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obedienee. Rubbish of all kinds has been carted into it during the whole year, and
matters still more objectionable have on various occasions been deposited there. It
is perfectly clear that the law must be amended before these disgraceful proceedings
can be brought to an end.
TRADE NUISANCES.
19. But little has been done during the year in the matter of nuisances arising out
of trades. In one or two instances where complaints have been made, I have communicated
either personally or by letter with the parties complained of, and the cause
of complaint has been done away. For the suppression of tha nuisances proceeding
from the group of manufactories at Belle Isle, the sitting magistrate at the Clerkenwell
Police Court has repeatedly recommended indictment at the sessions; for, notwithstanding
that some means of arresting the offensive emanations have been
generally adopted, and as a consequence the nuisances are not so intolerable as they
were three years ago, there still remains such an amount as to inconvenience the
inhabitants of the surrounding district. This recommendation met with the concurrence
of the Vestry. The selection of a case for trial arose in the ordinary course
of events out of the first official complaint of a Belle Isle nuisance made at the office
subsequently to the resolution of the Vestry. On this complaint an information was
first laid at the Police Court against Mr. Schweizef, the varnish manufacturer, under
the provisions of the Parish Act. A difficulty having arisen as to the applicability of
this statute, the magistrate again suggested the propriety of an indictment; and as the
counsel retained by the parish on that occasion advised the same course, the recommendation
to indict was adopted by the Vestry. The burden of providing evidence
such as will satisfy a jury now lies, where it always ought to have lain, with the complainants.
It should suffice them in such a case as this, that the Vestry is prepared
to advocate their cause as that of the parish generally, if they will themselves take
the trouble to ascertain unquestionably, and to the satisfaction of your legal advisers,
the particular establishment which occasions their discomfort.
EPIDEMIC SORE-THROAT AND DIPHTHERIA.
20. In order to be in a position to present as complete a history as possible of this
epidemic malady as it has occurred in Islington, I have tabulated all the cases which
proved fatal in the parish from January, 1858, up to the close of the first quarter of
1859. The Table which I have thus formed relates to 80 cases.
21. Assuming the presence of the peculiar exudation upon the interior of the throat
as the characteristic sign by which true diphtheria is to be distinguished from the
other forms which epidemic sore-throat has presented, I have taken the pains to
ascertain by careful inquiry in how many of the 80 fatal cases this symptom was
present. I obtained the information I desired in 67 instances. In the remaining 13
I failed to do so: most of them were the earlier cases in 1858. I propose, then, to
divide the 80 cases into three classes:—Class 1. Those in which I have obtained
satisfactory evidence of the presence of the exudation, or in which I saw it myself—
Class 2. Those which were certified as deaths from Diphtheria by the medical attendant,
but in which I have obtained no particulars of the appearances in the throat, and
Class 3. Those in which I am assured by the medical attendant that the exudation was
absent. These last cases were returned as deaths from "Tonsillitis," "Quinsey,"
"Gangrenous Quinsey," Inflammatory Sore-throat," "Gangrenous Sore-throat," and