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54
at all times in the hot season, and are likely to be of positive peril, under the
conditions of 1866, to the health of upwards of half a million of people;
and demand prompt means for their amelioration or abatement.
4. That there are powerful reasons for the impression that the main
outfall in the daily evolution of millions of cubit feet of noxious gases, did
not fail to take part as a contributor to the enhancement of the pestilence;
and that means should be taken to avert future danger, and more efficiently
to ventilate the air shafts, or to destroy the exhalations as they arise.
5. That the air shafts of the Metropolitan Board, in the streets of London,
as well as those belonging to the several districts, from the aceumulated and
still increasing amount of sewage, are improperly ventilated; that the gases
and vapours become in consequence largely diffused through the atmosphere
to the peril of the public health; and at once demand such changes as shall
render them innocuous, or accomplish their destruction.
6. That it is absolutely necessary that steps should bo taken so that the
sewage from the West Ham pumping works shall be pumped into the Bow
Creek only at bb tide; and failing in this, that means should be adopted,
with the least possible delay, to have it diverted into the main outfall.
7. That the filth of factories, and sewage, as far as possible, should be
rigidly prohibited from passing into the Lea Cut* and Regents Canal, as dangerous
to the public health.
Such are the chief suggestions I have thrown out for the consideration of
authority, under the fixed impression that some changes of the kind are
absolutely necessary for the future sanitary well-being of the East of London,
especially in relation to the Limehouse District. I know it has been proposed
to alter the water-courses as a remedy, and bring the supply from Wales and
the North of England. But this will be a costly, while no substitutionary
service; and if this be all the improvement in the prospective, I little hesitate
in saying that Plinlimmon and the lakes of Cumberland may roll down
their waters for the comfort of the people of London ; but in all other respects
let there arise the conditions of 1866, and the poor districts of the
*Of this Lea Cut, of which so much has been said, it may be observed that in the summer of
1864 and since, two men were employed, rowing up and down, and irrigating or deodorising the foul
water, by large quantities of lime, involving nearly the outlay on this item of £100, during the season
It was not then ascertained that the West Hum pumping works were polluting the Cut at one
end, as fast as we were purifying it at the other.