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27
flows the butts in the yards of the houses above named, and that
the washing of the drains spreads itself over the shore, and causes
the effluvium complained of. If the Vestry think this matter
worthy of their notice, the remedy of this nuisance is obvious,
namely, either to carry a pipe from the outlet of the drains to below
the level of low-water mark, or better still, to cause the houses
to be drained into the sewer.
On the 28th July, at the request of the relieving officer, Mr.
Bayley, I went to a house in Searn's Alley (No. 1), I found a lying-in
woman in the lower room, who declared to me that the upper part
of the house was not tenanted. The room itself was dirty and out
of repair, the back yard in a miserable condition, and the drainage
imperfect. I observed there a state of things which I much deprecate,
and to which I wish to call the attention of the Visiting
Committees of this Vestry. The same existing in many other
houses.
The privy has a pan and communicates with the sewer. At
the upper part of the pan there is an opening through which the
end of a pipe passes. The pipe communicates with the upper part
of a neighbouring water-butt, so that when the water is on, all the
waste fluid, there being no ball cock, runs down the pipe and
washes the privy.
I object much to this arrangement on the following grounds.
1st. Because the washing is intermittent, and takes place only
three times a week, or at most once daily, whereas the washing and
cleansing should follow whenever the closet is used.
2nd. Because there is useless waste of water which runs during
the whole time of supply; waste of water in a parish where many
are exclaiming that they cannot obtain a sufficient quantity for
their daily consumption; and
3rd. Because in many cases, as in the case referred to above,
the waste pipe with a bore of three quarters of an inch, being short
(not above six or seven feet in length) allows the sulphuretted and
ammoniacal gases to ascend* from the soil, to hover over the surface
of the fluid in the butt, to be dissolved by it, and impart to
it a distinct taste of drainage, unpleasant and unwholesome to those
who use it.
On the 21st of July, I entered with the Inspector, Mr. Sanders,
the premises of Mr. Hurst, Patent Manure Manufacturer. The
stenches exhaled from his establishment having been a constant
source of annoyance to the inmates of the houses near it. The process
of fabrication was not going on when I entered. 1 shall not
again describe to you the making of patent manure, which has
already been twice treated upon in my previous Reports. Suffice it
to say, that the cause of Mr. Hurst's factory being more odoriferous
than those of many of his neighbours, is, that he uses leather and uncalcined
bone. I picked up several pieces of bone from the sweepings
of the factory, the rib of an ox in the raw state, and the trotter
of a calf with hoof and hair, just as it had been cut from the dead