The Pestilence of Vice

Abstract

Physical suffering was not the only product of squalor and overcrowding; moral degradation, too, it was believed, was generated by the living-conditions of the poor. ‘It is necessary, however, that we should recollect that physical ailments are not the sole consequences of the filth which abounds round the dwellings of the poor’, wrote Hector Gavin. He added that

An infinite extent of demoralization is produced. None of the decencies common even to the lowest stage of civilization can be maintained; and the dwellers in such scenes naturally become regardless of the feelings and happiness of others, and intensely sensual and selfish.… It is from these wretched dens, in these neglected districts, that there live from birth a population out of which come pickpockets and thieves, degradation and profligacy, and our most atrocious criminals. (Unhealthiness of London, pp. 39–40)