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5
The subject of overcrowding (to which I have previously
frequently alluded) having engaged the attention of other
parishes, and one of them having issued a circular informing
landlords that summary proceedings will be taken in all
instances were overcrowding is detected, induces me again to
bring this subject prominently before you. Great and most
successful efforts have been made to secure an efficient system
of drainage by abolishing all cesspools, substituting pipe for
brick drainage, and, as far as possible, preventing the egress
of foul air by the general adaption of traps, and this has had
its attendant benefits, but much more is required. In these
Parishes overcrowding exists to a fearful extent, and it therefore
becomes a matter of the most serious moment to determine
whether the Board can interfere in those instances where rooms
are dangerously overcrowded. The required amount of air for
each person is 400 cubic feet, and I feel assured in many
instances the Poor do not have 100; it consequently requires
no force of argument to prove how pernicious that system must
be which renders both the young and the old, whose blood is
poisoned by breathing such vitiated air, especially susceptible
and equally incapable of resisting the influence of disease.
The subject of overcrowding is therefore one of the most serious
import, and will require great vigilance on the part of the
Sanitary Inspectors in detecting those localities where such
evils exist. It will become necessary to revisit the greater
portion of the Parishes, and without favour report all instances
where the required capacity is deficient. The appended
examples of overcrowding and indiscriminate intermingling of
the sexes, are a fair example of many others—the cases have
been casually met with, and afford a tolerably clear elucidation
of the mysteries which have hitherto enshrouded the causes of
the large infantile mortality existing in these Parishes.