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103
The drains of the girls' and infants' water closets extended
under the girls' school, and was connected into the sewer in
Appleby Street; this was a pipe drain, but it was constructed in
the most unskilful and defective manner throughout, and caused
thereby the schoolroom to be impregnated with sewer gas. The
various closets were fitted with iron troughs, and it was evident
that no amount of care could prevent these troughs being
abominably foul. The paving of the urinal attached to the infants'
closets, and the paving also of the urinal attached to the boys'
closets was very irregular, and thereby foul.
The conditions were brought under the notice of the Committee
of the School, who very readily adopted all my suggestions, and
included them in the specification which they prepared for the
improvement of their property, under which the defective drain
passing under the girls' school was abolished, and the whole of the
w.cs., urinals and surface drainage discharged through a new
drain laid in the open playground into the sewer in Dunloe Street;
this drain was fitted with a proper inspection chamber and
interception trap.
The foul iron troughs in the water closets were removed, and
each closet was fitted on "The Shoreditch Model," with an
ordinary hopper pan and trap, with an open space under the seat,
and waste-preventer cisterns for flushing. The height of the seat
and other details being carefully adapted for use by children.
The school was built in 1840, and the foul dangerous conditions
I have described appears to have been about equally due in their
inception, to want of skill and care in workmanship, and to want
of prevision in planning. The mistress of the girls' school was
stricken with fever, and under her schoolroom laid the defective
drain emitting sewer gas, which probably poisoned her blood, and
it may well be, that very many of the children who have attended
these schools have suffered in like manner, the cause being untraced
and never suspected.
This case is particularly referred to, because the Committee
responsible for the conditions were not fully cognisant of the