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218 died under two years of age, and 56 from two to five, making in all 274, or about
16 less than half.
The oldest person registered was aged 98 years.
During the past year, 148 notices were served for various nuisances, principally arising
from imperfect drainage, dung heaps, accumulations of filth, pigs, pools of stagnant
water, &c. The report of the surveyor will give the length of new sewer constructed, and
the number of drains repaired or completed. All this was done without a single summons
being taken out, or any proceedings being instituted in a Court of Law. Quiet remonstrance,
and an appeal to the better feelings of the inhabitants has always attained the desired object.
Thus, two years have passed away without any officer of the vestry having appeared in a
Court of Justice on the part of the parish.
The water supply of Rotherhithe is abundant in the eastern district, and more abundant
than it used to be in the western, at any rate, fewer complaints of deficiency have reached
the ears of the sanitary officers, It is now generally recognised that the health and life of
large and populous communities is greatly affected by the water supply. Where water has
been deficient and impure, there disease has been rife and the mortality high. It is to be
regretted that the supply is still intermittent and stored in butts, which, among the humbler
clases are often allowed to become filthy. The water supplied by the companies is of good
quality, but is often contaminated by the foul state of the receptacle in which it accumulates.
When the cholera raged in Rotherhithe, in the year 1849, the inhabitants of the waterside
portion of the eastern district made use either of water from the Thames, or from shallow
wells, often rendered impure by the leakage of drains, rat-holes, and percolations from gutters
and cesspools; and the mortality in that part of the parish was frightfully large. The cholera
again made its appearance in 1854; in the interval, the district had been drained and supplied
with excellent water from the Kent Water Works. No part in London suffered less from
the epidemic of 1854, and the waterside portion continues to this day, the healthiest in
Rotherhithe.
There used to be in this parish, four licensed cow-houses, in which were kept from 25 to
30 cows. The fear of the rinderpest has altered this; one cow-keeper has entirely given up
business, another finds it more profitable to get his daily supply of milk from the country.
Two still remain, and 1 believe there are at present (1st June, 1866), but four cows in the
licensed shed*. Two beasts died of the cattle plague, at Mr. Blake's, dairy-man, near the
St. Helena. The slaughter-houses have never been complained of. During the summer of
1865, a oow affected with lung disease was brought under my notice at a licensed slaughterhouse.
The government cattle inspector, Mr. Lowe, to whom I applied, gave orders that the
animal should be at once killed. The earcass was taken back to the place whence it came,
(Burnt Ash Farm, Kent), and buried there under the supervision of Mr. Sanders, the
Inspector of Nuisances.
There is reason to believe that the Fish Manure Factory, Jamaica Ixjvel, will shortly
disappear, the occupier being now under notice to quit at Midsummer next.
Unpleasunt stenches are still ol'u n exhaled from the manure makers at Globe Wharf.
The black ditch which furuished, continually, the sanitary officers and other inedieal
persons with a subject of vituperation, will probably in a short space of time be covered over