View report page

84
Asylum has from the commencement of his occupation
"done wrong" in claiming the right to send a larger
quanity of sewage matter into the ditch, through channels
that were originally constructed to carry perhaps less
than one-sixth part only of the present flow.
It may be within the recollection of those present at
the earlier hearings of this case in the Police Court, that
the proprietor of the asylum caused to be tendered a considerable
amount of evidence in proof of the extreme
healthfulness of his establishment, and of the very marked
absence of fatal sickness amongst the inmates. No one
could venture to dispute this testimony at the time, for it
was ascertained to be perfectly true; but it is a little
singular that, during the past year (1874), the reputation
of the establishment, of being an unusually healthy one of
its kind, has somewhat suffered by the return of 9 deaths
to the local registrar, out of a number of inmates said to
amount (inclusive of patients, attendants, servants, &c.) to
about a hundred. One death then to every 11 of the
inmates cannot be said to be a very low rate, and is calculated
to give rise to a feeling, in many persons, that other
influences than those within the establishment may have
operated to produce such a result. Be this, however, as
it may, an alleged lowness of the death-rate in this institution
can no longer be pleaded as an excuse for maintaining
a pestiferous open ditch in close proximity to it, and
almost equally as close to the village of Priest Bridge
and to a part of Mortlake. That eventually this great
nuisance will be entirely removed few can doubt; but
sanitary legislation is proverbially slow, though it is,
nevertheless, pretty sure to, sooner or later, overtake and
deal effectually with such cases as the one in question.*
* Since the above was written, an intimation has been given that it
had been agreed that the proprietor of the Asylum should consent to an
injunction against himself to restrain him from continuing the nuisance,
and that an order to that effect would be made on him by the Court of
Chancery. If this be so, it will be a very satisfactory termination of the
dispute.