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for deviating from the unassuming routine of house-inspection. Periodical
visits have been made to cow-houses, slaughter-houses, and to premises
where trades are carried on that cause annoyance to neighbours. A partial
investigation has also been made into the condition of the Bakehouses of the
district, and of the men employed in them. Ten or a dozen bakehouses, representing
different types of these establishments, were visited, and a multitude of details
were noted. As far as the enquiry extended, it led to the conclusion that no
special interference of the Board was required for the improvement of the
bakeries, beyond what ordinarily sufficed in the case of other houses. And
among the journeymen employed, very little disposition was found to complain
of their relation to their employers or to the public. Their work habitually encroached
largely on the night, but there was hardly ever an occasion when they
were unable to take, if they chose it, seven to nine hours' rest out of the twentyfour.
A part of their work was in the open air. The really deleterious part of
the business appears to be the inhaling of gas-light vapours and of particles of
flour. The bakeries are generally so hot that in any weather plenty of external
air might be admitted by day and night, and if this were contrived judiciously,
it would be the best remedy for these injurious inhalations.
Complaints having again arisen of the condition of the Burial vaults at the
cemetery in the Old St. Pancras-road, they were again inspected by Mr. Grainger
and myself, in December last. As a school assembled in the rooms above, it
appeared to us desirable that more thorough precautions should be taken than
had before been considered necessary, to preclude all possibility of harm if a
coffin should burst in these vaults. By direction of the Home Secretary, the
coffins were accordingly well covered with sand and charcoal, and the apertures
to the vault bricked up. There appears to be now no probability of any of the
burial vaults belonging to St. Giles's ever being heard of again as a source of
nuisance or ill-health.
The remainder of the sanitary work of the year has consisted entirely in
the removal of various causes of disease from the dwelling houses of the district.
The nature and the numbers of the improvements that have been made are seen
on the following page, where the localities in which the improvements were
effected are also exhibited.
All the figures in this Table have an interest for those who are charged
with the sanitary welfare of the district, but for special comment a few only
need to be singled out. Over-crowding of rooms occupied by single families
is stated to have been abated in twenty-one instances. In none of these cases
was an appeal to the magistrate necessary. The Inspector uses a steady vigilance
in detecting this most important cause of ill-health, and keeps landlords
and others informed of the law on the subject. For this purpose a handbill,
drawn up in a former year, is still distributed with good effect. In connexion
with this subject, a fear may be expressed that inaccuracies have crept into the
recent census, through the information of house-owners as to the law of overcrowding
being in advance of their inclination to obey it.
The underground kitchens of Dudley-street and elsewhere, have formed the
subject of proceedings on two chief occasions during the year. The owners of
the houses find it worth their while to take the chance of an occasional fine in
consideration of the profit they are regularly gaining by the illegal occupation
of their kitchens. In the course of the present year, (1861), however, very
decisive verdicts of the magistrates have tended to discourage these speculations.
The Board of Works has, indeed, thought proper to remit the fines that were
imposed, but on the distinct understanding that no such clemency is to be
expected for the future.