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these poisonous exhalations has yet to be appreciated in the
determination of how far they may originate the development
of consumption, scrofula, cancer, and other diseases,
from which a large number of our fellow parishioners
annually die."
On the subject of the water supply an extract from the
Registrar General's quarterly supplement to the weekly
returns of births and deaths, published on 10th January,
1856, may here be fitly reproduced. He says: "It appeared
from the mortality returns both of 184-9 and 1854, that a
great excess in the deaths from cholera occurred wherever
bad water was supplied. Subsequently to the first period,
a Parliamentary Committee sat, and an act was passed on
July 1st, 1852, to enable and to compel, if necessary, the
water companies to supply London with pure and wholesome
water. The districts of Chelsea, Westminster, and
Belgravia still derive their water from the impure source
that has been abandoned by the other companies." In his
report to the Board in January, 1857, the medical officer of
health states that "among the dwellings of the poor, water
is, and must always be contaminated until more fitting
receptacles are provided them. The method of supply is,
in many instances, very objectionable, as, from the absence
of any receptacle, the inhabitants are obliged to catch their
daily supplies in any convenient vessel, which, being stored
in the already too closely packed apartments, speedily
becomes tainted and unfit for drink." One hundred and
ninty-tive new water butts and cisterns were fixed by order
of the Board before the 1st January, 1858.
Unlike the work of the Metropolitan Board of Works
in laying out imposing new thoroughfares, or in constructing
magnificent bridges or embankments, the work of a
District Board is unobserved in a great measure by those
who enjoy the benefits of it. So long as the sewerage
system, the lighting, the roadways, and the footways are all
maintained in a satisfactory condition, and so long as a