the Irk above Ducie Bridge--in case any one should care to look into it.
Below it on the river there are several tanneries which fill the whole
neighbourhood with the stench of animal putrefaction. Below Ducie Bridge
the only entrance to most of the houses is by means of narrow, dirty
stairs and over heaps of refuse and filth. The first court below Ducie
Bridge, known as Allen's Court, was in such a state at the time of the
cholera that the sanitary police ordered it evacuated, swept, and
disinfected with chloride of lime. Dr. Kay gives a terrible description
of the state of this court at that time. {49} Since then, it seems to
have been partially torn away and rebuilt; at least looking down from
Ducie Bridge, the passer-by sees several ruined walls and heaps of debris
with some newer houses. The view from this bridge, mercifully concealed
from mortals of small stature by a parapet as high as a man, is
characteristic for the whole district. At the bottom flows, or rather
stagnates, the Irk, a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of
debris and refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank. In dry
weather, a long string of the most disgusting, blackish-green, slime
pools are left standing on this bank, from the depths of which bubbles of
miasmatic gas constantly arise and give forth a stench unendurable even
on the bridge forty or fifty feet above the surface of the stream. But
besides this, the stream itself is checked every few paces by high weirs,
behind which slime and refuse accumulate and rot in thick masses. Above
the bridge are tanneries, bonemills, and gasworks, from which all drains
and refuse find their way into the Irk, which receives further the
contents of all the neighbouring sewers and privies. It may be easily
imagined, therefore, what sort of residue the stream deposits. Below the
bridge you look upon the piles of debris, the refuse, filth, and offal
from the courts on the steep left bank; here each house is packed close
behind its neighbour and a piece of each is visible, all black, smoky,
crumbling, ancient, with broken panes and window frames. The background