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diuary thing to find a like public Board in the Metropolis without
publicans, many of whom had held high and honourable positions in
parochial work.
With regard to the preponderance of the owners of let-out houses
on the Committees in "undue proportion," I must point out that, admitting,
for the purpose of argument only, that the numbers stated are
correct, the Committee of Works consists of twenty-one members [not
fourteen only as stated above], but its duties are entirely confined to the
ctate of the roads and work of that character; while on the Assessment
Committee there are twenty-nine members [not fourteen only as stated
above], and seven can, therefore, hardly, by any straining of
language, be called a "preponderance" of house farmers on
that Committee, and it is, therefore, unfortunate for the Report, on
this particular point, that it should attempt to bring discredit upon the
Vestry as a whole, and upon the gentlemen who own let-out houses in
particular, by stating that the latter are upon the above committees
which happen to have nothing whatever to do with the sanitary condition
of the dwellings in the parish. This I stated in my evidence,
and I therefore the more regret to see it made a feature of in the Report,
because the inference to be drawn from the statement appears to
me to bo uncalled for and undeserved.
With regard to sanitary administration, it will be found in the
evidence I gave, or handed in, speaking from nearly thirty years' experience
as Vestry Clerk in this parish, that through the incessant labours
of the Vestry and its Sanitary Committees, the sanitary condition
of the parish has been vastly improved during that time. That
the death-rate in Clerkenwell, is now only 16.9, or, allowing for deaths
in workhouses and hospitals, 19.8 per thousand, the mortality for all
London being 20.4—the death-rat6 for Clerkenwell, therefore, being
nearly equal to that of the West District (19.5), and much less than
that of the Central Districts (23.2), of which it forms part. And Sir
Charles Dilke. in his letter to the Vestry on the 24th of March last
year, after visiting the locality, added the remark, which is a weighty
testimony, that—"It is undoubtedly true that the parish is a
healthy one."
During the above period, (since 1856,) the Vestry have spent nearly
twenty-eight thousand pounds in sanitary works alone, besides which
they have, under the powers of the Sanitary Act, 1866, erected a mortuary,
(probably the best in London,) with coroner's court, post-mortem
and other rooms, with all modern appliances, and a patent disinfecting
oven, at a cost of nearly three thousand pounds, to which a great
number of bodies are removed annually from the dwellings of the poor.