Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London

by John Simon

3. In regard of water-supply to houses your 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 the pavement of every public way within 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 of levying 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 wholesome cleanliness of private premises are 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 as slaughter-houses are tolerated within the City (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 to appoint 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, where unwholesome provisions are exposed for sale; and this clause is so constructed as to include and render penal all those fraudulent adulterations of food which render it detrimental to health.