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Deptford Lower Road, are two habitations, consisting each of three
rooms built one above the other. These houses have neither yards,
ashpits, drains, water supply, proper privies, nor ventilation; in a
word, none of the appliances conducive to the health, comfort, or
convenience of the inhabitants. There is no back yard, and the
houses being built against a dead wall without any opening in the
rear, no ventilation can take place. The two dwellings have one
privy and no drain, so that all waste fluid must either be poured
down the privy or scattered over the public way. When the inmates
want water they are obliged to cross the Deptford Road in all
weather and fetch it from the butts supplying the horse-trough of
which I have before spoken. I should suggest that water be laid on
to each house; that another privy be built, and drains and ashpits
made.
I next passed on to Providence Place, a turning further down the
Deptford Road, and on the south side of the China Hall. Here stand
two wooden cottages, consisting, each respectively, of two rooms on
the ground floor, the boards of which were six inches or more below
the level of the pathway. The same defects exist as in the other
dwellings on the same estate, except that at the back of these hovels
there is a window to admit light and air. All water must be fetched
from the horse-trough, and the single water-closet for the two
houses must receive the liquid that is not thrown over the pathway,
or carried to the neighbouring ditch. The remedy would be the
same as in the previous case.
A urinal stands at the entrance of Providence Place on the right;
it is often in a foul state, and considerable improvement might be
effected by carrying water into it.
On the same day I paid a visit to a "huge piggery," tenanted by
forty or more hogs, and located on a cross road leading to the Commercial
Dock Station of the Greenwich Railway, and close to the latter,
on Debenham's ground. It was at the time of my examination,
without exception, one of the filthiest places I was ever in. The
whole piggery, which is very extensive, being strewn with garbage
solid and liquid, and sending forth pungent and ammoniacal effluvia,
which I smelt at a distance of sixty feet, and which persons living at
a distance of sixty yards, complain of in hot weather. There is no
drainage, and the fluid pollution runs freely on to the neighbouring
land. I consider this a monster nuisance, and caused a notice to be
at once served.
Sickness and Mortality of the Month.
The number of deaths registered in Rotherhithe during the month of
November, 1856, was thirty-six, a mortality rather below the average.
The only facts worthy of remark indicated by the death register,
seem to be the increase of fatal acute diseases of the respiratory organs,
from the lowering of the temperature, and also an augmented
mortality among the aged from the same cause, a fact to which I