Posted with permission of the transcriber, Ann Selchick. Geo SICKNESS & POVERTY IN Nineteenth Century Whitehaven. # 58. COURTS AND PASSAGES IN CONFINED PLACES. ______ There are 937 houses in courts and passages, more or less confined; most of them are entered from the street by a covered passage, seldom more than three feet wide, and 7 feet in height, frequently not more than 2 feet, nine inches wide. Then there is a second passage round a block of houses erected in what was originally a court, and this I have measured and found did not exceed, in some instances, 2 feet, 9 inches in width. It was quite impossible for the sun to shine into many of these places, and as the upper ends are generally blocked up with an ash midden, there can be no proper ventilation; if a strong wind should blow over the place it spread the fined dust from the refuse heap through the houses; during wet, the ashes and dirt are washed down over the surface. In some of these places I found privies, curiously contrived under stairs and bedrooms, and close adjoining the living rooms; but, in a vast majority of instances, such a place does not exist. There is no water supply but from fountains at a distance and the pumps in a few instances, most of which were broken or otherwise out of order. About 6,000 persons inhabit these courts and passages. ________ To be continued.