View report page

9
Health Committee, has failed to abate to any appreciable
degree the dangerous consequences likely to
ensue from the foul and stagnant water of the basin.
The large amount of mud at the bottom, and the
refuse matters in transit on the wharves, house dust,
garbage, offal, street sweepings of probably one-third of
London, amounting to hundreds of tons, besides this,
the manure of thousands of horses, are loaded daily at
the Paddington Canal Basin into the barges.
Since the completion of the Metropolitan main
drainage system, fortunately for us, no foecal matter
has been mixed with the other general refuse, or the
consequences must have been long since felt, and would
have proved decidedly dangerous to the public health.
The Directors of the Grand Junction Canal have
been interviewed on more than one occasion, and have
generally expressed themselves willing to take any
steps that could be suggested, but beyond letting off and
changing the stagnant water when it had begun to be
putrid in hot weather, or in the partial annual removing
of a portion of the mud in the Basin, no thoroughly
efficient methods have been adopted of regulating the
noxious traffic carried on on their premises.
The recommendations made from time to time, and
the provisions of the Local Act have never been carried
out, nor does it appear that action has yet been taken
in the right direction, although the Vestry empowered
the Sanitary and Public Health Committee to resort to
proper legal methods.
As a nuisance injurious to health under the Nuisance
Removal Act, the Magistrate refuses to convict.
B