View report page

11
A copy of the above Report was sent to the Metropolitan Board
of Works and the Peabody Donation Fund Society. This Society,
after expressing thanks in a letter addressed to the Whitechapel
Board of Works for a copy of the Joint Report, state, that if the
officers of your Board will again visit the Buildings after they are
occupied, they will find that all the soil pipes and drains are ventilated
above the roof, and that no foul air or gas can enter the rooms.
The trustees desire to express their wish that all future dwellings for
the poor may have the closet accommodation as perfect as it will be
found in the Whitechapel Buildings.
There can be no doubt that a new Building Act is imperatively
demanded, for the existing Act is extremely defective. The defects
of the Building Act have been pointed out, in several of my Reports,
and suggestions made for their amendment, and I would respectfully
refer all who are interested in this important matter to those Reports,
especially to pages 8, 9, 10, and 11, in the Report for the Quarter
ended December, 1872; and I would also refer you to an excellent
leading article in the " Times " of Thursday, February, 3rd, 1881, on the
importance of building healthy houses, the conditions of which,
among other things, require provisions against injury from frost,
whereby the domestic comforts of a family may be secured. The
principal points mentioned are the protection of the water supply
pipe against the effects of severe frost, so that the water in these
pipes may be so protected as to prevent the expansion of the water
in them by freezing, and consequent bursting of them, whereby the
family is not only put to the greatest possible inconvenience, but their
health suffers most materially. The walls of the house should be of
adequate thickness to keep out the cold and wet, and prevent the
wasteful escape of heat which is generated within the building—thick
walls, substantially constructed of good materials, are the first
essentials. The roof should be so constructed as to prevent the
drifting of rain or snow under the slates and tiles. As the public at
large cannot be expected to insist on all these details in the building
of a house, the officers of local boards of health should be required to
examine all houses in the course of erection, to see that all things
requisite for health are duly attended to, and the Board should insist
on all the essentials for health in the building of a house being
regarded.
The apathy of the public in matters of health is truly lamentable,