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June 1868

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East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 2 June 1868 Page 5, column 6

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

DEATHS

On the 21st May, at Brighton, aged ten years and two months, Hugh Alexander Shafto ADAIR, eldest son of Hugh Edward ADAIR, M.P.

On the 25th May, at Beccles, aged nine months, Herbert, son of Wm. [sic] CABLE, labourer.

On the 26th May, at Beccles, aged two years and six months, Henry, son of James BALLS, labourer.

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 9 June 1868 Page 5, column 6

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

MARRIAGES

On the 31st May, at the Parish Church, Lowestoft, by the Rev J.C. WALKER, Mr John Thompson HERRING. to Emma JEFFYRES, both of Lowestoft.

On the 1st June, at the Parish Church, Lowestoft, by the Rev J.C. WALKER, James FIRMAN, to Lavinia NAYLOR, both of Lowestoft.

On the 7th June, at Beccles, by the Rev J.J. S. BIRD, John MARTIN to Mary Ann Youell GRICE, both of Beccles.

DEATHS

On the 28th May, at Lowestoft, Mrs Jane SMITH, in the 83rd year of her age, relict of Charles Wynne SMITH, Esq., surgeon, late of Lowestoft, and formerly surgeon in the Royal Navy.

On the 1st June, at Beccles, aged 77 years, Mrs Ann WEEDS, of Bungay.

On the 1st June, at Beccles, Charlotte, daughter of James BALLS, labourer, aged 4 years.

On the 5th June, James Henry, infant son of Mr William HARMER, coach-trimmer, Beccles.

On the 7th June, at Beccles, aged 77 years, Mrs Susannah WIGG.

In addition to the above: -

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 9 June 1868 Page 4, column 3

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. The Artisans And Labourers Dwellings Bill. Economist.----The Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Bill, which the House of Lords sent on Tuesday to a Select Committee, not to kill but to improve it, is the first in a series which is likely to be a long one. It is an attempt to attack one of the most serious evils in our civilisation, the disgraceful manner in which a large section of our labouring poor are housed. The price of house-room in the great cities, and more especially in London, has increased with the increase of their population, until the poorest sort of labourers, the men who can earn from 12 Shillings to 18 Shillings a week, are wholly unable to pay the sum demanded for lodgings of any decent kind. That sum is usually one-third of their incomes, and if the family is large, even more, and the labourer is tempted to reduce it by every possible device. Either he retreats to a room so unsafe, ill-provided, or unhealthy, that it is let cheap, or he takes in lodgers, who pay a portion of the landlord's demand. Usually he adopts the second device, first, because it enables him to live nearer to his work; and secondly - it is useless to deceive ourselves upon the point - he is not yet civilised enough to care greatly for those decencies to which the higher classes attach a primary importance. He is in this respect just like an Asiatic, who sees no reason of any kind why an entire family should not sleep in one room, and will do so even when he has two or three. The agricultural labourers, for example, who obtain cottages at low rents, frequently crowd them as full as the worst lodging houses of East London. The consequence in great cities is that small, rotten, or otherwise cheap houses, near the centres of work, are found crammed to the roof with families who set all sanitary rules, all household decencies, and some usually powerful instincts, equally at defiance; who disregard all ties of relationship, and live, as Lord CHELMSFORD said, like animals, or, as the Bishop of London still more forcibly puts it, like vermin. The landlords or lessees of such houses, very often poor men, spend as little as possible upon repairs, dig no cesspools, open no drains, supply no water, and leave as few windows for light and air as they possibly can, windows being conveniences which will break. Such houses become, of course, centres of disease, depots where certain forms of fever are stored up to await the first hot day, when they spread far beyond the "rookery" where they were originally generated. It is essential that the State, as guardian of the lives of its subjects, should abolish these pest-houses, and expedient that it should, so far as possible, compel a more civilised mode of life. No landlord can have a moral right to let a house in a state unfit for human habitation any more than he can have a right to sell poison at his own discretion, because it is profitable. He is bound either to see that the article he sells is innocuous to the community, or to abstain from selling it, and can no more plead his right of property against the Legislature than a chemist could plead his right of property in arsenic or prussic acid. He is bound to obey the laws regulating the public health, and is bound also - thought this is a much more difficult question - to take heed that his conduct does not lower the general level of morality. The right of the Legislature, to suppress overcrowding on moral grounds is, in principle, identical with its right to suppress indecent publications, both alike being based on its right to protect its citizens from artificial temptations to evil. The house of Commons accordingly has passed without a division a Bill, which has also found favour in the Lords, and which is intended as first blow at the "rookeries" of our great cities. Under this Bill, whenever a house is condemned by competent medical authority as unfit for human habitation, the "local authority" - that is the Board of Health, or Commission, or Town Council, or Vestry - may direct the owner to make the necessary improvements. If he declines, the local authority may order the house to be closed, or may purchase it on a valuation and rebuild, or may delegate its right of so doing to a speculator in houses. There are dozens of other provisions; but this is the main one, that a landlord may be compelled to choose between allowing his tenantry habitable accommodation and selling his property to someone who will. This principle is obviously sound, and would seem strong enough to secure the end desired; but there are difficulties of detail in the way, of such a character that unless they are removed the Act may prove almost a dead letter. In the first place, the Bill gives no security that the "local authority" will not be entirely in the hands of petty landlords - the class which, of all others, seeks most for municipal office; and in that case the Act will either be inoperative, or will be used to secure high prices for worthless property - a minor but still serious evil. In the second place, the Act provides no fund for the work beyond a 2 Pence rate, which will we fear, be insufficient as well as unpopular, and will compel the local authority to adopt one of two expedients. Either they will delegate their right to a builder, or they will exert their alternative power of closing the houses altogether. In the former case the builder is pretty certain to look to profit, and put up rooms a little too good for the poor, thus increasing the overcrowding elsewhere; and in the second, the population must be expelled very often by sheer force. It is true the owner will, in the second case, have every temptation to sell to a wealthier man, because he wants income; but then the wealthier man has no temptation to build for the very poor, who pay so badly and give so much trouble. Again, as Lord PORTMAN suggested in his somewhat bitter speech, the Bill does not in any way prevent overcrowding, for a house may be in a perfectly habitable state for four people, and quite uninhabitable for fourteen. Upon the whole, we are inclined to hope that the Bill will pass as an experimental law, but doubt if the experiment will be very greatly successful.....The present Bill may work very well in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Norwich, where local authority is very strong, and it is possible to extend the area to be built on; but we fear it will prove inadequate to its great object - the more decent housing of the poor of the Metropolis.

