSHBCDAC: in Opium's Thrall!

Previously, the intrepid investigators from the Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board's Crowded Dwellings and Areas Committee encountered some of the children of late-nineteenth century Sydney's slums, including two who were removed to the relatively salubrious accommodations of the police sheds. Now their investigations take them where all innocence is truly fled (and the casual racism of the day has free licence)...

Seventh day - Tuesday 25 November 1875.
Burke Ward - along Pitt-street, commencing at Queen's Place.

Met at the Volunteer Club at 3 pm on Thursday 25 instant and commenced our round of visits by calling upon Ah Loon, a Chinaman, known in the neighbourhood as 'Lousy Charley', who occupies a three-roomed stone cottage off Queen's-place, for which he pays 10 s a week - the agent for the property to which this tenement belongs is M'Kenzie. It is 37 feet long and 11 ft high, and divided into three rooms, in each of which is an opium bench, with all the appliances necessary and ready for use at once. Charley is a seller of opium and an inveterate smoker as well, or his appearance greatly belies him. J. E., a white woman, aged twenty-two, who lives with him, also indulges in this demoralizing habit, and their place is an accommodation house of the worst order, for it is impossible to say what diabolical offences are not committed through the agency of this pernicious drug. Of this more hereafter. The woman told us that sometimes their customers were so numerous that they had to wait their turns to enter the room. The unfortunate creature appeared to be completely under the bondage of opium, and the woman assured us, and she herself admitted, though her paramour stoutly denied it, that other white women frequent the place, and that the most revolting and immoral scenes are of frequent occurence. In corroboration of this statement, she mentioned among the names of her visitors some of the most disreputable prostitutes in Sydney. If half the stories we heard were true, it is more than time that this and similar other foul dens of Chinese depravity should be cleared of their occupants and thoroughly purged, for their existence is a blot upon the character of a city like Sydney.

We next visited Ah Toy's workshop in Queen's-place, where there is a large loft over the workshop, about 60 ft x 30 ft, in which nineteen persons sleep - at least so we were told - but the numbers given us were probably incorrect in most cases, for we never found the beds to correspond. The bedroom of a Chinaman is a square compartment with room for two occupants, in which he keeps all his belongings, and which serves him as a smoking-room, sitting-room and bedroom. The rooms are generally boxed off in this way into compartments which represent so many separate dwellings under one roof. No attempt seemed to have been made to clean the place, nor could we see any lavatories or appliances used in other houses: if these people ever wash themselves they do it by stealth. The attic room in Ah Toy's house, fronting George-street, the owner of which is Mr Redman, is 7 ft high, and as near as we could guess about 14ft x 10 ft; it is divided into elevent compartments, is without ventilation, and very dirty. The closet attached to the house was in a frightful state. The attention of Insurance Societies and Fire Brigaes should be called to this place, for if a fire were to take place in this part of Sydney the result would be disastrous, and the loss of life and property great. The closets in all these houses were in a horrible state; they discharge into an opening over the same drain probably a tributary of the Tank Stream - as in almost every case the tenants complain that the landlord will do nothing.

This day's inspection was not performed without serious fatigue and risk to health to Dr Read and myself. For the next forty-eight hours, and that of the previous night, the horrible sickly smell of opium smoking which pervades all the Chinese quarters seemed to adhere to us, to say nothing of the fear of infection, which is not a pleasant sensation. We have witnessed in the several visits we have made a great many disgusting scenes, the existence of which in such close contiguity to our main thoroughfares we could not have otherwise credited - and we may fairly state that since we undertook the duty entrusted to this sub-committee we have not been able to enjoy a single meal. We concluded the day's work at 6 pm.

The Adventures of SCSSHBCDAC: a tragic tableau

Previously, the intrepid investigators from the Sydney City and Suburbs Sewerage and Health Board Crowded Dwellings and Areas Committee braved late-nineteenth century Clarence Street's lodging houses, where they encountered numerous nude lodgers and a drunken landlady.

