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formerly received the sewage of both houses, was 16 ft. 6 in.
deep, 6 ft. 6 in. long, and 4 ft. 6 in. wide, and contained 10
cart-loads of soil. These were carted off, and the cavity filled
with dry brick rubbish; the old saturated brickwork in the
neighbourhood was also cut away and replaced by new; and
here we may mention, as a practical fact, that brickwork
once saturated with urine or sewage seems incurable. Stink
and sweat it will; and the only remedy is to cut it away and
build it afresh. In this case the remarkable ignorance and
carelessness of workmen are well shown. An old cesspool
left to save the trouble of removing it: a door papered up to
hide it! The long number of years during which these houses
were occupied as an hotel, and the degree to which the inmates
must have suffered from stench is noticeable enough;
and, as a crowning fact, it must be said that this old cesspool
still received the overflow-pipe from a closet in a house in
Bennett-street, which kept its contents wet and stirred up,
and which doubtless acted as a channel for the conveyance
of gases into this house also.
(2) Oxford-street.—A new house had been built, and
the owner neglected to provide gutters and pipes for carrying
away the rain-water. Hence it came down in floods
upon the houses on either side, making certain rooms very
damp. The owner was told that he would be summoned if
the nuisance were not abated.
(3) A new kind of nuisance consists in slacking lime in
an unceilinged cellar below an inhabited room, so that the
hot fumes and steam go up through the chinks of the boards.
(4) Three houses in Curzon-street, poisoned by three cesspools,
which received the greater part of their sewage, and
leaked over into cellars of Messrs. East. An enormous
amount of sewage must have soaked into the earth during
the last century; and huge volumes of foetid gases into the
houses.