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opportunity for the maintenance in proper condition of the paving and drainage of courts,
passages, or public places, not being thoroughfares.
The Metropolitan Board of Works are the local authority under the Building Act,
and upon this Board devolves the duty of controlling the mode of erection of new houses
and of the provision of open space in their rear. The Board have been empowered since
1855 by the 202nd section of the Metropolis Local Management Act of that year, to make
byelaws for regulating the dimensions, form, and mode of construction, and the keeping
cleansing, and repairing of the pipes, drains, and other means of communicating with
sewers, and the traps and apparatus connected therewith. These byelaws have, however
not been made.
The Vestry have under section 75 of this Act, power to require in respect of any
newly built house, or any house rebuilt which has been pulled down to or below the
ground floor, that the drain and branches thereto and other connected works and water
supply be constructed and provided to the satisfaction of the surveyor to the Vestry. The
Vestry in pursuance of the provisions of this section, require that a plan of the drainage
of every house, newly erected or rebuilt, shall be submitted to their surveyor, and that the
waste pipe of every sink shall be aerially disconnected from the drain. There is, however,
no control over the kind of apparatus used, nor is the ventilation of drains or soil pipes
insisted on, but the laying of all new drains is executed under the superintendence of the
Vestry's Clerk of the Works. Cow-sheds and slaughter houses are annually licensed by
the justices, and the Vestry, whose officers inspect these premises, are able at the Sessions
held for this purpose, to bring to the notice of the licensing authority any complaint as to
the unfitness of the premises for such use, or default in administration.
Cow-sheds and slaughter houses and the method of conduct of the trade of cowkeeper
or slaughter-man are also subject to regulation by the Metropolitan Board of
Works, whose officers also inspect for the enforcement of the regulations.
The inspection of bakehouses is performed by the Medical Officer of Health under
powers conferred by the Factory and Workshops Act.
For the removal of dust, the Parish is divided into two districts. To one of these as
many as 1,000 galvanized iron pails have been supplied by the Vestry during the year
1888, and it is incumbent on the contractor to call at every house in this district twice in
each week for the removal of the dust. In regard to other houses where the old system of
wooden dust bins still obtains, the contractor is required to collect dust from the houses in
each street once in each fortnight. He does not, however, call at every house but makes
his presence known by the usual cry. The collection of dust in the latter district was
stated by the Inspector of Nuisances to be unsatisfactory, but in all cases of failure of
removal the inspector is authorised to procure the use of extra carts at the cost of the
contractor.
The use of pails in Rotherhithe has been so far satisfactory that it is proposed to
extend this system throughout the whole Parish.
The alteration in the arrangements for deposit and collection of dust is cited as
explaining in some degree the dilapidated condition in which many wooden dust bins have
been found, the Vestry being represented as hesitating to enforce repairs at a time when
there was no expectation of continued need for this apparatus.
We found during our inspection that in respect of many houses supplied with pails,
the old and dilapidated dust bins had been permitted to remain, and to be a source of
nuisance, owing to their continued use by the inmates.
Cases of infectious disease are removed in the ambulances of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board to the hospitals belonging to that Board, the Vestry's Sanitary Inspector,
aided by an assistant, disinfecting rooms thus vacated by burning sulpher in them. The
walls of these houses are subsequently stripped and washed with a chemical.
Disinfection of articles of clothing, bedding, &c., are undertaken by the Vestry at their
cost, and are sent by the authority to a contractor for this purpose, but when infected by
cases of typhus are burnt.