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of water forced on by the Company was not sufficient, and certainly
the receptacles for it were not generally large enough, and often
dirty and leaky. Half the supply-pipes were broken, the upper or.
tee piece having been taken off, so that the water is collected in the
most inconvenient manner while welling or gushing up from a perpendicular
pipe.
The drainage has been originally good, but is everywhere
choked up. There is scarcely a privy fit for use. In some the
seats are broken, some have no sides, many no fastenings, others no
doors, and all are full, one or two being literally packed up to the
boards of the seat with hard solid matter. Not a house had an
ashpit, the vegetable and animal refuse being strewn about the
yards, and mixing their effluvia with those from the overflowing
cesspools. I shall not speak much of the wretched condition of the
inhabitants, for sober truth might appear like satire. Much of
their misery may be undoubtedly attributed to poverty, more to
improvident and intemperate habits, and most of all to the want of
proper intellectual and moral training in the early period of life.
It is not to be wondered that when epidemics make their appearance,
they commit fearful ravages in such places, it is more surprising
that such localities are ever free from epidemic disease at all.
I beg particularly to call the attention of the Visiting Committee to
Spread Eagle Court.
On the 6th June, I went to view the mill stream, that I might
report upon it at this meeting; and to the best of my belief, I
tracked out the maze of its numerous and complicated ramifications.
The first fact that strikes the observer, is that time is slowly effecting
what many urge that the hand of man ought at once to do,
namely, filling up the mill stream. The whole stream in all its
divisions and subdivisions, is becoming gradually shallower, partly
from the deposit of the solid part of the sewage of the houses which
drain into it, and partly from the settlement of the Thames water
when allowed to stagnate therein for some hours. The mill pond
receives the drainage and sewage of nearly all the east side of
West Lane, and of all the west side of Gillam's Court, besides that
of the cottages on the Seven Islands, which are not of recent erection.
By recent erection, I mean those that have not been constructed
within the last twenty years. Some of the privies of the
dwellings in Slipper's Row of more modern date, also discharge
themselves into the stream. The filthiest part of the mill stream
appears to be the smaller or eastern channel (running parallel to
the main) where every species of garbage accumulates, from the set
of the inflowing tide. The lesser or cross ditches uniting the two
channels are also disgustingly foul, there existing a hillock or elevation
on the mud at the site of every privy. One of the worst ramifications
is that one terminating by a dead head about the middle of
the south side of Slipper's Place, which, notwithstanding that it was
cast about nine months ago, presents to the eye such a mass of
green slime and putrescence as is rarely to be met with.