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4
Open Sewers and Ditches.
The first thing that strikes any person making a tour of sanitary
inspection in Rotherhithe, is the number of uncovered ditches; its
very boundary-line, for a long distance, being a wide, filthy, black,
open sewer. Now, there is no fact more clearly proved in medical
science than that the inhalation, for any length of time, by human
beings, of the exhalations or effluvia from ditches, drains or sewers,
is injurious to the health, and undoubtedly would be much more so
in Rotherhithe than it has been, but for the causes I have already
explained.
The first duty then of a sanitary officer is to report such nuisances
to the Vestry. To report them all at once, would, however, be
bewildering both you and myself, and 1 shall be content on this
occasion with directing your attention to two, viz.:—
1. The Cobourg sewer, opposite the Workhouse, running past
the end of George Street to the south of Albion Street, and discharging
itself into the low level sewer in Swan Lane.
2. The open ditch running between the north side of Albion
Street and the south side of Adam Street, certainly the foulest and
filthiest in Rotherhithe; situated, too, in a crowded neighbourhood,
beginning by a dead head at No 1, Adam Street, and discharging
itself also into the low level sewer in Swan Lane, receiving, in its
course, the drainage, privies and refuse of a hundred houses. These
ditches were examined and inspected by me on the 16th January
last.
I might here cite many examples of the great benefit arising to
the health of a locality by the covering in of its open sewers ; but I
cannot give you any better than what has occurred in Rotherhithe
itself. A few years ago the upper, or northern part of Swan Lane
was intersected by foul open ditches. Typhus fever then reigned
constantly on that spot (about Kenning's Buildings and Norfolk
Place); as many as ninety cases of fever were attended by the
parish medical officer in twelve months; but since the ditches have
been arched over the disease has entirely disappeared from the
spot, and the place has now become one of the healthiest in the
parish.
Drainage.
The next subject upon which I shall venture to make a few observations,
is the drainage of Rotherhithe. Whole blocks of houses
are badly drained ; many have no drainage at all. Nor does this
remark apply merely to dwellings that have been long built; but 1
am sorry to say that many of the new erections, in large streets,
are insufficiently drained. I shall report these buildings one by
one to the Vestry as they come under my notice.
Connected with drainage are the cesspools and privies, many of
which are in a most offensive state. On the 16th January last, in