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sive smell in the vaults of his church, which was immediately
visited and inspected. On entering the building a bad smell
was perceived, especially in that part of the church where
the hot-water pipes penetrated the floor. On descending the
stairs leading to the stove room and to the vaults below,
a noxious odour was emitted. Dr. Aldis inspected the
vaults and found stagnant water extending nearly the
whole length of the church, and emitting a most offensive
effluvium. The water was 6 feet wide in some parts,
and a yard wide in others, and 3 inches deep. At the west
end of the vaults, where it was welling up, the nuisance became
so intense that the gases caused a sense of suffocation,
rendering it necessary for any one near to escape from them
as speedily as possible. The ground was black and smelt
strongly of ammonia, from its being thoroughly saturated
with the offensive water. Boards had been placed over the
ventilating openings on the outside of the church. Hence
the vaults became converted into a kind of blind sewer, the
pestilential gases escaping only through the aperture for the
hot-water pipes into the interior of the building, so that a
person standing near the communion table suffered from
nausea. It appeared that the nuisance arose from obstructed
drainage in the following manner. 6-inch surface drain
pipes, laid down "dry," extended from the western to the
eastern extremity of the church, and communicated with the
water closet, from whence a pipe entered the shaft, connected
by a drain with the sewer, from which the water escaped into
the vaults, and could not return owing to the obstruction. The
church was immediately closed from the public by the churchwardens
at the wish of the Medical Officer of Health, and men
were engaged to throw down lime, and to remove the obstruction,
so as to allow the water to flow away. The surface drain
pipes were then taken away to cut off all communication with
the closet, and to prevent a recurrence of the nuisance. The