This time they report on the rented houses of the inner city, and some of its children.

*

Fifth Day, Monday 22 November 1875.

Met at the Volunteer Club at 3 pm; commenced our inspection by visiting two houses close to the corner of Kent and Margaret streets, No 190 and 192, the property of Mr Samuel Lyon, of Woolahra. These houses are 18 inches below the level of the ground in front, and about 4 feet below it at the back; each contains two rooms on the ground floor and a small attic in the roof, and rents at 11s a week. There is one closet for both houses, with water laid on, but with direct action; the bedrooms are hot and close in consequence of deficient ventilation. One of the tenants told us she had been unwell for some time and that she attributed her ill-health to damp, arising from the floor, from which their was an unmistakable stench, proceeding from some collection or other of offensive matter, or from some foul surface drainage. These houses were not in good repair or at all in a tidy condition and, us usual, we were told that the landlord would not lay out a penny upon them.

We next proceeded to Miller's Buildings, owned by Mr Dickson, undertaker. There are fourteen houses in the court, containing two rooms each, 11 x 11 ft, with a small attic above, and let at 6s a week; there are four water closets for the fourteen houses. From one of these houses two children were removed the same morning by the police, almost in a state of nudity, unwashed, and uncared for, and literally covered with vermin. The filthy condition of the room from which these unfortunate little outcasts were rescued may be better imagined than described. We were strongly advised by the residents in the court not to enter it, and we contented ourselves by peeping in. Some rags, the colour of dirt, scattered about the place, a rickety chair, and a pretence for a stretcher, constituted the furniture of the apartment. The bare walls and floors, begrimed with dirt, completing the dismal picture. On the door-step was a heap of human excreta, covered with an old straw hat.

More wretched objects of destitution than these poor little children, who were in such a filthy state that while their case was being considered they had to be kept in the police shed, being unfit to enter the precincts of the Court, can scarcely be imagined.

From this place we crossed over to Sussex-street, and inspected the Harbour View Terrace, a property consisting of six houses, owned by a man named Wincks. The first house in the court has a water closet to itself, which is just 6 feet from the front door, about half that distance from the corner of the house, and stinking frightfully. The rooms are 11ft x 11 ft, and 8 ft high. In one of these rooms a sort of baby-farming on a small scale seems to be carried on. We saw a woman feeding an infant of three months old with a bottle, its mother being 'out too often to attend to it.' The whole atmosphere of this area was sickening, and habits of the occupants so slipshod and dirty that any newcomer could scarcely fail to become speedily demoralised.

Finished our visiting at Market-street, at 6 pm.

*

Next episode: In Opium's Thrall!

The Adventures of the SCSSHBCDAC: the Case of the Lewd Lodgers

Previously, our heroes from the Sydney City and Suburbs Sewerage and Health Board Crowded Dwellings and Areas Committee (SCSSHBCDAC) exposed the horrors of late nineteenth century Darling Harbour-side housing, with special attention paid to the water-closets.

Now they encounter... the lewd lodgers of Clarence Street.

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Episode 2: The Case of the Lewd Lodgers.

Third day, Wednesday 17 November, 1875
Clarence Street

Met at the Volunteer Club at 10 o’clock on Thursday, 17th instant, and continued our inspection of Brisbane Ward, Sergeant Larkins and Constable Mulqueeny accompanying us as before. Proceeded to Clarence-street and first inspected a lodging-house known as the ‘Lancashire Lass’, originally portion of Irvin’s estate, but since purchased by the Hon John Frazer, a brick house, rented at 21s a week. The same complaints met us here – ‘the landlord will do nothing to keep the place in repair.’ We noticed that the kitchen is not only used for domestic purposes during the day but converted into a bedroom at night, whilst one of the lodgers is accommodated with sleeping quarters under the stairs, in a close narrow receptacle, where he can only pass the night in a crouching position. This sleeping compartment reminded us of the cell called ‘Little Ease’ in which, in old times, refractory prisoners used to be placed in the Tower of London, and in which they could neither sit, stand, or lie at full length.

