The experiments which I have recently made on the action of pure water upon lead, clearly point out the necessity of keeping the pipes always full, especially in those instances in which the water has a tendency, however slight, to erode the lead. As the importance of this part of the question does not appear to have been sufficiently appreciated by the advocates of a constant instead of an intermittent supply, I will briefly recount the facts of the case, although I do not offer them as presenting anything particularly novel. If a piece of bright lead be placed in a stoppered bottle, completely filled with recently distilled water, so that the access of air be wholly excluded, the lead is but very slightly acted upon, and it is only after the lapse of three or four days that its surface becomes spangled with a few minute crystals of carbonate of lead.
If the stopper of the bottle be now removed, the lead still remaining beneath the surface of the water, the erosive action of the water on the lead proceeds more rapidly, but still slowly. But if now a portion of the water be poured off, so as to leave the lead only partially immersed, rapid action on the lead immediately commences. In the course of thirty-six or forty-eight hours, its surface becomes coated with crystalline scales of carbonate of lead, which, falling off, are succeeded by others, so that after the lapse of a few days an abundant deposit of carbonate and hydrated oxide of lead is found at the bottom of the vessel. If the experiment be made with distilled water that has been previously agitated with air, so as to completely aërate it, the lead is more rapidly acted upon, even in a closed vessel, thus clearly showing how much the action of the water upon the lead depends upon the presence or absence of atmospheric air.
Now, in a minor degree, this is precisely what takes place in a leaden pipe conveying water capable of eroding lead. While the pipe is full, comparatively but little action occurs; but when the pipe is filled alternately with air and with water, it is placed under the most favourable circumstances to ensure a rapid erosion of its substance, and consequent contamination of the water.
The rush of water necessarily produced by an intermittent flow must also detach portions of carbonate of lead from the sides of the pipe, even in those cases where the water has no very decided action on lead, and it is therefore far from improbable that in this manner the poison of lead is occasionally conveyed into our kitchens, and becomes mixed with our food.
According to your desire, I have examined the action of the waters from the above-mentioned sources on clean lead, and have arrived at the following conclusions:—the water from Haslemere has a slow though decided action upon the metal, no effect taking place until the lead had been partially immersed for four or five days. After that time, a small deposit of carbonate of lead was perceptible at the bottom of the vessel, although none could be detected in solution. The absence of carbonic acid in the water from Haslemere, Boorley, and Barford, would in all probability prevent their acting upon lead, were atmospheric air at the same time excluded. A piece of lead that had been kept for a week in a closed bottle filled with water from Haslemere did not exhibit the least trace of carbonate of lead, nor could the presence of lead be detected in the water.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that the water as drawn from the pipes of the New River and East London Companies does not exhibit the least solvent action upon lead; when, however, purified by boiling, and placed in contact with lead, crystals of carbonate of lead were observable after the lapse of three days in the water of the New River Company, while, owing to its greater hardness, the water of the East London Company did not exhibit any traces of carbonate of lead until the expiration of more than a week, and even then only in a slight degree. The same waters purified by the patented process of Clark did not exhibit so decided an action upon lead as when purified by boiling; but after evaporating to dryness the water in which lead had been immersed for three weeks, and dissolving the residue in dilute nitric acid, the presence of a minute quantity of lead was rendered evident.
It therefore appears that if leaden pipes, and especially if leadencisterns, are to be employed in the distribution and storage of water, on the system of interrupted supply, it will be a necessary safeguard, that the water thus conveyed and stored should not be of less hardness than from six to seven degrees, compared with distilled water as unity; and conversely, it also follows, that if the inhabitants of the metropolis are to gain the advantage of using a still purer and softer water, it will be requisite to do away with the existing leaden pipes and cisterns, and to substitute for them some material which shall not communicate any poisonous or noxious ingredient to the water. As matters now stand, we escape daily poisoning by the use of water loaded with earthy salts, and are thus compelled to drink an impure water on account of the impurity of our vessels. Would it not be better, and is it impossible, to drink the pure element from a pure cup?
I remain, dear sir, with much respect,Yours obediently,Thomas Taylor.
I remain, dear sir, with much respect,Yours obediently,Thomas Taylor.
ToJohn Simon, Esq., F.R.S.,Officer of Health to the City of London.
November 25th, 1851.
Gentlemen,
Ihavethe honour of laying before you, in the various subjoined tables, such information as will enable you to measure the present sanitary condition of the City of London.
