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9
III. In the next place, we give the details of the
various cases in which the Local Authority has been called
upon to interfere, either by ourselves, or in consequence of
the complaints of any of the ratepayers.
Upper Brook Street, No. 56. During the repair of the
sewer in this street, the bottom of which has been made new,
and during the removal of the sediment, the water in the
pump of this house became turbid, and was offensive. This
is one instance more of the unsafeness of the surface
wells.
Shepherd's Court, Upper Brook Street, No. 1, was reported
as very dirty and dilapidated; the kitchen occupied
by four persons, and the old house drain broken in, and
yielding a stream of offensive effluvia just outside the window.
After very troublesome correspondence and visits to
the agents and attornies in the city, nothing was done, till a
summons was taken out, to which the solicitor to the owner
appeared on 1st February, 1859, at Marlborough Street, and
gave an undertaking to execute the necessary works, which
have since been completed satisfactorily.
Berkeley Street, Piccadilly, No. 5. This is an instance of
the misery that may be occasioned to the occupants of even
first-class houses, from slovenly and unworkman-like drainage
arrangements on the part of their neighbours, and from that
strange ignorance or indifference as to the poisonous properties
of sewer gases, which allows people to fancy that they
may cause their fellow-creatures to breathe these offensive
compounds day after day, and yet do them no real injury.
When some stables were built and new water-closets constructed
in Dover Yard a few years since, the water-closet
drainage, instead of being conveyed into the public sewer by
proper pipes, was turned into ah old, jointed, cast-iron rainwater
pipe, which ran down in a chase or groove within