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REPORT FOR THE YEAR, 1883.
To the Board of Works for the Hackney District.
Gentlemen,
Sanitary work has been more actively carried out in the
District during this than in any other year since 1866. In the
first place, owing to the outbreak of Cholera in Egypt and the
consequent apprehension of its spread to this country, it was
deemed advisable temporarily to increase the staff; secondly,
because of the examination of a large number of houses not
ordinarily inspected, to ascertain whether or not there was a
proper water.supply and apparatus to the closets; and thirdly,
owing to the circulars of the Local Government Board, it was
necessary that I, in company with an inspector, should again
carefully inspect all the courts and other places in which it was
likely we should find houses in such a state as to come under
the provisions of the "Artizans Dwellings Acts."
Amongst the places, visited were Abney Gardens, which
consists of 31 houses, of which the majority were clean and
well kept, but there were six houses in so dilapidated a state that
as the rooms were low, the back yards very small, and the privy
accommodation bad, the owners preferred turning the houses into
workshops rather than doing the works necessary to put them
into a good sanitary condition. The same may be said of the
two double houses in Jolly Butcher's Yard. In Stapleton's
Buildings I found several houses occupied by persons who paid
no rent, and as the premises were quite unfit for habitation, I
communicated with the owner, who immediately took steps for
ejecting the tenants, and pulling down the property. In Mason's
Court I found the ventilation and light of 4 houses much
interfered with by fowl.houses and other outbuildings; the
paving bad, and the means of drainage imperfect. The rooms