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to health. I beg, therefore, to call to it the attention of this
Board. Complaints are continually made to myself and the
Inspector (particularly in the eastern district) of the remissness
of the scavengers in removing the refuse from the houses.
The open ditch, south of Rotherhithe-street, and running east
and west from the neighbourhood of the Surrey Canal towards
Lavender-lane, where it terminates by a dead head, is exceedingly
filthy near its eastern extremity, and sends forth at low
water a nauseous smell. Let us hope that the day is not far distant
when every ditch in this parish will either be covered or
filled in, for there is little doubt that the number of ponds,
ditches, and open sewers in former days gave in Rotherhithe,
more than only other cause, unusual severity to the various
epidemics of cholera which have visited us.
The Patent Manure makers, whose factories have so often
been brought by me under the notice of the Vestry, are erecting
apparatus for destroying by combustion the foul effluvia emanating
from the process of mixing.
I was requested by the Trustees of the Burial Grounds of
Rotherhithe to visit with them on Thursday, April 22nd, the
ground attached to All Saints' Church, Deptford Lower-road,
that we might examine whether it was still fit for purposes of
interment. The part of the ground used as a cemetery, measures
in length from the back of the church to its further extremity,
two hundred and ninety-one feet, its breadth being one hundred
and ten feet, giving an area of thirty-two thousand and ten
square feet. As a matter of course, the number of burials
therein have much increased, since the churchyards connected
with the Church of St. Mary have been closed. The funerals
at All Saints' average at present about seventy-five in three
calendar months, or nearly six a-week, and consequently the
limited space above described is fast filling.
However, there being still several patches of land free from
graves, the Trustees were of opinion that funerals under proper
surveillance might still take place there for a time, to be hereafter
determined, and on condition that all adult graves be six
feet and all childrens' graves five feet deep at least. Several of
the recently filled up graves were examined with an iron rod,
and in one or two cases there was found but four feet of earth
over the coffin. These were declared to be family graves.
The situation of the ground is good. It is removed from
dwellings, surrounded by fields, and not easily seen from the
public road, from which it is in a great measure hidden by the
church and the parsonage.
Some remarks were made on the untidy appearance of the
place, the Incumbent at once satisfied us that it was not his