View report page

28
Great Wild-street (locality K of diagram), No. 28. Emptied.
Short's-gardens (G), Nos. 3 and 20. Altered so as to possess the legal
requisites, (see note on preceding page).
Little Coram-street (C), Nos. 14 and 19, disused. Nos. 3, 24, 25, 28,
altered to meet the law. The kitchens here are of a different class from the
cellars of Dudley-street—twenty-one out of the total twenty-seven were found to
be legally habitable.
Little Guilford-street C), Nos. 11 and 32 disused.
In concluding my account of the House improvements effected in 1858,
it is within my province to repeat, here, a statement which will doubtless appear in
the Surveyor's report. In several streets, the Sanitary Inspector has reported the
house drainage to be imperfect, and that it could not be made effectual on account of
insufficient public sewerage. In these cas s the facts have been reported to the
Board by the Sanitary Committee, and, in consequence, several new sewers of considerable
length have been constructed, and others are under consideration. The
principal new sewers have been made in Bury street (locality D of diagram),
Smart's-buildings and Coal-yard H), Woburn Mews east (C), and Brownlowstreet
(G).
I wish also to find place for an observation which has been forced on me,
though my facts are not yet in number sufficient to allow absolute deductions to be
drawn. In a few instances, children have died of malignant zymotic diseases, during
the execution of considerable drainage works in their houses. I cannot doubt that
many others have fallen ill, but I am unwilling to wait for further experience of this
sort, before expressing an opinion that houses ought not to be tenanted during extensive
alterations in their drainage.
Section II.—The proceedings of the Medical Officer of Health, in other
matters than House improvement, have been, from time to time, brought before the
Sanitary Committee at their monthly meetings, but only a few need to be here repeated.
The slaughter-houses of the d strict have been several times carefully
examined. Their condition has been found, on the whole, satis actory, but it is still
impossible to impress upon butchers the necessity of keeping the blood entirely away
from the drains. Some portion of it almost invariably gets down the drains and is
found clogging their entrances to the public sewer.
A good deal of improvement has been made in the cow-houses, in spite of
strenuous opposition from their proprietors, several of whom have needed compulsion
by the orders of the magistrates. Messrs. Gibson, of Drury-lane, and Delano, of
Hampshire Hog-yard, have in great measure, rebuilt their premises. The worsekept
cow-shed in the district, is now, Mr. Evans's, of Goldsmiths'-alley.
Early in the summer of 1858, complaint was made to the Board of Works
by residents in Holborn, of the nuisance created by the tallow-melting factory of
Messrs. Cook, in Smart's-buildings. Frequent visits and special reports were made
on the cause of the nuisance, and the means of remedying it. At my suggestion
the boiling vessels were provided with covers and flues, so as to pass the vapours of