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the clay; the air everywhere moist and stagnant. The leaseholders have
been made to keep the houses clean and free from nuisance, but the task of rectifying
the fundamental errors of construction would not appear to devolve upon
them. The freehold of the land is with the Foundling hospital, and it happens
that the Committee of this hospital has resumed the original leases under
which the houses were built in the courts in question. Application was therefore
made by the Board of Works to the authorities of this hospital, urging
them to m?ke a more thorough improvement of the property than could be
demanded from the lessees. The answer to this application was unfavourable,*
and the Board of Works is thrown back on their scanty powers of procuring
amendment given by law. Meanwhile in June 18G2, an epidemic of measles
is prevailing in these courts, and promises to pass through them as unsparingly
as scarlatina did in 1861. Once established in this neighbourhood
there is peculiar difficulty in getting rid of an epidemic until it has visited
every house and room.
Lincoln Court, again, has been the subject of negociations with the
owner Captain Steuart. In 1S58, all its houses were set to rights, but in so
unsatisfactory a manner that the rough habits of the tenants have made them
scarcely habitable in 1861. It was thought that the occasion of repairing
the houses might be used by Captain Steuart to make some thorough and
substantial improvement in his property. The court is narrow, confined, and
ill-drained, and the houses in many respects badly constructed. The owner
is contented, however, with measures of a temporary and partial kind ; and
the court will need to be as usual under constant supervision to remedy
nuisances which more thorough improvements would prevent.
Drainage works have been very urgently wanted in the houses of Nottingham
Court, but have not hitherto been practicable owing to the defective plan
of the public sewerage. A new sewer is now being built in this Court and
will be a great advantage to the health of the inhabitants. Minor sewers
have been constructed for the relief of premises in Pied Bull Yard and Little
Britain.
A step has been taken since the last annual report in the case of Nos. 30
and 31 Southampton Mews. At the present date No. 30 is unoccupied, but
there is an open cesspool and drain here. At No. 31 repairs are being carried
out and sanitary alterations made under the instructions of the Steward of the
Duke of Bedford.
During the year 1861, four complaints have been received of nuisances
in connection with trades. In each case they have been remedied without
appealing to the law, on the intervention of the sauitary officers.
The cow-houses of the district have been inspected, but it has not been
thought necessary to take special steps for their improvement until decision is
given by the legislature on a proposition now before the House of Commons
for the licensing of cow-houses in the Metropolis.
No cow-house ought to be licensed in St. Giles. In this densely populated
district they are nuisances, and there is no occasion at all for their
* Stating that the Committee have no power at present to interfere, inasmuch as
the property is leased by them to various tenants for a term of years; and further.
suggesting to the Board the employment of the Metropolis Local Management Act to
compel the necessary sanitary improvements.
† This Court had a mortality of 22 in its 21 houses in 1861, and the same in 1860
Yet in neither year was there any particular epidemic here.