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12
HOUSE VISITATION.
Since the 6th of February upwards of 300 houses have been visited.
The drains of 53 of them have been connected with the sewer; in
140 cases where the houses were not sufficiently near a sewer for the
Vestry to insist upon a communication being formed, the drains have
been improved, and made as nearly perfect as circumstances would
permit—23 are in course of alteration. Many houses have also
undergone necessary repairs through the interference of the Officers of
the Vestry. In addition to these visitations several nuisances of
importance have been corrected.
TOWER HAMLETS' CEMETERY.
Some matters, also, of considerable moment, and seriously affecting
the public health, have been altered, through the readiness of the
proprietors of premises in which nuisances existed, or offensive trades
were carried on, to perform that which was reasonable and likely to
remove the cause of complaint. The suggestions which your Medical
Officer has offered, have been promptly adopted in many instances, and
with perfect success. In the Tower Hamlets' Cemetery a considerable
source of annoyance, and perhaps of disease, existed, through pumping
the contents of the drains belonging to the Cemetery to the sewer
which is at a higher level. I was informed, that the effluvium which
proceeded from the building where the process was carried on, was
generally attributed to the proper drainage of the soil of the Cemetery
itself, which was supposed to have become impregnated with offensive
matter, from the immense number of bodies which had been there
interred. This, however, on careful examination, proved to be erroneous,
and the source of the stench was traced to the pollution of the
soil by the refuse from the Great Central Gas Company's Works, which
found its way through the contiguous soil, in so unobstructed a manner,
that its offensive character remained unaltered. The directors of the
Tower Hamlets' Cemetery, upon application by your Medical Officer,
have, as far as they are concerned, removed the nuisance, by adapting
the pumping drainage from a drain in a different quarter, where the
fluid, by filtration, is rendered nearly free from every description of
impurity and odour.