Considering the very limited staff of Inspectors which it suited the policy and purposes of the Vestries to appoint, a fair amount of sanitary inspection was done in some parishes and districts.
The striking fact about the inspections made is the very high proportion of houses in which the sanitation was defective.
In Bermondsey, in 1879, where 1,577 houses and premises were inspected, 1,495 notices were served.
In Limehouse, in 1879, 1,411 houses were inspected; and 1,070 orders for sanitary amendments issued.
In Shoreditch, where there were 15,500 houses, the two Sanitary Inspectors appear to have done a lot of useful sanitary work. In 1877–8, 5,465 separate nuisances dangerous to health were abated.
If anything like a similar proportion prevailed generally throughout London, the housing of its huge population was indeed in a dreadful state.
In some ways the local authorities were awakening to their responsibilities, and beginning to avail themselves of some of the provisions placed by Parliament at their disposal.
In Paddington, St. Giles’, and Rotherhithe, the Vestries had adopted the Baths and Washhouses Act of 1846, and thus helped to promote habits of cleanliness, and to diminish some of the insanitary evils consequent on the tenements being turned into temporary wash-rooms.
And in St. James’ (Westminster) and Lambeth, mortuaries had been provided, which, in some cases, at any rate, obviated some of the insanitary evils consequent on the retention of dead bodies for long periods in single-roomed tenements where death had been caused by contagious or infectious diseases.