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67
that these remarks are intended to apply to the houses in
York Valley; these are 5 in number, situated on a slope of
the hill behind certain houses on the South side of Pentonville
Eoad, the entrance is from York Street; the houses are in
fair condition, the walls not damp, the paper hanging in
shreds in one house, arising from the paper not having been
properly pasted on, it is not discoloured; there are no back
yards, but ample front space, the existence of this, forming
the reason why I did not condemn the court in 1875, when I
did all those in which there was no back ventilation. The
neighbourhood is open, but poor; in front of the court-yard,
so to speak, is a wall, 20 feet away from the houses ; this is
the boundary end wall of the gardens of the houses in the
Pentonville Road; these houses being 30 feet further away,
that is, the length of the gardens, so that the houses are 50
feet clear from the back of the houses in front. The breadth
of the open ground of the Court is 83 feet, so that these
houses are favoured with an open space of 1,660 feet; in front
of the houses are two separate brick-built washhouses, with
a closet in each, and nearer the houses, in the open, are 2
water butts, at a little distance apart; each water butt is
placed over a shallow paved pit, each with a sink, the supply
pipe being in the ground, and made of iron, as lead would be
stolen in this neighbourhood ; at the lower part of the ground
is another sink to drain away the water from the general
surface of the Courts, so that the remarks that the sink was
at the highest part of the ground is simply untrue. But there
was a nuisance in the Court, which was caused by the supplypipe
in the yard becoming decayed, and so allowing the earth
to enter it when the water was off; and when the water was
turned on, the water that came up at first was muddy and had
to be thrown away. This was an accidental occurrence, which
might have been remedied at once, if it had come to the
knowledge of the Vestry; but no complaint had been made
of it; and it was entirely independent of any radically wrong