No 116 Clarence-street, belonging to the same owner, is rented at 22s 6d a week. We may remark here that in almost all the houses we entered we found the attics to be crammed; these are generally close enough, but they afford a slightly better chance for fresh air to enter, which is probably the reason they are in greater favour. In none of these lodging-houses is any provision made for the toilet; we saw no signs of lavatories and no towels; the bed and nothing but the bed is provided. Some of the inmates turn in with all their clothes on, probably for security sake, as we observed in one of these houses a notice that the landlord was not responsible for the goods and chattels of his lodgers; others who find the temperature unpleasantly close lie in a state of absolute nudity, while we noticed one man who had hit the happy medium by going to bed with a pair of Hessian boots and a cap on, but no other article of attire. Attached to this house there was no water-closet – only a common cesspit, exceedingly offensive; we were told that it had not been cleaned out for four months; we should have judged it to have been four years.

No 124, called Niagara House (why we were unable to ascertain) rents at 22s 6d per week. In one room, 13 ft 6 in square, and about 10 ft high, we found seven beds; on one of them was a man lying in puris naturalibus; in another room of similar dimensions there were six beds; and in the attic, which is not more than 6 ft 6 in height at the outside and only 13 ft 6 in square, there were eight beds.

The Temperance lodging-house, which was the next place we visited, afforded us an agreeable surprise, and we only mention it to state that it was an entire contrast to any of the houses previously inspected. Here cleanliness everywhere prevails; the beds have clean sheets; there is a nice lavatory, well supplied with jack towels, and every attention seems to be applied to the comfort of the inmates. That this superior accommodation is appreciated is evidenced by the fact that a higher scale of charges are made and a superior class of lodgers obtained.

From the Temperance Hotel we went to Mrs Connelly’s lodging-house – owner or agent, Mr Alderman Day – rented at 15s 6d a week. The landlady of this house, who had evidently been regaling herself in the company of three or four friends, was in a blissful state of semi-consciousness, and unable to give us much information. We noticed in one room with a flagged floor there were six beds occupied by women. The closet in the yard was directly connected and very offensive. On the same side of the court, off Clarence-street and next to Smith’s picture-frame factory, is a six-penny lodging house, occupied by Mrs Doolan – owner or agent, Mr Alderman Day; there were three beds downstairs and four in the attic – old fashioned ventilation – rooms very close. From this house we went to the ‘Full and Plenty’, a sort of eating-house, at the corner of Clarence and King Streets, rented at 30s a week, recently purchased by Macarthur & Co. We were told that from ninety to one hundred dinners are served here daily.

No 156 Clarence-street, owner Jones, North Shore, contains only double-beds, the price of which is 2s 6d, being in fact a brothel. Here again we found the provisions of the Water Pollution Prevention Act evaded by the construction of the cistern for supplying the closet; it had no compartment in it, the closet being therefore in direct connection with the main.

No 158 is a house of the same character, provided with double beds only, and used for the same purpose; the yard was clean and the closet provided with patent cistern in good order.

This was the last house we visited, our day’s inspection being over at 12 pm.

Next episode: a Tragic Tableau.

The Adventures of the SCSSHBCDAC

In the nineteenth century, society learned a lot about itself; this was the era in which the 'social sciences' as we know them were established. (Indeed, the word 'social' itself first appeared in scientific and political language around the 1830s.) One of the things about which society was most concerned to learn was the housing of poor and working people; it did so through the intensive investigations of commissions of inquiry, statistical societies, journalists, pamphleteers, reformers and radicals.

There are a number of famous investigations of the housing conditions of the English poor and working classes: Chadwick's 1842 Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population, Beames' Rookeries of London (1852), Mearns' Bitter Cry of Outcast London (1883) and Charles Booth's monumental Life and Labour of the People in London (1898-99). Some have an extraordinary literary quality: Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England (1845, first English publication, 1887), and Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1851-52), are still in print today.

