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intercepting chamber with channelled floor and trap; (2) The ventilation of the
drains; and (3) The disconnection of the drains inside the building from those on the
outside.
No proposal, however, was made to remedy the leaky drains.
It was satisfactory, however, to find, although the Medical Officer of the Schools
combated the notion that Diphtheria could arise from these defects, that he recommended
his Board to carry out the work necessary to sever the drains from the
building.
Up to this point everything had been done on the initiation of your Medical Officer
of Health, for it was vacation time, and your Public Health Committee was not sitting.
However, on the 9th October, a full report of everything that had been undertaken
was submitted to your Committee, who entirely approved of his action
At this meeting the question of relaying the drains was carefully considered, and as
the evidence clearly showed (1st) that the drains were not discharging their contents,
but in fact allowed large quantities of soil to accumulate in them, and (2nd) that they
were leaking to a serious extent, and were contaminating the subsoil, it appeared to your
Committee absolutely essential that it should insist on the drains being made perfect.
Your Committee felt that if it did not insist on this necessary work being executed in
the case of a School, at which some 1,200 children attended daily, although such
School was managed by so powerful a body as the School Board for London, it could
not with any consistency require private individuals to relay faulty drains attached to
their houses. Your Committee, therefore, passed the following resolution:—"That
the School Board for London be required to reconstruct the drainage of the Yerbury
Road School."
This resolution was duly forwarded on the 11th October, but the School Board
still declined to accede to the requirements of your Committee, and, therefore, at its
meeting on the 29th October, a statutory notice was ordered to be served on that body,
requiring it to take up the defective 9-inch drains, and replace them with 6-inch pipes.
In the hope that litigation might be avoided, the Medical Officer of Health, before
serving the statutory notice, addressed another communication to the Board, in which
he said his Committee was very anxious that it should not come into conflict with the
School Board over this matter, but as it seemed to be of the utmost importance that
there should not be the slightest flaw in the drainage of the Board Schools, it trusted
that its requirements would be carried out without a resort to legal proceedings, which
his Committee was most desirous of avoiding, and that the Board would reconsider
its decision, and execute the necessary works.
To this communication, a reply, dated 2nd November, was received to the effect
that the Works Committee was not prepared to comply with the requirements of the
Vestry that the drains from the closets should be relaid.
The statutory notice was, therefore, immediately served on the School Board,
calling on it to carry out the necessary work.