1. The first table (Appendix, No. I.) contains a statement of the present population of the City, as derived from the Registrar-General’s recent census; and it compares the existing numbers in each division of the City with those given at the last enumeration in 1841.
In examining this table you will observe that, during these ten years, the general population of the City has increased about 32⁄5per cent.; that this increase has not been uniform through the nine sub-districts of your jurisdiction; that in some it has been unimportant; that in others there has been an actual decrease, extending even to 42⁄3per cent.on the previous population; while in the whole East London Union the numbers have risen considerably above the aggregate rate of increase, and in the St. Botolph sub-district exceed those of the former census by more than 16per cent.
Passing over the minor differences which have taken place in the distribution of the population, I cannot regardthat larger increase without apprehension and regret. Probably for the most part it represents the continued influx of a poor population into localities undesirable for residence, and implies that habitations—previously unwholesome by their over-crowdedness—are now still more densely thronged by a squalid and sickly population.
I congratulate your Hon. Court on the recent acquisition of powers (to the nature of which I shall presently advert) for the reduction and prevention of this serious evil.
2. The second table[61]presents a summary of the City mortality for the year which terminated at Michaelmas last; showing the deaths, as they have occurred, male and female, during each quarter of the year, in the several districts and sub-districts of the City; and including at the foot of each column, a statement of the year’s death-rateperthousand of the living in each such district and sub-district.
[61]Appendix, No. V.The calculated death-rates are omitted from this, as from the other annual tables:—the quinquennial rates (App. No. II.) giving more useful results.—J. S., 1854.
[61]Appendix, No. V.The calculated death-rates are omitted from this, as from the other annual tables:—the quinquennial rates (App. No. II.) giving more useful results.—J. S., 1854.
You will observe that, during the 52 weeks, dated from September 29th, 1850, to September 27th, 1851, there have died of the population under your charge 2978 persons; giving, for the City aggregately, a rate of nearly 23 deaths for every thousand living persons.
The rate of last year was little over 21perthousand.
In mylast Annual ReportI suggested that the death-rate then prevailing was probably (from temporary circumstances) more favourable than the true average of the City; that it corresponded to the period of recovery from severeepidemic influences; that it seemed exceptional; and that you might be prepared for this year’s mortality showing again a tendency to increase.
Such has been the case; and it illustrates the necessity of appealing to cyclical averages for correct intelligence as to the healthiness of a population. To my mind the increased mortality of this year does not indicate any deterioration of the City in respect of sanitary matters under your control; it shows merely that the death-rate, which must be considered our present average for the City, is in truth higher than that which favourable circumstances, foreign to your jurisdiction, last year permitted us to attain.
Looking to the total mortality of the last three years (the period for which I have had the honour of serving your Commission), I find that 9493 deaths have taken place; which, the mean population of the time being 129,922, gives an average rate of 24·35 deathsperthousandper annum. This accords very nearly with a death-rate (24·36) deduced from the septennial period 1838-44, during which (according to the Registrar-General) 22,127 deaths occurred in a population estimated at 129,739.[62]
[62]Since 1841, when the Census gave these figures, the limits of the West London Union have been slightly altered. The Inner Temple and Barnard’s Inn have been added to it, while part of St. Sepulchre’s parish has been taken away.
[62]Since 1841, when the Census gave these figures, the limits of the West London Union have been slightly altered. The Inner Temple and Barnard’s Inn have been added to it, while part of St. Sepulchre’s parish has been taken away.
Assuming our City mortality to be accurately represented by these averages, I need not inform your Hon. Court that such a death-rate is unduly high. I have already, in previous Reports, laid before you the materials for measuring its excess,—materials which seem to show that our existingdeath-rate is nearly the double of that which better circumstances have elsewhere rendered attainable.[63]
[63]The death-rate to which I particularly refer in the text, and which Icitedin my last year’s report, is that of a large district in Northumberland, numbering 27,628 inhabitants, where, during the seven years 1838-44, the mortality was at the rate of only 14perthousandper annum; and even in this comparatively low proportion a very distinct share might still be called preventable deaths.
[63]The death-rate to which I particularly refer in the text, and which Icitedin my last year’s report, is that of a large district in Northumberland, numbering 27,628 inhabitants, where, during the seven years 1838-44, the mortality was at the rate of only 14perthousandper annum; and even in this comparatively low proportion a very distinct share might still be called preventable deaths.
