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are under one roof. Two horses are kept in the stable, in a
corner of which the dung is thrown, and with it all the refuse
matter from the greenshop. During the hot weather, this heap
exhaled a smell most offensive to the inmates of the neighbouring
houses. I entered one of them; the stench in the sitting
room was worse than that of a privy. I suggested that the
dungheap be immediately removed, and the place washed with
chloride of lime, which was done. I must leave to the Vestry,
to deal with this matter as they think fit; but, if the stable be
allowed at all, the dung ought to be carted away, and the place
purified daily with chloride of lime or zinc.
I feel it my duty to make one remark before leaving the
subject. I asked the occupier about the health of his family;
he told me at once that only those children that came to the
place with him were still alive. Every child born in this locality
(three in number) had died in early infancy; for the very
simple reason that adults and large children could escape occasionally
from such an atmosphere, while the poor infants, from
the moment of their birth, inhaled the fatal exhalations of decomposing
animal and vegetable matter. The mortality of
young children may always be considered as one of the best
indexes of the sanitary condition of any population.
At the request of the Vestry Clerk, 1 examined, on the 25th
of July, the three tenements— Nos. 15, 10, and 17, Rotherhithe
New-road, near the Railway arches. A large cesspool has been
dug in the garden of the middle house, (No. 16), to receive the
drainage of all three, and covered with boards and earth. Having
become full and the contents fermenting, from the heat of the
sun, the garden of No. 16 was covered with sewage, and offered
to the eye a frightful mass of putrescence. The inhalation of
the pestilential vapours arising from such a nuisance had, at the
time of my visit, already begun its work. Three children at
No. 16 had been affected with severe diarrhoea. A notice was
immediately served.
The stench from two street gullies in Clarence-street, has been
much complained of, I beg to submit the propriety of trapping
them, to the favourable consideration of the Board.
The putrid smell of the Thames water has been noted in
several of the public papers, and among others, in the weekly
reports of the Registrar-general, and has undoubtedly, been
remarked by many of the gentlemen here present. 1 must
again mention that the large population of Hanover-street, have
no water supply except from a tidal rcell, and unless they content
themselves with stinking Thames water, must beg or steal all
they.consume. On the '27th July, I examined some of the water