View report page

large number of the smaller sewers under the control of the Works
Department are defective, being badly laid, and as much as 10-12ths
choked ; he instanced cases in which these defective sewers had
caused the basements of the houses served by them to be flooded
out; he gave chapter and verse for his statements, and these were in the
main uncontradicted. The gentleman who is responsible for these
statements, also expressed his surprise at the failure of the Medical
Officer and Chief Inspector to call the attention of the Council to the
condition of these sewers.
This indictment is a very serious one, for sound well laid private
drains, communicating with elongated cesspools (for such these
sewers of deposit really are), are merely contrivances for laying on
sewer air to the houses they serve. I grant that many of these
private drains are trapped and ventilated, but the gas generated by
such a mass of festering filth as that contained in a sewer of deposit
will force any trap, and the health of persons breathing air contaminated
with such emanations must suffer.
Moreover these leaky sewers permit percolation of their semi-liquid
contents at every joint, thereby saturating the adjacent earth with
filth ; the constant alteration in the level of the ground water pumps
the contaminated air contained in the dry upper strata through anything
less solid than a concrete floor. Now very few of the houses
in the Borough are so provided, whilst the backyards, forecourts and
public streets are impermeable owing to concrete pavements, so
that the ground air, having no other vent, must find its way into the
basements of the dwellings, to the manifest deterioration of the health
of the occupants.
The remedy for the condition of things detailed above is obvious,
but it does not lie within the purview of the Public Health
Department.
I have the honour to be, Sir and Gentlemen,
Your most obedient servant,
. Via/Iq .
Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green