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17
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1860.

A number of houses forming Potier-place, and Noel's-court, Bermondsey, have
been removed for the purpose of erecting' a school. These houses were of the worst
description, having no yards, nor even windows behind, so that ventilation was impossible.
I am sorry to say that there are numbers of similar houses still standing, and occupied as
these were, by the most ignorant and degraded of our population: a class living almost in
the neglect of laws human and divine; and as heedless about the present and the future as
the very heathen themselves, for whom such a vast amount of sympathy is claimed, and
machinery set in motion, to better their condition. Besides the school, there is a small
space left which may serve as a play-ground; a purpose becoming imperatively necessary.
It would appear, from the building of so many churches, that they are considered as a
specific for the evils which now afflict us, and which are constantly claiming our attention.
I would seriously ask, What avails such a remedy? The poor cannot go into them; will
not go into them; and if they did, what benefit would be likely to follow? For are they
not utterly ignorant of the very elements of Christianity, and even of the name of its
founder, except to add emphasis to an oath? In many of our localities, I believe moral
influence would be powerless. And here is the time and place for the sanatory reformer:
here lies before him, plain enough, the work which he has to do, and ho must give him-