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in the improved health of themselves and their families, and would he as anxious to
live in well-drained, clean, and respectable places, as they are now indifferent about it.
In several of the worst localities I have found many rooms, and even whole houses,
recently deserted, and have been told by the neighbours that the tenants had left on
account of the vile state into which the places had fallen.
It is to be hoped, that, in most cases, landlords will make the required improvements,
without obliging the Vestry to have recourse to compulsion; they will thus
save themselves both trouble and expense.
I may now mention some of the places in which I consider a house to house
visitation is required. In the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road—Mortimer
Market, Pancras Street, New Inn Yard, Phillips Gardens, Southampton Court,
and Holbrook Place; near the Hampstead Eoad—Eden Street, Henry Street,
Pitzroy Eow, Cumberland Court, and some parts of Mary Street and Mary Place;
in Gray's Inn District—Compton and Poplar Places, Brunswick Grove, Brunswick
Buildings, Drapers Place, Caroline Place, Cromer Street, and James Street.
In the neighbourhood of the Great Northern Railway and the Imperial Gas
Works, there are a number of houses quite unfit for human habitation. I may
mention especially Scalesbury Place, Vernums Buildings, and Wellers Place. In
Pancras Place, Pancras Road, and throughout Agar Town, the paving, lighting,
and drainage, as well as the general condition of the houses, require the serious
attention of the Vestry. In Winchester Terrace there is an open ditch running by
the side of the railway wall, which receives all the drainage of the houses; this
ought to be at once covered. As might be expected, low fever is a frequent visitor
in these houses.
Near the King's Road, Waits Place requires attention; and near Perdinand
Street, Camden Town, there is Little Charles Place; and in Kentish Town, Alfred
Place.
In Somers Town, there are Brill Cottages and Crescent, Denton Street, and
many others that require notice.
These are a few amongst many. I have taken them as specimens, selecting
several from each of the different districts. I do not mean to say that these are the
worst in the parish, but they are so bad as to demand serious attention. In some
of them are overflowing cesspools, choked drains, and privies, unfit for use; sometimes
these last are in the cellar, or under the staircase, and in the foulest possible
condition, filling the houses with the most offensive and noxious effluvia.
In some houses, and even sets of houses, there is no water supply; and in scarcely
any of them is attention paid to the trapping of drains, proper pavement of courts,
and general cleanliness and repair of the houses.
I believe there are some persons who would defer a house to house visitation until
the outbreak of an epidemic. Such persons do not appear to know, that, by
adopting these measures now, we may entirely, or to a great extent, avert the
epidemic; and that the conditions of house drainage, constantly in healthy seasons operating to the injury of health as really, though not
quite so apparently, as during the prevalence of epidemic disease.
It should not be forgotten that the existence of such places as those we have
mentioned is attended with danger, not only to those who live in them, but also to
those who occupy the better classes of houses in the neighbourhood ; for the disease
which has been nursed in the low alley may be propagated by contagion, or by the
atmosphere, to the sqnare or the terrace.
There is one way in which contagious and infectious diseases are propagated, to
which I wish especially to call attention. I refer to the Street Cabs and Omnibuses;
they are at present in the habit of conveying to and from the Hospitals patients
affected with small pox, and other infectious diseases, and then immediately afterwards
may be used by persons in health; and thus diffuse the most frightful diseases to an
incalculable extent. The same remark is applicable to the parish conveyance, used
for the removal of paupers, both healthy and diseased.
The only way in which this can be prevented is, to provide public vehicles for the
conveyance of all persons afflicted with infectious diseases: these, I think, should
be provided by the Vestry, and they might be let out for hire to those who could
afford to pay for them. Then it should be rendered penal for any cabman knowingly
to convey such persons. The parish should have two conveyances, at least, for the