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city of cesspools, sending forth continually through their vent-holes
streams of volatile and poisonous miasmata. I trust, however, that
this state of things will gradually disappear, and that the day is not
far distant when a filthy cesspool in the immediate vicinity of a
dwelling will be pointed at only as a remnant of bygone and less
enlightened ages.
On the 4th April I was called to the house, No. 2, Augusta Place,
tenanted by Mr. Pook, on account of a disagreeable smell of drainage
in the front kitchen. From information gleaned on the spot, I
believe the following statement to be correct. A large well, between
four and five feet in diameter, and five or six feet in depth, has been
dug in the kitchen to receive the refuse liquid from a sink placed in
one of the corners of the same; the mouth of the well is covered
with a stone, and the stone flooring is placed over it. The consequence
of such an arrangement is just what might be expected from
a stagnant pool of fluid loaded with animal and vegetable matter.
It occasions, at all times, an offensive smell, but when the weather is
hot, or a fire is lighted, the gases becoming more subtile and more
expansive, mix themselves abundantly with the air of the room and
give rise to an intolerable stench, which stench remains even after
the well has been emptied, because the neighbouring earth has
become soddened with its foul contents. The builder has literally
constructed a house over a cesspool, and has thereby produced,
artificially, within four walls, the climate the most congenial for the
generation and propagation of fever and disease. A notice was
served.
On the 19th April I examined the privies of the two houses called
York Cottages, by the " York" public-house, in eastern Rotherhithe.
They were both in an offensive state. The tenant of the cottage
furthest from the "York" complains that his front room smells so
strongly of drainage that he is often unable to live in it. 1 suspect
that a drain runs under the house. A notice was served.
On the 21st April the privy of No. 14, Upper Queen Street,
was brought under my notice; it was full, and the liquid portion
of the soil filtering through the wall into Fisher's Court, Seven-step
Alley. A notice was served.
On the 17th April I visited a privy in Stroud's Cottages, Mariner's
Buildings; the soil was overflowing into a neighbouring garden.
A notice was served.
On the same day I proceeded to a small row of houses called
Castle's Buildings, in Russell Street. They are five in number, and
contain about twenty-five inmates. Before the houses is a paved
court, and at the end of the court a stand pipe for water-supply.
The privies are two in number, in a corner, approached by a narrow
passage, and so small that a man a little above the common size
must hesitate before he enters, lest he should get immoveably wedged
and fixed in the place. From some defect in the drainage, the soil,
when the water is flowing, makes its way up the drain, much to