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Some of the effects which result from breathing vitiated air. are
admitted by all; but the peculiar mental and bodily depression which
arises from the retention within the system of the worn out materials
ef the body, and from the imperfect vitalization of the blood, are not
sufficiently recognised still less is the property of polarized light to
produce these results generally known, and yet, one of the great causes
of defective organization in the denizens of dark, crowded, and noisome
alleys, the pest houses of London, is the want of the direct rays of the
sun, which almost all creation except themselves, habitually enjoy. I
mention these things to show that plenty of water, to allow of cleanliness
proper cleansing and drainage of the streets and houses, to
prevent, as far as possible, dirtiness; the repair of dilapidated houses,
and the improvement of their ventilation, will not only improve their
physical powers, but will remove the mental depression and consequent
low estimate of self, which form the almost invariable characteristics of
our poorer brethren.
In the various duties which I have been called on to perform since
my appointment, I have kept these sources of disease always in view,
and have directed the great powers entrusted to me, under the Metropolis
Local Management Act, towards their removal. In proof of
this, I may instance my numerous reports on filthy, badly drained,
and badly made streets; on accumulations of horse and cow manure,
and of decaying vegetable matter; on effluvia from trade nuisances,
including dust-yards on contamination of open ditches by house
drainage, and on overflowing cesspools. I may also mention the
numerous individuals who have been summoned before you to abate
these nuisances, and the frequency with which I have applied for orders
to take the offending parties before the magistrates at the Clerkenwell
and Worship Street Police Courts. In taking these steps, I have not
only been guided by mv own knowledge of the injury to health which
nuisances of this kind occasion, but also by the dicta of the judges who
have repeatedly laid down as law, that the public are entitled to pure
air, and that any person who defiles it, exposes himself to punishment.
How far this principle may be carried, I cannot state, for it was affirmed
chiefly as regards what is called "trade nuisances;" but the magistrates
at the Police Courts have acted upon it in all cases in which we have
asked their adjudication, and have convicted the owners of dust-yards
in such penalties as have driven them from your district, as well as
persons who allowed overflowing cesspools to exist on their premises.
Indeed, of all the preventible sources of disease in your district, there
is scarcely any one which, in my opinion, produces greater injury to
health, than human ordure, and accumulations of other excreta and
I therefore lay before you the opinion of the highest sanitary authority
in this country.
In the Thirty-first Quarterly Report of the Registrar-General, are
the following remarks on the injurious effect of damp localities, and of
emanations from duns;-heaps:— "The dwelling-houses often rest on
damp undrained ground; they lie often at the bottom of pit-like
depressions of the earth, instead of standing on the sides of the higher
grounds, from which the water flows away naturally, and the decaying
organic emanations are dispersed and decomposed by the winds. The