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32
condition as to keep the owners just out of reach of
the arm of the law, but I hope ihat when the new
Bye Laws are issued we shall be able to bring these
houses, occupied as they are by the poorest classes,
into a more satisfactory condition.
Floods.
During the autumn and early winter we have
had two floods. The first was due to the overflowing
of the Hogg's Mill Stream, and caused
considerable damage to property in the neighbourhood
of Mill Street and a great deal of misery to
the poor inhabitants.
The overflow of the Hogg's Mill Stream
occurs very soon after heavy rainfalls, as the course
of the stream is short. The water accumulates on
the meadows on either side of the stream, near
about the New Maiden Sewage Works. Having
risen to a certain point, it seems to overflow on to
land below the cemetery and floods the meadows
near the Oil Mill Lane. These meadows are
flooded because the sluices at the Oil Mills are not
large enough to carry off the flood water. When
the water has risen to a certain height in the Oil
Mill Lane meadows, it reaches the crown of the
arch of a bridge carrying the mains of the Chelsea
Waterworks Company. Now this bridge spans a
subsidiary stream that is supposed to drain these
Oil Mill Lane meadows, and the crown of the arch
being reached the outflow becomes blocked and the
water has to find some other exit. It therefore
flows over into the cricket field, forces a way under
the fence into Fairfield Place, and into the gardens
behind ; and then rushes through the houses into
that part of the stream passing under the most
northern of the three bridges. If the Oil Mills sluice
was enlarged there would be another hold back at
Middle Mill, and if the latter were removed there