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55
that the mortality has been reduced from 26.2 to 22.8
per 1,000, showing thereby, that a saving of 12,178
lives is effected all over the metropolis annually.
The annual visitation and examination of all the
slaughter-houses and cow-houses in this sub-district have
been duly made, not only once, but in some cases repeatedly.
The Government regulations regarding the
former are excellent, and although they press hard on the
occupier in the first instance, they ultimately prove a great
advantage and lessen expense in time. The new regulations
as to dairies, cowsheds, and milk-shops (see Order of
1879), also are very good. These places require constant
supervision, else they become a source of great evil to the
community.
We had a large number of pig nuisances removed
(see Table VI. in the Appendix) during the past year.
Of nuisances they are amongst the greatest, giving the
most trouble, and constantly recurring.
It is now more than twenty years ago since I first
pointed out that the water taken from the Thames could
not be made, by any known process, fit for human consumption.
Col. Bolton, Water Examiner to the Government,
has stated, that in some instances he has seen it resemble
pea-soup, showing how very difficult it is, if not
impossible, for the water companies to make this water
by any process whatever fit and proper for human consumption.
It exceeds all human endurance, that we should have
to drink this filthy water of the Thames, that receives
the sewage from and above Oxford down to the Company's
intake, in all that course winding its way through
and receiving the drainage from lands highly cultivated
and manured with offal and refuse matters, &c.
Mr. Bateman, a water engineer of great experience,
who constructed the Manchester and the Glasgow