It is not to the City alone of metropolitan districts that this high mortality belongs. Unhappily it affects the entire Metropolis; and we may find other towns in England, and still more on the Continent, where the death-rate is higher than under your jurisdiction. Yet your Hon. Court will not doubt that the standard to be adopted for your estimate of healthiness ought to be the lowest known death-rate; that every avoidable death represents an evil to society; and that, if a mortality of 12, or 13, or 14perthousandper annumcan be reached for one mixed population, there is ample room for discontent among any other population, which finds itself doomed to perish at double the rate of the first.
3. In the third table[64]all the deaths of the last three years are enumerated in a form which may enable you to compare one year with another, and one sub-district with another, in respect of their several contributions to the total mortality.
[64]This information is now included in the Quinquennial Synopsis,Appendix, No. II.
[64]This information is now included in the Quinquennial Synopsis,Appendix, No. II.
4. In the fourth table[65]are classified, according to theages at which they occurred, 9476[66]deaths of the last three years. This table is arranged in a manner to display its results—(1) for each year separately, and (2) for each Union separately, in order that you may observe what local or annual differences have obtained as to the ages of chief mortality. You will notice that in 3469 instances, nearly three-eighths of the whole, death has befallen children under five years old. Children at this age constitute about a tenth part of the population of the City. They accordingly die at about four times the rate which would fall to them as equal participators in the average mortality of the district. Thenext tablewill throw some light on this disproportionate excess of infant deaths.
[65]Now embodied inTable VIII.[66]In the remaining number (17) the particulars of age and residence could not be correctly ascertained.
[65]Now embodied inTable VIII.
[66]In the remaining number (17) the particulars of age and residence could not be correctly ascertained.
5. In it[67]an enumeration is made of such deaths, during the last three years, as have arisen in consequence of acute disease partially or entirely preventable. They amount to 3923—more than two-fifths of the entire mortality of the period.
[67]Appendix, No. IX.includes this Table.
[67]Appendix, No. IX.includes this Table.
I would especially beg the attention of your Hon. Court to the particulars set forth in the successive columns of this table.
The first column shows 391 deaths by fever; and of these, without hesitation, I would speak as entirely preventable. Under favourable sanitary conditions fever is unknown. The deaths arising from it befall for the most part persons in the prime of life, whose premature removal, in the midst of their vigour and usefulness, is not only adirect weakening of society, but is also, in respect of orphanage and widowhood, a frequent source to the public of indirect detriment and expense.
In the second column, swelled by the epidemic visitation of 1849, you will find 902 deaths referred to Asiatic Cholera, and to other kindred diseases. Comparatively few cases of the kind have occurred since Michaelmas, 1849; an overwhelming majority belonged to the summer quarter then terminating, when the Metropolis generally was suffering from the presence of Cholera. I have already had occasion to show you that this frightful pestilence belongs only to localities which, by their general epidemic mortality, have previously been stigmatised as unhealthy; that, over districts otherwise healthy, it migrates without striking a blow; that it may, therefore, with confidence be spoken of as a disease proportionate to removable causes—in other words, as a preventable disease.
I cannot pass over these two columns, without begging you to observe what perhaps may be novel to you. If, instead of reckoning the cholera-deaths as belonging solely to the one year in which they happened, you reckon them as belonging to the whole term of years which elapsed between the two visitations of the epidemic, and distribute them equally over that period, so as to form an average—say for fifteen years, you cannot fail to notice how largely, in the long run, the destruction by fever (which is always here) surpasses the fatality of that Eastern disease; so much so, that the average annual mortality by the latter probably does not amount to half the fatality of the former.
Nor must it be lost sight of, that if thedeathsby typhus double in number those produced by cholera, the list ofpersons attackedby the former disease, and thereby for along while incapacitated and suffering, is immeasurably beyond this proportion. Two or three times the number of deaths by cholera would give you the number of seizures, and enable you to estimate all the direct mischief caused by it; while, in regard of typhus, probably for one death there are twenty cases of protracted illness, tardy convalescence, and injured constitution. Not only are the deaths double in number, but each of them indicates an infinitely larger amount of sickness and suffering not immediately productive of death.
