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in Shoreditch. On the 27th January, a reply was received stating that the
Company preferred that the Local Authority rather than the Company should
take the initiative in the matter.
"In October, 1875, the Vestry addressed a letter to the Metropolitan Board
of Works requesting it to employ its authority to require the Water Company to
furnish a constant supply to a section of the parish. To this the Metropolitan
Board of Works replied: 'They were of opinion it was not expedient to comply
with the request.'
The Metropolitan
Board
of Works on
Constant
Water Supply.
"In the month of February, 1877, a deputation, consisting of the Medical
Officer, the Vestry Clerk, and the Chairman of the Sanitary Committee, waited
upon the Directors of the New River Company, to request them to furnish a
constant supply to a considerable portion of the District, but the Directors
declined to do so unless required by the Metropolitan Authority.
"Under these circumstances the Vestry applied to the Local Government
Board in April 1877, with the result that the New River Company laid
on the constant supply throughout the whole of the area in Shoreditch.
"This has enabled the Sanitary Inspector to secure the removal of 2,966
cisterns, so situated as to be dangerous, and by the end of 1885, all waterbutts
had disappeared from the parish ; 314 having gone under sanitary notice.
Cisterns and
Water Butts
abolished.
"It may also be mentioned that from a survey of the Annual Reports
of the Medical Officers and the Sanitary Inspector, that a very large amount of
work has been done, though it has been impossible for those Officers to remedy
all the defects arising from original bad construction, cummon to so many of
the small houses in the parish—to wit, soft, inferior bricks, mortar with little
lime and no sand, sashes, doors, floors, and stairs of the flimsiest character, with
rooms so small as not to give elbow room to families.
"An immense amount of energy has been devoted, and very successfully,
to the removal of the hidden dangers lying under houses and water-closets and
adjacent yards, and in promoting dryness in walls by paving of yards, areas,
and forecourts. Thus, from a summary of the reports of the last ten years, it
will be found that 828 defective brick drains have been removed and pipe
drains substituted, 4,052 defectively constructed pipe drains have been reconstructed,
and 170 new drains have been laid down, 204 cesspools have been
removed with their poisonous contents from the neighbourhood of houses,
2,891 waste pipes of kitchen sinks have been disconnected from drains, and 4,005
rain pipes, having their heads in dangerous proximity to bedroom windows,
have been disconnected from drains, 5,893 water-closets have been reconstructed
—each closet having been fitted up with a concrete floor and with an open
space under the seat and around the pan, a plan introduced by the Chief
Inspector of this parish, and which precludes the hidden accumulation of filth
common to the ordinary construction of water-closets, 259 water-closets have
Summary of
Work Done
in the last
Te n Years.