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7
Water-waste preventers erected 1
Area gratings, cellar flaps, &c., repaired 12
Cellars used as dwellings discontinued for such use 13
Animals kept in four premises so as to be a nuisance—removed 26
Dung and other offensive matter removed 8
Trades-nuisances abated 2
The cow-houses in the District, 24, the slaughter-houses, 39, and the
bake-houses, 94 ia number, have been visited during the Quarter.
House Accommodation for the Poor.
I have shown in the first page of this Report, that the rate of mortality
in this District, including all the deaths in the London Hospital, and excluding
those of residents dying in the other hospitals in London and elsewhere,
is at the rate of 32 per 1,000, estimating the population at 76,000.
This is a very large mortality, and is considerably above that of the whole
Metropolis, which is about 24 per 1,000 annually.
This high rate of mortality is a question of very great importance, and
is one which, more or less, engages the attention of all persons who hold
those public appointments which have for their object the amelioration of
pauperism, and sickness, and the carrying out of the sanitary laws for the
suppression of nuisances. It is well known that much has been done by
Guardians, by Vestries, and by District Boards, to improve the localities
of the poor, as regards their sanitary condition—in organizing a regular and
systematic inspection of the poorer class of houses, in endeavouring to
abate the overcrowding of rooms, and in obtaining for the poorer inhabitants
cleaner and better ventilated dwellings, and better drainage. Such, however,
is the wretched condition of many of the tenements in some parts of
Loudon—and especially in this District—that the mere white-washing of walls
and ceilings, improving the water supply, providing better drainage, laying
down good pavement in the fronts and backs of the houses, and diminishing
the overcrowding of the rooms, are not sufficient to render a large class of
the houses, now, as it were, jammed together, and without proper ventilatior,
fit for habitation. The only thing, therefore, that can be done to improve
the sanitary and physical condition of the people who inhabit these dens, is
to pull them down, and so compel the inhabitants to move into more healthy
localities; and, from my experience, I can state that little or no inconvenience
to the poor will be the result of such a proceeding.
It has been well and truly said that the question of human habitations
is the greatest problem that sanitarians and statesmen have to solve; for it is
in these close, filthy, and ill-ventilated places, that disease, crime, and pauperism
are generated and maintained. Money, in large amounts, is annually spent
in widening thoroughfares, and in adding to the splendour of this vast city,
but as yet nothing has been done on a scale commensurate with its necessity
to improve the dwellings of the poor.