Less well known are the Australian or, more to the point, the Sydney investigations. The 'housing question' was pursued here too, in the Sydney Morning Herald's articles on 'the Sanitary State of Sydney' (1851), W H Jevon's 'social surveys' of Sydney and other colonial towns (1854), Henry Parkes' 'Select Committee of Inquiry into the Condition of the Working Classes of the Metropolis' (1860), and the investigations of the Sydney City and Suburbs Sewerage and Health Board's Crowded Dwellings and Areas Committee (1875), hereinafter the SCSSHBCDAC.

It is with the work of the SCSSHBCDAC that we are concerned here, particularly the intensive personal investigations of housing in the City of Sydney by its two subcommittees, whose members comprised the City Medical Officer, the Mayor, City aldermen and other worthies. Their reports remain, in the opinion of the Brown Couch, compulsively readable and deserving of a wider audience than can be accommodated around the dusty bound volumes in which the SCSSHBCDAC's minutes of evidence are presently confined.

This is the first, therefore, in a series of extracts from the reports of the SCSSHBCDAC. These extracts show a different Sydney from the one in which many of us live today, and a different political culture – though the reader might also wonder at how much of each still persists now. They also remind that along with the reports of its earnest investigators, the nineteenth century also produced the penny dreadfuls.

*

Episode 1. The Darling Harbour-side Horror.

Day 1. No 1 Sub-Committee (R B Read, Esq; MRCS, M Chapman, Esq). Kent, Clarence and Sussex Streets, from Liverpool-street to Druitt-street.

Met at 9 pm, on Wednesday, the 10th instant [November 1875], at the Volunteer Club, and proceeded to a portion of Brisbane Ward. Mr Fosbery, the Inspector General of Police, kindly placed at our disposal the services of Sergeant Larkin and Constable Mulqueeny, of the Detective Force, who rendered us valuable assistance. The night was remarkably cool, with a light southerly breeze blowing. Barometer, 29.72. The temperature in the open air 51•, in a well ventilated room 57•.

We commenced our inspection by examining the ‘Star of Peace’ and ‘Mill Hotels’, in Kent-street, which we found in fairly clean condition, the ventilation, however, being of an unsatisfactory character, as indeed was the case in almost every house we inspected, the old fashioned sash-windows being in use, which open only at the bottom, while the upper portion is immovable. The ‘Globe Hotel’, which we next visited, we found ventilated the same way; the rooms in this hotel were very low, and the closet in the yard exceedingly offensive.

We next inspected a block of buildings in at the corner of Sylas-lane and North-street, and spent some time examining a group of houses and cottages at the back, which we may class as entirely unfit for human habitation. The rooms are low, not more than 7 feet high, and in a small yard, 5 feet x 6 feet, there is one closet for six houses. In another, two closets, one of which is out of order, for about forty houses, and there is an absence of water to keep them clean. We also inspected some houses in St John’s Place, Sussex-street, which were in very bad condition, the ventilation being exceedingly deficient, and there being only one closet, without any door, for four houses; the stench from this closet was unbearable. Health under such circumstances is simply impossible.

In none of the houses we visited was the ventilation of a satisfactory character, and in many of them, in addition to this deficiency, the accommodation afforded for human beings is inferior to that provided for cattle and horses.

At midnight we found ourselves at the foot of Liverpool-street, at which place the stench from the head of Darling Harbour was offensive to a degree which we could scarcely have credited without personal experience of it. It appeared to us a matter of surprise that any persons at all could live in the immediate vicinity of this nuisance. It was low-tide at the time,– the whole of the foreshore was exposed, and the air reeked with the poisonous exhalations from the drainage polluting the harbour. Suffice it to say, that nothing that has been said or written on the subject of this horrible nuisance can equal the foul reality.

We concluded our inspection at 12.35, and did not reach our homes until 2 am.

Next episode: the Lewd Lodgers.