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21
with these gases, though very commonly in such a diffused state as
not to be appreciable to the senses.
The gases generated in the sewers are also no doubt operating
very injuriously on your population.
The present mode of ventilating the sewers cannot but be defective; the generated gases being lighter than the atmosphere, escape
by their own elasticity into the streets, and thereby contaminate to
a very injurious extent the surrounding atmosphere. There are
many methods of getting rid of the gases thus produced, but none
more simple than the carrying pipes, at certain intervals, from the
sewers to the tops of the houses, which operation could be carried
out without entailing a heavy expense on the ratepayers of the
District.
On reviewing the amount of sanitary work done during the past
year, I find that 367 houses have been drained into the sewers, and
consequently a corresponding number of cesspools and bogholes
have been done away with, and the animal and decomposable
matter which previously was allowed to ferment in those pits, and
to discharge into the atmosphere the most noxious and deadly
vapours, is now carried into the river Thames, and there diluted to
such an extent as to become comparatively innocuous.
During the past summer, not only the Greenwich District Board
but other Boards in the Metropolitan Districts, passed resolutions
that no houses should be drained into the sewers during the hot
weather.
When it is borne in mind that since the Local Management Act
came into operation, 1739 houses in this District alone have been
drained into the Thames, and a corresponding number have also
been drained throughout the 40 Metropolitan Districts, it cannot be
a matter of surprise that the river Thames should have reached such
a putrid condition as during the past summer; and in all probability
such a state of things will continue to exist during each succeeding
summer, varying, of course, according as the temperature is high or
low, until the intercepting drainage works have been completed.
Although it was shown that a certain increase of sickness prevailed
on the banks of the river during those months in some districts, still
it was a remarkable fact that, throughout the whole period, when