The frightful suddenness of the rarer disease, and the condensation of its epidemic fatality into some single year, give it more apparent importance than belongs to the familiar name of typhus; but I can assure your Hon. Court, that if a large amount of preventable death, and a still larger amount of preventable misery, be strong arguments for sanitary improvement and activity, those arguments are more abundantly derivable from the constant pressure of fever and its kindred maladies, than from the sharper but infrequent visitations of the foreign pestilence.
In the third column of this table come deaths by scarlatina. Of these, perhaps a certain proportion would occur even under favourable circumstances; for, whatever may have been the original derivation of the disease, it is impossible to doubt that the severity of its attack mainly depends on conditions peculiar to the person of the patient, and that no perfection of external circumstances will ensure mildness of infection. But on the other hand it is certain, that, under attacks of the disease at first equally malignant, adequate ventilation with pure air will enable one patient to wrestle successfully against the poison, while another, less favourably circumstanced, will rapidly sink beneath its influence;and hence I have no hesitation in assuring you, in respect of the 213 deaths registered under this head, that a majority would have been avoided under improved domestic arrangements.
In the fourth column, you will read of 91 deaths by small pox. Your judgment will not be a harsh one, if you assume that 90 of these were the result of criminal negligence. Under the present administration of the Poor Laws, vaccination is not only accessible to all members of the community, but is literally pressed on the acceptance of the poor. Those stupid prejudices, which for some years retarded the universal adoption of Jenner’s great discovery, have now died away; the neglect of vaccination must be regarded as the omission of a recognised and imperative duty. Deaths of children, arising in this parental neglect, ought to be considered in the same light as if they arose in the neglect to feed or to clothe; and I am disposed to believe, that the readiest way of bringing this view of the case before those uneducated classes, where the omission usually arises, would be to procure Coroner’s inquests every year in respect of some half dozen or more instances where the evidence of neglect might happen to be glaring.
In the fifth column of the table stand recorded a hundred deaths by the poison of erysipelas, in one form or another; arising sometimes spontaneously, sometimes in connection with the child-bearing state, sometimes in sequel of accidental lesions and surgical operations.
My daily experience as a Surgeon—especially as a Hospital-Surgeon, enables me confidently to speak of these diseases as an artificial product of unhealthy exterior conditions. The contrasting results of surgical operations in town and in country—of operations undertaken amid pur-ventilation,in spacious cleanly rooms and dry localities, with those undertaken under opposite circumstances (in the dwellings of the poor for instance, or wherever else amid damp, dirt, and over-crowding), and the similar experience which exists as to the origination of puerperal fever, would be quite conclusive as to the fact, that of the 101 deaths under this head, a large majority might have been prevented.
Next, in the sixth, seventh and eighth columns, stand deaths arising in the chief acute diseases of infancy, those to which the disproportionate mortality of infants is mainly due. Many careful statistical observations, as well as personal experience, convince me that the immense fatality recorded under this head, is, to a very great extent, due to obviable causes.
To bring this matter distinctly before you, I must take, as a standard of comparison, some district where the general death-rate is sufficiently low to distinguish it as eminently healthy; and in such an one you will notice a marked diminution, not only (of course) in thenumberof infant deaths, but likewise in theirproportionto the total mortality.
Such a district is that of the combined parishes of Glendale, Bellingham and Haltwhistle, in the county of Northumberland. In it the general death-rate is 14; in the East and West London Unions of the City of London, the general death-rate is 26·73. In the former district, children under five constituting more than an eighth of the population (1⁄7·6), their deaths form about a quarter of the whole mortality; while in the latter district, where the children are in smaller proportion—namely about1⁄9of the population, their deaths are not much less than half (1⁄2·21)of the whole mortality. Thus, in the healthier district they die at less than double the average rate for all ages; in the unhealthier, at more than four times that average.
A still better method of district-comparison, is to arrange in a series the death-rates prevailing in several localities for personsover five years of age, and side by side with this column, another for the death-rates of childrenunder five years of age. The first column will of course indicate very well the relative sanitary conditions of the districts; but the differences between them will be expressed far more clearly, and, as it were, in a magnified form, in the column of infantine death-rates. Thus, for instance—to repeat the comparison just instituted between the Northumberland and the London district; the death-rate for all ages over five is about 12 in the former district, and nearly 15 in the latter; a difference quite sufficient to establish the inequality of their sanitary conditions. But, how much more strongly is this disparity expressed in the comparison of the infantine death-rates—26·5 for the healthier district, 107·57 for the unhealthier one!
