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sanitary officer can have little power here. The next point is the
overcrowding, which is a fearful source of disease in this as in
many other parishes. When four or five children are confined in
one small dwelling-room, as is often the case, it is almost impossible
for any of them to escape having an infectious disease, brought
home perhaps by a child from school, or by a mother who has
visited a sufferer. And it is extremely common to see 3, 4, or 5
children, all suffering from one of these complaints, crowded in one
small room often with the upper window sash fixed, so that ventilation
is impossible. Under these circumstances, a patient has not
a fair chance of recovery, from having to breathe the vitiated air
evolved by himself and by the rest, over and over again.
We must look forward to the removal of the old and illarranged
tenements forming the numerous courts, and to the erection
of new and properly constructed ones. The process has begun
among the wretched courts of Turnmill Street—Turk's Head Yard
having been cleared of buildings, and Lamb Court having been
emptied. The new model buildings in the Bagnigge Wells Road,
and in Farringdon Road, will afford suitable accommodation to a
number of the poor Inhabitants; but the rent will probably be
too high for the poorer occupants of the worst courts.
But independently of the houses in the courts, a large number
of the rooms occupied in other houses are quite unfit for the
use of a family, even if it were desirable that an entire family
should occupy a single room. For they are too small, often with
no back light, or means of ventilation, the window and door being
frequently at the same end of the room, so that the pouch, as it
may be termed, left, it is impossible to ventilate. And many rooms
thus occupied are situated underground. Another point is the
want of cleanliness, both of the apartments and the clothing.
Among the poorer class, many of the mothers before marriage are
in service, and any one of them can keep a house, with as many
inmates as there are in their own apartment, clean and wholesome ;
but when they have a home of their own, consisting of only a
single room, it is too often in a very dirty state, quite unfit for
health, and much more so for enabling the occupants to struggle
through an infectious malady. In many cases, the poor are difficultly
placed in this respect, for they have not a proper water
supply, or have to fetch water from a distance. I always regret
to have to allude to this circumstance, and to be unable to
announce that there are proper Wash-houses in the Parish. I
think also, that more pressure might be put upon the landlords of
the Parish in regard to the cleansing of the walls and ceilings of
the houses. The slaughter-houses and cow-houses are ordered to