View report page

75
of the costly system of main sewerage constructed for this
Sub-district, through permitting the worst kind of filth to be
still hid away in cesspools, or to be exposed in open ditches,
will have to be greatly deplored, and by none perhaps so
much as by the creator of this nuisance himself. The
continued refusal on the part of the proprietor of the
Priory Establishment to employ the only available means
of abating the nuisance complained of, and the preference
this gentleman seems to give to the hazardous proceeding of
maintaining an extended cesspool or open ditch, at the
great risk of inducing disease amongst his patients, his
neighbours, and his own family, is, to say the least of it,
perfectly inexplicable. If there was no alternative but to
use this pestiferous ditch into which to pour the excreta
of upwards of a hundred residents of the establishment,
and if there was no properly constructed main sewer within
a convenient distance of the entrance to the premises, the
proceeding would wear a very different aspect, but as the
matter stands it perpetuates an evil which the law,
if it cannot be made strong enough to overcome, should at
at all events be slow to encourage.
As some slight set off to the unsatisfactory termination
of the case I have here ventured to comment upon,
the inhabitants of this Sub-district, as indeed those of all
other localities, have to be congratulated upon the judgment
lately pronounced by the Court of Queen's Bench
in respect to the making up of the first roads and footways
of newly-formed streets. Hitherto all has been
confusion and doubt with regard to the bearing of the
existing law upon such disputed matters, and hence many
owners of new house property, relying too much on the
voluntary action of Boards and Vestries to relieve them
of the first costs of road making, &c., have so neglected their
approaches as to constitute them nuisances of the very
worst description. In my Reports and Returns for some
years past reference has been frequently made to the
unsatisfactory condition of the Disraeli road, and of some