Nothing can be more conclusive than the evidence afforded by statistics, as to the dependence of high infantine mortality on the general causes of endemic unhealthiness. My own observation within the City gives complete confirmation to this view, showing me that the diseases specified in my table (diarrhœa, bronchitis and pneumonia, hooping-cough, croup and measles, hydrocephalus and convulsions) however various in nature they may seem, and however apt you may be to dissociate their occurrence from the thought of local causation, yet unquestionably multiply their victims, in proportion to the otherwise demonstrable unhealthinessof a place, owe most of their fatality to local causes, and may, therefore, to a great extent he disarmed of their malignity.
The last column gives the total of those which have preceded it, and shows, out of 9493 deaths, 3923, all from acute disease, in intimate dependence on local and obviable causes. It will be a moderate computation with respect to these deaths, if we estimate that two-thirds of them might have been hindered.
And yet it is not only byacutedisorders, that preventable death succeeds in ravaging the population. If we turn to the examination ofchronicailments producing death, we may quickly recognise many indications of their preventability, and may satisfy ourselves that here also the general mortality might be very largely reduced.
Look, for instance, at the whole immense class of scrofulous diseases, including pulmonary consumption, a class probably causing, directly or indirectly, at least a quarter of our entire mortality; and consider the vast influence which circumstances exert over its development.
Of such circumstances some lie within your control, and affect masses of the people; but the more special causes of chronic disease lie rather out of your jurisdiction, and the option of avoiding them is a matter of individual will. Vicious habits and indiscretion; a life too indolent, or too laborious; poverty and privation; vicissitudes of weather and temperature; intemperance in diet; unwholesome and adulterated food; and, not least, inappropriate marriages tending to perpetuate particular kinds of disease; these words may suggest to you, briefly, that there are many influences, within the sphere of private life, by which theaggregate death-rate of a population is largely enhanced, but the control of which, if attainable, lies almost entirely at the discretion of the classes subject to their operation.
Considering all these causes, and the needless waste of life occasioned by them, I can have little doubt that as much might be done by individuals, under the influence of improved education, to lessen the mortality from chronic disease, as by sanitary legislation to stay the sources of epidemic death. And regarding both classes of disease together—those, on the one hand, which are of endemic origin (arising in imperfect drainage, in defective water-supply, in ill-devised arrangement of buildings, in offensive and injurious trades, in the putrefaction of burial-grounds, and the like) and those classes, on the other, which arise in the circumstances of individual life, I can have no hesitation in estimating their joint operation at a moiety of our total death-rate, or in renewing an assertion of mylast years’ Report, ‘if the deliberate promises of Science be not an empty delusion, it is practicable to reduce human mortality within your jurisdiction to the half of its present average prevalence.’
To revert, however, to your more special branch of the subject,—I have thought the present a convenient time for indicating to you the pressure of preventable death, arising in acute disease, because of the great addition which you have recently gained to your powers for enforcing prevention.
That an average death-rate of nearly 25perthousandper annumprevails in the City; that three-eighths of your mortality consists in a premature extinction of infant life; that fatal disease, in more than two-fifths of its visitations,is of a kind which operates endemically and preventably;—these are the facts to which I have appealed, as my evidence of the need for sanitary activity and perseverance.
On other occasions I have endeavoured to set before you what are those agencies hostile to life, which affect the masses of an urban population; and during the last three years your Hon. Court has shown its recognition of these causes, and has devoted attention to the means of counteracting them by appropriate sanitary measures.
In too many instances, the powers first given you by the Legislature were inadequate to this great purpose. But now, armed with the further authority of your new Act of Parliament, you enjoy such means for sanitary improvement as have never yet been possessed by any Corporation in the country; such means as, judiciously wielded, cannot but produce the greatest advantage to persons living under your jurisdiction.
As you are only now entering on the exercise of these powers, it may be convenient that I should submit to you a brief account of them, and I gladly turn from contemplating the spectacle of preventable death, to analyse the means of prevention now vested in you by the Legislature.
1. In regard ofpublic drainage or sewerage, the first and most elementary condition of endemic health, I need hardly tell you that within the City, your powers are absolute. You have entire and sole responsibility for the construction and maintenance of sewers, for their cleaning or flushing, and for the prevention of noxious effluvia from their innumerable gully-holes.
