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20
The water supply of Hanover-street is good, the water having
been carried into every yard in Hanover-street, and in
Hanover-court where the tenements have no yards, the tap is
placed under the window of the ground-floor. As in the latter
case, there is no suitable receiving vessel; I am afraid that in
time, the houses will become damp and unwholesome. All the
receptacles for water are of the most miserable kind imaginable,
pails, washing-tubs, earthenware pans, and butter-firkins supplying
the place of butts and cisterns.
Hanover-street has certainly improved under the management
of the present proprietor, and the inhabitants get now, wholesome
water to use and drink, which alone compensates for and
palliates many evils. Even a short time ago, they had no
water, but from a tidal pump, and the liquid after standing a
few hours, smelt as I said in one of my former reports— as if it
had been dipped from a sewer.
To resume, in a few words, the main points are good, the
defects are in the details. At the back of the dwellings, on both
sides of the street, there is a large open space, which allows free
circulation of air, and accounts to a certain extent, for the
statements I am about to make.
This street has been during the last two years, the healthiest
in Rotherhithe, and it would be difficult to find a more healthful
place in the whole metropolis. Medical orders are rarely given
by the relieving Officer for the inhabitants; and in the year
1854, only one person died there of cholera; but, let numbers
speak. The population of Hanover-street, taken in September,
1853, was seventy-nine males, ninety-three females, and one
hundred and seventy-five children of both sexes, in all, three
hundred and forty-seven. On the 30th October, of the present
year, it amounted to sixty-four males, seventy-four females, and
one hundred and forty-one children, in all, two hundred and
seventy-nine; so that we may safely take the average population
at about three hundred. During the last two years, only
two have died, both children; giving a mortality of one per
annum, or less than four in the thousand. Now, the average
mortality in the metropolis, is about twenty-three in the thousand
; in the healthiest country districts, about twelve; and in all
England, nineteen. Hanover-street, then, deservedly merits
the name given to it— the "Vale of Health." The place is swarming
with children, about half of whom were barefooted, and
many, no doubt, on short allowance, yet they looked comely,
healthy, and hardy, and might be taken as good specimens of
the water-side population.
At 28, Princes Street, besides a full cesspool, and a choked
drain, there is in the washhouse, a pool of stagnant sewage.