the community, and may be regarded as the sources of those frightful
epidemics which, beginning here, spread desolation over Glasgow."

Let us hear how J. C. Symonds, Government Commissioner for the
investigation of the condition of the hand-weavers, describes these
portions of the city: {38}

"I have seen wretchedness in some of its worse phases both here and
upon the Continent, but until I visited the wynds of Glasgow I did not
believe that so much crime, misery, and disease could exist in any
civilised country. In the lower lodging-houses ten, twelve, sometimes
twenty persons of both sexes, all ages and various degrees of
nakedness, sleep indiscriminately huddled together upon the floor.
These dwellings are usually so damp, filthy, and ruinous, that no one
could wish to keep his horse in one of them."

And in another place:

"The wynds of Glasgow contain a fluctuating population of fifteen to
thirty thousand human beings. This quarter consists wholly of narrow
alleys and square courts, in the middle of every one of which there
lies a dung heap. Revolting as was the outward appearance of these
courts, I was yet not prepared for the filth and wretchedness within.
In some of the sleeping-places which we visited at night (the
Superintendent of Police, Captain Miller, and Symonds) we found a
complete layer of human beings stretched upon the floor, often fifteen
to twenty, some clad, others naked, men and women indiscriminately.
Their bed was a litter of mouldy straw, mixed with rags. There was
little or no furniture, and the only thing which gave these dens any
shimmer of habitableness was a fire upon the hearth. Theft and
prostitution form the chief means of subsistence of this population.
No one seemed to take the trouble to cleanse this Augean stable, this
Pandemonium, this tangle of crime, filth, and pestilence in the centre
of the second city of the kingdom. An extended examination of the
lowest districts of other cities never revealed anything half so bad,
either in intensity of moral and physical infection, nor in
comparative density of population. In this quarter most of the houses
have been declared by the Court of Guild ruinous and unfit for
habitation, but precisely these are the most densely populated,
because, according to the law, no rent can be demanded for them."

The great manufacturing district in th