In Clerkenwell, where there were over 7,000 houses, many of them were “quite unfit for human habitation”; not more than one-third were “in a satisfactory state.” In Bethnal Green there were “disease-inviting houses”; in Whitechapel, such was the bad condition of many of the 2,734 houses which were inspected, that “they ought to be condemned as unfit for human habitation.”
In St. George-in-the-East, “the sanitary condition of the dwelling-houses is deplorable.”
Lambeth contained a greater number of inhabited houses than any other parish in the metropolis—nearly 22,000. The Medical Officer of Health, after the very limited inquiry possible within the first year of work, reported the unwholesome condition of 1,638 of them.
From figures such as these—and they related to only a tiny fragment of the whole—one can get some measure of the way the sanitary condition of the houses throughout London had been neglected, and the indifference of the owners to the condition of the premises they let.
Mention has been made of the vast number of cesspools which existed in London before the passing of the Metropolis Local Management Act. The investigations of the various Medical Officers of Health soon demonstrated that the previous estimates of their prevalence, and of the disastrous consequences they entailed, had been in no way exaggerated.
Their disastrous results were at once recognised.
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel, in his report for 1858, wrote:—
“I must now direct your attention to the most important subject, in a sanitary point of view, which can be brought before you. I allude to the existence of cesspools, more especially such as are situated either in the cellars of inhabited houses, or in the small backyards, which are surrounded by the walls of houses filled with lodgers….
“No cesspool ought to be allowed to exist in London, for wherever there is a cesspool, the ground in its vicinity is completely saturated with the foul and putrefying liquid contents, the stench from which is continually rising up and infecting the air which is breathed by the people, and in some instances poisoning the water which is drawn from the public pumps….
“I am thoroughly convinced by the result of experience, that the existence of cesspools and overcrowding are the chief causes of ill-health.”