View report page

38
have often before called the attention of the Vestry. Seven deaths,
or nearly a fifth of the whole have occurred in persons above the age
of 70. The only prevalent epidemic is scarlatina, which has carried
off six children, from 2 to 6 years of age.
Yours respectfully,
2nd, December, 1856. W. MURDOCH.
TWELFTH REPORT.
To the Vestry of the Parish of St. Mary, T'otherhithe.
GENTLEMEN,
Among the various nuisances existing in the Parish of Rotherhithe,
there is no one which requires more constant vigilance on
the part of the Officers of this Vestry, than that occasioned by the
overcrowded state of many of the houses. Large accumulations of
human beings in small dwellings is radically antagonistic to the
social and moral improvement of the humbler classes, which improvement
is the end and aim of all sanitary legislation.
On 19th December, 1856, I went with the Inspector to the
house, 12, Lower Neptune Street, which had been reported to me
as harbouring a nuisance of the above description. The house is of
brick, and built substantially, but its interior is in a dirty, miserable
and dilapidated condition. It contains six rooms, three on the
ground, and three on the first floor; each room is let to a separate
tenant, five of the occupiers are married men with families, the
sixth is a single man, there being in all twenty-four inmates. I
passed through the house into the back yard. Here a scene of
hideous filth and confusion presented itself. There is no drain, no
ashpit, and but one dilapidated wooden privy with large holes in the
sides, back, and roof. This privy stood formerly over the Cobourg
ditch, but since that ditch has been filled up, the liquid and solid
soil lies strewn on the ground under the seat, offensive to the nostrils,
disgusting to the sight, and injurious to the health. Now, let me
ask whether any out-door education, or school-training can ever
correct or overcome the indecent habits, want of self-respect, and
other vices engendered among the younger branches of the inmates
by the very fact of living in such a den. I trust that stringent
measures will be employed for the prompt suppression of this nest
of impurities.
On the same day I visited 7, Medway Terrace. A large brick
drain receiving the smaller drains of several houses, runs under the
floor, and when any quantity of water is flowing through it, the
stench is so great from the drain being out of repair, as to render
the lower part of the house uninhabitable.
On the 10th December, I examined four houses in Gillam's
Court, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4. They have all foul cesspools, no water
supply, and no drainage. One of these houses (No. 2), now un-