2. In the all-important particular ofhouse-drainage, yourauthority is sufficient for every purpose. You can order the complete abolition of cesspools; the construction of drainage in any premises within fifty feet of a sewer; its repair, cleansing, or renewal, whenever it may be disordered: and not only can you order these works to be done, but—failing the owner’s compliance with your notice, you can devolve the performance of his duty on your own workmen, and can recover your expenses from the recusant.
3. In regard ofwater-supply to housesyour powers are equally cogent, though the unsatisfactory condition of the water-trade continues a serious obstacle to their effective employment. You have authority here, as with house-drainage, to order the construction of all necessary apparatus, and to enforce the fulfilment of your order.
Under both these heads, you possess a power hitherto but imperfectly used, the complete and constant exercise of which I would strongly recommend to your Hon. Court. In all those clauses of your Acts of Parliament, which relate to private works of house-drainage and water-supply, there occurs a very important phrase:—such works shall be constructed ‘to the satisfaction of the Commissioners.’ Now, of private works effected under the authority of your Act, during the last three years, a certain, not inconsiderable, share proves inoperative and bad. The mere overflowing of a water-butt (and in numberless instances this is the arrangement evasively adopted under your orders) can never suffice for the effectual cleansing of house-drains. I need scarcely inform you that an obstructed drain and choked privy, wherever they occur, are equivalent to a cesspool;shedding abroad the same effluvia, and producing the same deadly results. No gain is gotten to the wholesomeness of a house, by substituting for its former cesspool an equally offensive and inoperative drain. To my knowledge, much of the drainage done during the last three years is liable to this risk; and it appears to me indispensable that you should exert direct supervision against so serious an evil.
I would recommend to your Hon. Court that, in issuing orders for the construction of drainage and water-supply, you should require a full specification to be delivered you of the works about to be undertaken, and should distinctly decide as to their sufficiency; or by a still simpler process, that you should fix and determine a certain standard of combined works; a model plan, in short, for house-drainage, privies, and water-supply, and should direct your Inspectors to certify to you the sufficiency of only such works as may accurately correspond to this design.
I cannot but regard it as a grave calamity, that the general supply of water to the City remains beyond your control, in the hands of irresponsible traders; for its imperfect adaptation to the requirements of the public constitutes the largest sanitary evil of the day.
4. You have entire control over thepavement of every public waywithin the City, for its construction, maintenance, and cleansing; and in this respect you exercise a power of great sanitary value. The preservation of cleanliness along the whole extended surface of the City, including its many hundred courts and alleys, is indeed a branch of your functions which can hardly be over-estimated for its importance; and the fines which you have the power oflevying from your contractors, whenever the scavenging is neglected, are useful securities for the general performance of their duties.
It lies within your power to order, wherever you may think fit, the employment of the hose and jet for the purpose of surface-cleansing in courts and alleys: and, I may add, that the advantages of this most effective sanitary process have been highly appreciated where you have directed its application.
In some of the poorer localities, complaints have arisen in a matter relating to the pavements, where you are not able to afford the complainants effectual relief: viz., with respect to certain inhabitants throwing refuse and offensive matters from the houses into the public way, so that nuisance is created. I have already suggested to your Hon. Court, and I beg leave here to repeat, that in the 41st clause of the City Police Act, provision is made for the prevention of this particular offence, and that your four Inspectors are manifestly unable to relieve the Police Force of their legal responsibility in the matter.
5. Your powers for enforcing the wholesomecleanliness of private premisesare equally considerable. You can order the removal of offensive matter, the purification and whitewashing of premises, and the abatement of any nuisance arising in conditions of filth. In case of need, as shown by a medical certificate, you can summon the offender before your Court; and (under your new Act) you can punish with a heavy fine any repetition of the nuisance against which your order has once been issued.
6. So long asslaughter-housesare tolerated within theCity (and it is to be hoped this may not be long) you have power to regulate their use, according to your discretion, with a view to their cleanliness and better management; and in case of disobedience to your orders, you have power to enforce the temporary suspension of slaughtering. Your new Act renders illegal any slaughtering in cellars, or any keeping of cattle there: and it prohibits that offensive exposure of putrescent hides, which has so often been complained of in the vicinity of Leadenhall Market.