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 16 June 1868 Page 5, column 6

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

DEATHS

On the 6th June, at Halesworth, Katherine, fourth daughter of Robert William and Hannah BURLEIGH, aged 15.

On the 7th June, at Southtown, Great Yarmouth, in his 88th year, Thomas BUNN, merchant, an alderman of the borough.

On the 10th June, at 22, Gainsford-street, Horsleydown, London, Elizabeth, relict of Mr Edward CARMAN, late of Harleston.

On the 11th June, at Beccles, Henry son of Henry ANDREWS, bricklayer, aged 2 years.

On Friday, the 12th June, at 28, Southtown Road, Great Yarmouth, Jane, the beloved wife of William SPILLING, in the 62nd year of her age.

On the 13th June, at Beccles, aged 2 years and 11 months, Jessie, youngest daughter of Mr Charles BARKWAY.

On the 15th June,at Beccles, Thomas, son of Charles GOLDSMITH, bricklayer, aged 2 years and four months.

In addition to the above: -

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 16 June 1868 Page 5, column 5

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

EPITOME OF NORFOLK NEWS ....A Disgraceful Scene At A Funeral At Terrington St Clement's.---On Thursday, as the funeral cortege of the late Mr NEEP, consisting of a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, was about to enter the churchyard, the horses' heads were seized by a man named JACOBS, who vehemently threatened that unless a beer score, amounting to the sum of 11 Shillings, contracted by the deceased, was paid, his body should not proceed to the grave. The consequence was that the carriage had a narrow escape from being overturned by reason of the horses being whipped by the driver while being so held, and it was not until the near approach of the police, coupled with the promise of payment by one of the mourners, the the publican was induced to leave go his hold.

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 23 June 1868 Page 5, column 6

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

BIRTH

On the 16th June, at the Vicarage, Ormesby St Margaret, the wife of the Rev R. SINGLETON, Blofield of a son.

DEATH

On the 16th June, at his residence, Milford Villa, Cotham, Bristol, in his 81st year, the Rev Thomas Steffe CRISP, many years President of the Baptist College, Bristol.

East Suffolk Gazette And Beccles And Bungay Weekly News 30 June 1868 Page 5, column 6

From microfilm supplied by the British Library Newspaper Library

MARRIAGES

On the 16th June, at Loweswater, Cumberland, by the Rev T.R. HOLME, vicar of St James's, Whitehaven, Benjamin C. GOWING, of Daventry, Northamptonshire, second son of the late James Warden GOWING, of Lowestoft, to Catherine, younger daughter of the late John Borrowdale STEWARD, of Whitehaven.

On the 24th June, at Southwold, by the Rev R. C. M. ROUSE, rector, the Rev J. POTTS, 2nd master of the Grammar School, Worcester, to Jane, eldest daughter of Read CRISP, Beccles.

DEATHS

On the 13th June, at Great Yarmouth, Mrs Phillis SYMONDS, aged 92.

On the 17th June, at Great Yarmouth, Mr T. BULLEY, aged 92.

On the 18th June, at Great Yarmouth, Mrs Ann RICHES, relict of the late Henry RICHES, tailor, aged 96.

On the 19th June, at Great Yarmouth, Mr W.C. BUNN, master mariner, aged 50.

On the 19th June, at Great Yarmouth, Mr G. RICHES, printer, aged 58.

On the 21st June, at the Nunnery, Diss, Lucy, the wife of John MUSKETT, Esq.