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those who are in the room. All public rooms
lighted with gas should be supplied with means for
getting rid immediately of the products of combustion.
Public rooms and places of worship are
not often built with reference to these requirements,
but I am glad to say that the new St. James's Hall
which was opened in 1858, is so constructed as to
secure a most satisfactory amount of ventilation,
without inconvenience to the audience.
Amongst other sanitary improvements going on
in the parish, I may mention the building a new
Police Court in Great Marlborough Street. The old
premises were very deficient in sanitary arrangements,
and the cells for the detention of prisoners small, inconvenient,
and eminently insalubrious. The new
offices have been built with every attention to the
health and morality of its temporary inmates.
In my last Annual Report, I drew your attention
to the subject of the water supply of the parish. I was
induced to do this in a somewhat detailed manner,
on account of the erroneous opinions so generally
held with regard to the nature and character of
the water supplied for drinking purposes in London.
The most dangerous of these opinions is that which
regards the water obtained from the surface wells
of this and other parishes as not only less impure
than the water supplied from the river Thames,
but as possessing highly salubrious and beneficial
properties. It was not till the investigation that
took place after the terrible catastrophe of 1854,
when upwards of 500 inhabitants of this parish