But few of the Vestries followed, or attempted to follow, these examples, and in many of the most vital matters a deliberate inactivity was the prevailing characteristic of the Vestries and District Boards.
“In several Vestries resolutions were actually moved with the view of averting the construction of sewers. It was thought by many persons of influence to be better to live in the midst of overflowing cesspools than to add to the defilement of the Thames.”[74]
The Medical Officers of Health did not confine themselves to merely reporting what was annually done to ameliorate the existing state of affairs.
As was their duty, they made numerous and frequent suggestions to their authorities as to what it was best to do. And some of them, going further than this, sometimes endeavoured to inspire the members of the Vestries and District Boards with a sense of the gravity of their work, and with lofty views of their duty. Occasionally, even, they did not hesitate to censure their employers for inaction or lethargy.
The Medical Officer of Health for the Strand wrote (1856):—
“To pave streets, and to water roads, to drain houses or even to construct sewers, however necessary these works may be, are among the least important of the duties which devolve upon you. But to improve the social condition of the poorer classes, to check the spread of disease, and to prolong the term of human life, while they are works of a high and ennobling character, are yet duties involving the gravest responsibility. Should less care be bestowed upon our fellow creatures than is daily afforded the lower animals? At the present moment the condition of many of the working classes is degraded in the extreme.”
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour, Southwark, wrote (1856):—
“In all our efforts at sanitary improvement we are chiefly dealing with persons who in most instances have not the power of helping themselves, and who until of late have had no source to which they might apply for aid in rendering their dwellings clean and wholesome.”
The Medical Officer of Health in St. Pancras wrote:—