scarcely less noxious agency of a loathsome diet. Many other instances of crowding fell under our notice at the same time; among others, we had once the pain of seeing, in a confined chamber, three persons labouring under the same malady, who could only find room for the extension of their bodies by lying with their heads in the several corners, while their feet met in the centre of the floor. A great variety of such details might be collected, but they would swell this paper unnecessarily. What has been mentioned will suffice to shew, that although Bristol is exempt from many morbific causes to which other large cities are subject, yet she has her share of those common sources of disease, want and wretchedness.[1]
Of the moral habits of the people, it is difficult to speak with any degree of precision, and I am doubtful whether any thing more specific can be stated, than that where so much indigence exists, its offspring, vice and ignorance, must also abound. Dr. Chisholm remarks, that he had much satisfaction in observing the regularity with which the poor of Clifton and the Hotwell-road, attended to their religious
- ↑ In the out-parish of St. Philip and Jacob, all the evils of squalidity, united with destitution of comforts, seem to have attained their utmost limits; yet, strange to say, the health of the inhabitants would appear to be comparatively little affected by this circumstance. Typhus is but seldom observed in the parish, or any other of the diseases commonly referred to the influence of filth and the congregation of human beings in a narrow space. This fact, however, agrees with what we are told of the general immunity of certain savages, such as the Esquimaux and Kamschatkans, from pestilential diseases; but, although the loathsome habits of these tribes are not capable of generating poisons, yet, when the morbific cause is applied, its effects are much greater than in a population better circumstanced.
