Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Sanitation, Public Health, Pollution, Natural Law, Supernaturalism, Disease

Institutions mentioned:

St Pancras Poor Law Union

    Laments the shameful conditions of the workhouses in this London parish. Notes how paupers 'lie, / Not quite like pigs— for in a sty / There still is room and air' and unlike pigs, some paupers have to sleep 'on the naked floor'. Observes that the air inhaled is 'foul with carbonic gas which surges from beneath, / Where things unutterable seethe, / Gas yet more horrible to breathe, And stronger yet to kill'. Condemns St Pancras as a place 'Worse than Calcutta's hole' and wishes that 'Saints' could arrest 'Nature's laws' and stop typhus and cholera.