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41
"It was a defect, bad drainage,
in which the East districts suffered
in common with the City, Clerkenwell,
&c., &c."— Mr. Radcliffe's
Report.
LOCALITY.
"Locality is a vague term including
several of the foregoing
conditions, each of which is sufficient
to an undeterminable extent as
bringing about a common result.
The influence of locality thus understood
was apparent in exaggerating
the effect of the outbreak in
several restricted districts; but this
influence was insufficient to account
in any perceptible degree for the
peculiar localisation of the disease
in the east districts, for which an
twice each day during some'hours,
there is no exit whatever for the
sewage, the accumulation of miles
is now locked in, "tide-locked,"
choking with its contents, till an.
other ebb affords another opportunity
of another foetid discharge into
the Thames. But what become of
the gases all this while? Why
they have, obedient to the laws of
all gases, found their way into the
atmosphere, to make it only many
degrees more poisonous. If it be
asked— where? follow the outline
of these great sewers, beginning
in the field of the Cholera explosion,
and you will be able to track
the fatal march of death from Ratcliff
Cross to St George's and
Whitechapel, and from Limehouse,
on and on, to Betlnal Green.
REMARKS.
I agree with Mr. Radcliffe that
"locality" is a very vague term. A
locality on Snowden or Ben Lomond
is a very different tiling from
a locality in a coal or copper mine
300 fathoms down. But a locality
with a definite area is easily explored,
and all the vagueness soon
gives way to facts as they turn up.
For instance, without going to
Bermondsey and the cinder-sifters
for the illustration of a bad locality,
take the Eastern District; the