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TO THE
BOARD OF WORKS
FOR THE
LIME HOUSE DISTRICT.
Gentlemen,
I have the honor to submit to you my Annual Report on the
sanitary condition of the Limehouse District during my first year of office
ended March 20th, 1870.
The population of the District over which you possess jurisdiction is
about 00,000. The area of the district is 576 acres, and the number of
inhabited houses is about 7,500. These figures give an average of 104
persons to the acre, and 8 persons to a house. This population comprises a
considerable portion of the labouring element, the people composing which
earn their livelihood—at the best a scanty and precarious one—in the docks,
warehouses, and on the river. For the most part they know no trade ; they
have been labourers from their youth; they work while they can, and when
old age or disease advances upon them, they find a refuge in the workhouse.
As might be expected among people of this class, I have found gross ignorance,
great poverty, and much dirt. They are distinguished by a supreme
contempt for the commonest sanitary laws, and when appliances usually
supposed to be conducive to the preservation of health are placed at their
disposal, they fail to use them. Improvements that I have suggested, and
your Board have had carried into effect iu their dwellings, have in many