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certificate signed by a legally qualified medical practitioner,
order the body to be removed to such proper place of reception,
at the cost of the nuisance-authority, and direct the same to be
buried within a time to be limited in such order, &c."
The 28th Section says, "Any nuisance-authority may provide
a proper place (otherwise than at a Workhouse or Mortuary
House, as lastly hereinbefore provided for) for the reception of
dead bodies for and during the time required to conduct a postmortem
examination ordered by the Coroner of the District, &c."
The importance of using the powers thus given to the
Vestry need scarcely be dwelt upon; yet I cannot refrain from
re-printing an extract from my Report to the Vestry in 1856:—
''A question requiring very serious attention arises in connection
with the occupation by a family of a single room only. If a
poor man gets married, he is pretty sure to have a large family
of children; and at the present rate of mortality of children
from Zymotic diseases, several will die of these maladies.
Hence, when a death occurs, the living and the dead must be
together in the same room; the living must eat, drink, and sleep
beside a decomposing corpse; and this in usually a small,
ill-ventilated room, over-heated by a fire required for cooking,
and already filled with the foul emanations from the bodies of
the living and their impure clothes. This is an everyday
occurrence in Clerkenwell, and constitutes a formidable evil;
for what can be more calculated to drown the finer feelings of
human nature, to harden the heart, and to favor deeds of violence
and even murder, than this bringing up of childhood and youth
in the immediate presence of the dead ? These fearful occurrences
could scarcely be avoided even by preventing a family from
occupying a single room; but they might, by insisting that no
corpse shall be kept in an occupied dwelling room, and erecting
a small mausoleum in which the dead might be safely deposited
until the time for burial might arrive."
In regard to this matter, we are in the same state as eleven
years ago; and it is a terrible sight to witness these conditions
even under ordinary circumstances; still more so in the face of
an epidemic, as of Cholera, Typhus, or Small Pox.
Slaughter-houses. The slaughter-houses were duly inspected
in the Autumn of the year; the results of the inspection,
however, do not require special comment.
Bakehouses. The bakehouses were not inspected during
the year, the Sanitary Committee being so much engaged at
the usual period of visitation, with business relating to the