7. In close connection with the regulation of slaughter-houses, your new Act gives you authority in a matter hitherto quite foreign to your jurisdiction, but where your vigilance may no doubt be exercised with great advantage to the public health. You are authorised toappoint Inspectors of slaughter-houses and of meat; and these officers are required to inspect shops, markets, and slaughter-houses, and to seize and destroy any meat which may appear to them unsound or unwholesome. A further clause of very extensive application enables you to deal generally with all cases, whereunwholesome provisionsare exposed for sale; and this clause is so constructed as to include and render penal all thosefraudulent adulterations of foodwhich render it detrimental to health.
8. You are invested with important authority againstsuch trades and occupations as are offensive or injuriousto their neighbourhood. Under your former Act, you can subject to penalties any person who shall ‘roast or burn, boil, distil, or otherwise decompose any root, drug, or other article or thing, in any house or building, and thereby causeoffensive or injurious smells or vapours to be emitted therefrom, so as to become a common nuisance;’ and the same Act also gave you a very inoperative clause against such nuisance-causing manufactories as might begin to work in the City after the commencement of that Act.
Your new law enacts that everything practicable shall be done for the suppression of all nuisances arising in manufactures and the like:—that, after the first of January next, every furnace used in the City shall be such as to consume its own smoke; and that whatever trade or business may occasion noxious or offensive effluvia, or otherwise annoy the inhabitants of its neighbourhood, shall be required to employ, to your satisfaction, the best known means for preventing or counteracting such annoyance.
9. You have certain powers, to which I adverted inmy former Report, as likely to come into activity whenever the injurious practice of intramural burial might cease; powers, namely, relating to thedisposal of dead bodiesin certain specified cases: and under your new Act, you have acquired some further authority (likewise only to be exercised after that cessation, and with the consent of the Bishop of London) toappropriate the disused burial-groundsfor purposes of improvement. At the time of my last Report I looked ‘forward to the complete discontinuance of burial within your territory as a matter for warm congratulation among all who are interested in the cause of sanitary improvement;’ and it is with proportionate disappointment and regret, that I have now to report to you that the Order in Council, which was to have closed all metropolitan burial grounds, has never yet been issued; and that negociations,conducted by the General Board of Health for the purchase of a sufficient extramural cemetery, were suddenly arrested at the close of the last session of Parliament. Your powers in relation to these matters remain of course meanwhile inoperative.[68]
[68]In the Parliamentary Session of 1852, the Interments Act of 1850, which had remained inoperative, was repealed under a new ‘Act to amend the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis,’ which became law July 1st, 1852. Under this Act, the powers, alluded to ina later partof this volume, were given to the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London as a Burial Board for the City.—J. S., 1854.
[68]In the Parliamentary Session of 1852, the Interments Act of 1850, which had remained inoperative, was repealed under a new ‘Act to amend the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis,’ which became law July 1st, 1852. Under this Act, the powers, alluded to ina later partof this volume, were given to the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London as a Burial Board for the City.—J. S., 1854.
10. The most important additions made to your power relate to thedwellings of the poor, and are embodied chiefly in the tenth section of your new Act. The definition of ‘lodging-house’ given in this clause is so extensive, and the power of regulation conceded to you is so unconditional (where once the necessity for your interference is shown) that your Hon. Court can now exert your authority for every legitimate object, in respect of all the poorer houses in the City.[69]The definition is, that ‘the expressioncommon lodging-houseshall, for the purposes of this Act, mean any house, not being a licensed victualling house, let, or any part of which is let, at a daily or weekly rent not exceeding the rate of three shillings and sixpence per week; or in which persons are harboured or lodged for hire for a single night, or for less than a week at one time; or in which any room let for hire is occupied by more than onefamily at one time.’ And your powers are to the following effect:—Wherever over-crowding has taken place unwholesomely or indecently—wherever undue illness has prevailed—wherever from any one of several causes the house is unfit for occupation, you can require itsimmediate registration; you can thenmake such rulesas you think fit for themaintenance of decency and health; and you can enforce conformity to those regulations with appropriate penalties.
[69]Circumstances, which need not here be detailed, have led to disappointment in the working of this clause, and have shown, to my great regret, that I over-estimated the benefits it was capable of conferring.—J. S., 1854.
[69]Circumstances, which need not here be detailed, have led to disappointment in the working of this clause, and have shown, to my great regret, that I over-estimated the benefits it was capable of conferring.—J. S., 1854.
