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at the early part of last summer applied to your Board, through
your Medical Officer of Health, to have the Inspector appointed by
the Jewish Board, recognised as such by your Board : that suggestion
was not adopted, and your Committee think rightly so, but every
assistance on the part of the Officers of the Board was to be given and
your Committee believe has been given to advance the common object
of the improvement of the district.
The communication referred to your Committee appears to be a
summary of a period of investigation made by the Jewish Guardians
upon the condition of a large portion of the Whitechapel District,
which your Committee have perused and considered with mingled
feelings of satisfaction and regret; with satisfaction, because it has
been shewn that the number of complaints hitherto reported to your
officers has been exceedingly small, and small as they are in number,
many of those have had reference to the absence of water supply to
closets, the advisability of which depends, as your Committee believe,
rather upon experience with regard to the habits of the people than
individual views. Your Committee have perused the communication
with regret, because, with the exception of a passing compliment
paid to the Medical Officer and Inspectors, it is a continuous outpour
of condemnation and complaint. There is, perhaps, the redeeming
feature in it, that the florid nature of part of its composition acts as
an antidote, and renders it impossible for the most casual reader to
accept it as a plain and unvarnished statement of faCts.
It appears that, on the question of water supply to closets, the
Jewish Guardians were, from the first, impressed with the importance
of a water supply apparatus being provided to every house ; that
system has, of course, very great merit under certain circumstances ;
but Dr. Liddle, the late Medical Officer of Health, long since discarded
it as being unfitted to the habits of the people in the poorer portions
of the District, and the system of a care-taker being appointed to
flush the closets with water was substituted. Your late Medical
Officer was indefatigable in his endeavours to procure a constant
supply of water to courts for the use of the inhabitants, which was
accomplished throughout the District, and the flushing of the closets
with water thrown into them was adopted, and this mode of cleansing
closets is approved by Dr. Loane, your present Medical Officer of
Health, where the closet is not actually in the house, and in this view
your Committee also concur. The divergence of views on the subject
of water supply to closets was the occasion of a large number of the
complaints which were sent from the Jewish Guardians. The desire
to have a water supply apparatus to closets appears to be the common
mistake made by all upon their outset to improve such places as the
courts in this District,