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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1871—72.
11
You are aware that the Metropolis Water Act, 1871, is in operation. A constant
water supply may now be ensured by taking the proper steps. The demand for it must
proceed from the Metropolitan Board of Works to the Water Companies; but how the
Metropolitan Board of Works is to become acquainted with the want is not stated. Any
Company may object to the demand by presenting a memorial to the Board of Trade in
Which is set forth their objections. The Board of Trade may make such order in reference
thereto, as to them shall seem just.
Any Company may object to give a constant supply until the regulations provided for
by this Act are made and are in operation; or, if more than one-fifth in such district are
not provided with the prescribed fittings. The prescribed fittings include communication
pipes, and also all pipes, cocks, cisterns and other apparatus used for supply of water by a
Company to a consumer.
Every owner or occupier will have to provide the fittings, and keep them in repair;
failing to do this, the Company, if they think fit, may provide such fittings; the owner
or occupier paying the expenses incurred.
Any Company may repeal or alter any of the regulations made, or make new regulalations
instead of any of the same, under the sanction of the Board of Trade.
Penalties are fixed on Company and Consumer, for non-compliance with the regulations
of the Act.
The 33rd clause will directly affect the Vestry, as they will have to act, should necessity
require. It sets forth, that the absence in any premises of the fittings shall be a
nuisance, within the section 11 and sections 12-19 of the Nuisances Removal Act, 1855;
and that nuisance shall be presumed to be such as to render the premises unfit for human
habitation.
One advance in sanitary improvement is becoming manifest, and that is, the conversion
of Church yards into places of health and ornament, instead of places of disorder and
neglect; and, as formerly, of disease and disgust, when the dead were shovelled up as fast
as-they were shovelled down, and a pestiferous miasma spread abroad injurious alike to
worshipper, visitor, and the neighbourhood. The Churchwardens and Overseers deserve the
gratitude of the Parish, for the steps they have taken to improve the graveyard of St.
George's Church. Money so spent is wisely spent, the result exercising in many ways a
wide and beneficent influence. When a Churchyard is " a place grown all over with thorns,
and nettles cover the face thereof; " with tombstones broken and tottering to their fall and
heaps of disorder everywhere, it is not an object to be desired nor pleasant to look upon. On
the contrary, when cleanly and orderly kept, and planted with flowers and shrubs, it serves
as a public example worthy of imitation in the various details of life ; for where there is
cleanliness and order, there is health and comfort.
In connexion with this subject, I may inform you that there were sixty-one boxes
filled with human bones removed from beneath the Chapel which stood in London Road,
and just around. These boxes it is estimated contained upon the average thirty bodies in
each; so that 1830 were removed from that narrow space of ground and conveyed to
Woking Cemetery, where they were again committed to the earth, and one may hope finally.