The terms of the clause throw on your Medical Officer the responsibility of initiating these proceedings; and his task in the matter will be one of anxiety and arduousness. In most other clauses of your Acts of Parliament, an alternative is allowed as to your taking the opinion ‘of the Officer of Health, or of any two duly qualified Medical Practitioners:’ but in this clause you are expressly restricted to the certificate of your Officer of Health.
In my two former Reports, I have addressed you at length on those conditions relative to the dwellings and social habits of the poor which made the enactments of this clause indispensable; and I look forward to its operation with a sanguine belief that it may be rendered one of the most important boons ever conferred on the labouring classes of the community.
I subjoin to my Report the schedule which I would suggest for the registration of lodging-houses, and which (as you will observe) requires detailed information as to every sanitary particular of the dwelling.[70]I would recommend that in every case, where registration is made, the owner’s specification of these particulars should be accompanied by a written certificate from your Inspector; testifying(in some such form as that annexed to the schedule in my Appendix) first, to the accuracy of the statement, and, secondly, to the general condition of the house.
[70]Videpage 210.
[70]Videpage 210.
With respect to the rules, which, under authority of this clause, you may find it requisite to lay down for better regulating the residences of the poor,—the conditions for which you have to legislate are so various and complicated, that no formula will apply universally; and you will often be called on to adapt special rules to particular cases as they come before you. I can therefore only venture at present to offer you general suggestions on the subject.
You will find that the houses in which your interference is required fall into three cases, characterised as follows:—(1) Where the house is let in several independent holdings (often as many holdings as rooms) each occupied by a single family and no more, and paid for at a rent not exceeding 3s. 6d.perweek;—(2) Where the house is thus let in several independent holdings, and where the renter of each or any portion, admits other persons to share his holding with him, on their payment to him of a sub-rentperweek orpernight, so that a room comes to be occupied by more than one family at a time;—(3) Where the entire house, or all such part as is let in lodgings is under the direct management of a single resident proprietor or keeper, where the lodgings are let at . . . .pernight, and where many persons not belonging to one single family are lodged together in some single room, or in various single rooms of the house.
Of the first arrangement, where a single room is the residence of a single family, you have innumerable illustrations in the City; as, for instance in the large houses of Windsor-street (to which I have recently drawn your attention)where in one house there are sixteen such holdings:—of the second arrangement—the most abominable and brutalising which can be conceived, you have sufficient illustrations in Plumtree-court:—of the third—comparatively little known in the City, there are instances in Field-lane.
In respect of the first class of houses, I should be disposed to look upon each holding as the house of its occupier, and not to interfere within his threshold, except on the ground of some commanding necessity. I would require only that the general arrangements of the house should be adapted to the number of its holdings; that, for instance, numerous families should not be left competing for the use of a single privy, but that such accommodation should be provided in strict proportion to the requirements of the inmates; that every room should be efficiently ventilated; that water should be supplied to the highest occupied part of the house, and a water-tap and sink furnished on every floor; that the dust and refuse of the house should be removed at least once daily.
In dealing with the worst specimens of this class, it may be requisite to go further than I have here intimated; and it appears to me that for this purpose your Hon. Court must address your regulations not to the tenant, but to the landlord. He, I apprehend, must be held responsible for the decent and wholesome condition of his property, and for such conduct of his tenants as will maintain that condition.
Seeing the punctuality with which weekly visitation is made for the collection of rents in these wretched dwellings, it would not be unreasonable, I think, to insist on some such regulation as the following:—The owner of the house,or his agent, or collector, shall visit each room on an appointed day, at least once weekly, between the hours of eleven and three; he shall see that the floor and other woodwork of the room have been properly washed on that day, that the room be free from all dirt, rubbish, or offensive smell, that no objectionable trade be pursued in it, and that it be generally in good and proper repair; he shall see that the premises generally[71]be in a clean and wholesome condition, that water be sufficiently supplied, and that the dustman’s work be regularly performed; and failing either of the two latter conditions, he shall forthwith lay complaint thereof before your Commission; in case of any inmate suffering from cholera, small-pox, erysipelas, or any kind of fever, the owner, or his agent or collector, shall immediately give notice of such illness to the Inspector of his district; and at the meeting of the Commission next after such notice, he shall, if required, attend your Court, to receive any order which you may issue for reducing the number of his lodgers, or for improving the condition of his house, or for employing any disinfectant process; and he shall fulfil any such order within the time therein specified.