James Hills Evidence
Opposed private bill committee evidence on the Sunderland Improvement works. James Hills, the local ironmonger, gave evidence in favour of the introduction of the Bill, despite its possible repercussions on his business.
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James Hills Evidence
1847
Parliamentary Archives HL/PO/PB/5/13/10
Transcript
A: ...occupied by vagrants. In some of these houses the deposit of manure which was kept for a long period until there was sufficient for a cart to take it away was most offensive. They keep it in their cellar dwellings in order to realize a sum of money upon it, and in one of the houses which I visited they had it deposited in a place at the back of ht house, and it was up to the top, and actually oozing down underneath a bed in which a man lay ill that my attention happened to be called to
Q: Do you give that as an isolated instance of filth and wretchedness or is it a fair representation as to the accumulation of filth of the condition of the poorer classes in Sunderland