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of such structural alterations in others as to render them more healthy,
the providing the inhabitants generally with a better supply of water on
the constant service, without the intervention of butts or cisterns, the
opening of new thoroughfares and the formation of new parks and recreation
grounds, whereby the convenience of traffic is extended and a better
circulation of air afforded to the people.
I may here state that it was owing to the provisions of the 35th
section of the Sanitary Act, 1866, that I was enabled to procure for the
poorer localities of this District a water supply on the constant service
system. Although there were not many houses which were registered
under the above named Act; yet the dislike which landlords entertained in
having their houses which were let out in tenements placed on the register
whereby they became subject to your Bye Laws, induced them to comply
with the request of your Medical Officer, rather than be placed in the
category of lodging-house keepers.
The improved condition of the slaughter-houses and cow-houses, and
the better cleansing of the streets, also contribute to the comfort and wellbeing
of the inhabitants of the District. I cannot, however, help feeling
and expressing great regret that success has not attended the labours of
your Medical Officer of Health, in his desire to see the entire abolition
of private slaughter-houses in the metropolis as now established, which
although as above stated are somewhat improved, yet they are not
creditable to the enlightenment of the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Public slaughter-houses ought to be erected in suitable places by the
Metropolitan Board of Works and by the Sanitary Authority in the City
of London; and the use of all private slaughter-houses in London should
be prohibited.
I have also to regret that a Mortuary has not been erected in this
District. Notwithstanding the numerous occasions on which I have brought
this important subject under the notice of your Board, I have failed to
impress them sufficiently with its importance as a means of preventing the
extension of contagious diseases, and of adding materially to the comfort
of those poor people who occupy only a single room in which the entire
family take their food, nurse their sick, and coffin their dead. In this
single room it is sometimes found that a corpse has been kept for 12 or 14
days, the delay of burial being in some instances occasioned by the desire
to raise the necessary funds among their acquaintances for defraying the
expenses of the funeral. The danger of retaining a corpse in a room occupied
by a family is greatly increased if the person has died from small-pox;
for in such a case the emanations from the corpse will tend to spread the
disease to all persons occupying the room, and to all other persons living in