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tradesmen, filling their dwellings and injuring their goods.
From seventy to one hundred females, women and girls, principally
Irish, are employed in this locality, and may be seen,
at any hour of the day, squatting about the yard and mending
the bags. The obscene language and dirty habits of these
women are a source of disgust to the whole neighbourhood.
There is no convenience to the yard and, at the time of revisits
in the early part of. the month, the ladies were in the habit
of using for such a purpose a piece of ground, exposed to view
on every side, about fifteen feet square, and situated to the
south of the yard above described. On this spot, public decency
was violated fifty times a day; and the secondary nuisance
arising therefrom was as bad or worse than the original one.
It seems ludicrous to serve a notice for a stopped drain or
full cesspool, if such a human piggery as the one above delineated
is to be tolerated in one of the most populous parts of
the parish.
I have confined my observations to the nuisance, and have
not touched upon the demoralizing effect that such indelicacies
must produce, among the younger branches of those who work
on the establishment.
The number of deaths registered during last month, was
thirty-nine, rather above the average monthly mortality, but
still ten under the corresponding month of last year. Nine
deaths have occurred from diarrhoea, the parish being entirely
free from all other epidemic disease. The number of cases of
diarrhoea have, however, considerably diminished during the
last week.
Yours respectfully,
September, 1857. W. MURDOCH.
TWENTY-FIRST REPORT.
Gentlemen,
As the time for licensing slaughter-houses is now approaching,
at the request of the Vestry-clerk (Mr. Hawks), I have
carefully examined all the places used in Rotherhithe for the
slaughter of cattle.
Twelve licences were granted last year, and eleven of the
persons who obtained them are again applicants. One slaughterhouse
of the number, namely, that in Elephant-lane, attached
to the premises formerly occupied by Mr. Onion, being shut
up. They are generally in good order, and what few deficiencies
existed in some have been, or are being, corrected, under my