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15
The numerous houses mentioned in the Agenda Paper have
been visited by the Inspector and myself, and notices served.
Two of them, however, deserve special remark, namely, Nos.
4 and 5, Queen-street. The drainage of these two dwellings
runs from the back to the front, through an open wooden trough
under the floor of the lower rooms, and discharges itself by a
sort of pigeon-hole in the wall into the street; the neighbours
and passengers complain of the stench generated by the drainage
stagnating on the pavement and in the gutter.
I beg earnestly again to direct the attention of the Inspecting
Committee of the Western District to a row of eight tworoomed
tenements, called Adam's-place. These tenements are
quite unventilated, there being no openings in any of them,
except a window and a door on the groundfloor and a window
on the first floor, all in front of each house. Before each house
is a yard, about twelve or thirteen feet long and ten broad;
and at its extremity, furthest removed from the dwelling, a
privy. As almost every yard is inundated from the overflowing
of the cesspool, and in one or two cases, the filth is literally
penetrating into the ground floor of the houses, every breath
inhaled by the inmates must be charged with the effluvia arising
from the liquid pollution. The houses have no water supply
whatever. This row is a disgrace to the owners whoever they
may be; for, notwithstanding many warnings, they have heartlessly
left a mass of putrefaction to bake for months in the sun
of this tropical summer, at the risk of the health of the inhabitants,
who are composed of the poorest class; and who, in
their utter helplessness to better, by any effort of their own,
the condition of their dwellings, are continually making appeals
to your officers.
At the back of the houses, 380, 381, and 382, Rotherhithewall,
there is a piece of ground measuring fifty feet north and
south, by about thirty-nine east and west, with a large shed at
its southern extremity. In the middle has been erected a temporary
tent or awning. This ground is occupied by a sack
and bag merchant. The bags repaired there have generally
contained rapeseed, linseed, rice, or other grain. Great complaints
have been made of this place, and consequently I
have frequently visited it. The rape and linseed fall from the
bags on to the ground, which is unpaved, lie there and rot; and
after a shower of rain, the stench is most offensive.
I borrowed a small scoop from a neighbouring grocer, and
with it took up a quantity of the earth; there were almost as
many maggots as there were seeds; it was a mass of living and
crawling putrefaction. Nor is this all; clouds of dust issue
from the bags, to the great annoyance of the neighbouring