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To abate overcrowding, 16 notices have been issued, and have been effectual,
without resorting to the Police Magistrates' authority.
There are 104 licensed slaughterhouses; besides these, to 15 places for
which application was made, a license was refused. During the year, 5 butchers
have been summoned and fined for slaughtering in unlicensed places. The
Magistrates at the Special Sessions decided that no slaughter-house can be
established, or newly carried on within forty feet from any public way, or
within fifty feet from any dwelling-house, in accordance with the provisions of
the Metropolitan Building Acts (18 and 19 Yict., c. 122, sec. 109, and 7 and 8
Vict., c. 84, sec. 55).
The two Inspectors have been very actively engaged during the year in carrying
out the improvements above alluded to. In addition to the investigation of all
complaints made to the Sanitary Committee by any inhabitant of the Parish, they
have to inspect and enquire into the condition of all houses where such cases of
disease as I consider preventible, whether fatal or not, occur; they have, as frequently
as possible to inspect all licensed slaughter-houses, to be on the watch for
butchers killing in places not licensed; also to inspect all cowhouses from time
to time; also all mews and wharves used to receive manure ; they have to visit
sausage-makers shops, and the street markets, to see what kinds of provisions are
offered for sale, and, if necessary, to seize the articles and take them before a
magistrate, that he may condemn them to be destroyed. They have to write out
notices and summonses, to serve the notices, to attend at Police Courts to give
evidence against those parties whom the Committee order them to summon.
When notices have been served on the persons by whose act or default the
nuisance exists, they have, when the time allowed on the notice has expired, to
revisit the place to ascertain whether the works ordered have been commenced; if
they are commenced they have to watch them during their progress, to see that
they are properly performed; if this portion of their work be not done well, all
the rest is useless, and often worse than useless, because the evil frequently is
not at all removed, but merely rendered less obvious, and a feeling of false
security is induced. I could mention numberless instances where cesspools
were being covered over without being emptied; where drains were being very
indifferently patched instead of thoroughly renewed, where the communication
with the sewer was not properly established, where the fall in the drains was
being left too slight, where bad pipes were being put in instead of good ones,
where defective brick drains were left instead of stoneware pipes, which had
been ordered ; and it has only been by the vigilance of the Inspectors that these
and similar jobs have been detected. In addition to the out-door work, the
Inspectors have to keep a record of what they do, and books to register the
results of their notices, summonses, &c.
When it is remembered that the Parish is in area 2716 acres, and in circumference
more than 16 miles, that it has a population of nearly 200,000, that
it has at least 21,000 inhabited houses, that many localities in the parish are
most densely populated by the very poor and those who disregard what is
required for the maintenance of health, it will surely be admitted that there is
enough to engage two Inspectors of Nuisances.*
There are many parts of the Parish from which low forms of disease are
never absent; they are densely crowded, some houses containing 8 or 10 families,
or 50 individuals ; some of these people have become so used to filth that
they appear to prefer it to cleanliness ; at any rate they have not the energy to
*St. Pancras is in population one-fourteenth of the whole Metropolis. In the various districts
included in the Metropolis Local Management Act, excluding St. Pancras, there are employed
47 Inspectors of Nuisances.