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is likely to be made worse and greater injury to health sustained,
as an overcrowded dwelling is more injurious to health and
mortality than one which is badly constructed.
My attention has also been called, as well as that of the
Inspectors, to unusually large quantities of putrid fish which were
unfit for food. In all cases the fish were rendered quite unsaleable
by pouring carbolic acid over them, but proceedings were not taken
against the owners as they were willing that this course should
be adopted. The total quantity destroyed in this way was 53
pads, chiefly of plaice.
The other sanitary work carried out during the year
consisted in the examination of no less than 6301 houses. Every
room in these houses was examined and entries made in the
inspection book as to their state, as well as to the condition of
the cisterns or water-butts, of the drainage in the yards and
waterclosets, of the paving in the yards, and the condition of the
gutters of the houses and out-buildings. The enquiry also
extended as to the number of families and inmates, and to the
state of health. The tables containing some of these particulars
and forming part of the appendix, shew that in these 6301 houses
there were 25,972 inhabited rooms, 6,713 families, and 36,763
inmates. The number of houses inspected was greater than in
any former year, whilst the number of persons residing in them
was also a little in excess, but not in a greater ratio than the
number of houses. At the last census there were on an average
66 persons residing in each ten houses (6.6 per house), whilst in
the 6301 houses of the poor there were only 58 per ten houses, or
5.8 per house. This shews a much less number of residents to a
house than in London at large, as at the census there were 74
persons to each ten houses in the Metropolis. The number of
nuisances found in these 6,301 premises was 2,804, which is
nearly 300 more than in 1872. As will be seen by the table of
Sanitary work, all those nuisanccs, as well as many others, have
been abated.