Report to the General Board of Health on a further inquiry as to the boundaries which might be most advantageously adopted for Alfreton, in the county of Derby, for the purposes of the Public Health Act / by William Lee, Superintending Inspector.

  • William Lee
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a further inquiry as to the boundaries which might be most advantageously adopted for Alfreton, in the county of Derby, for the purposes of the Public Health Act / by William Lee, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    few persons would attend the market there ; strangers were deterred from visiting the town, and the sale-shops infected were without cus- tomers for weeks together. There cannot be a doubt, that the effects of this calamity will be long felt by the town of Alfreton, or that, without such remedial works, as they have no power at present to construct, the inhabitants are liable at all times to this, or any other malignant and fatal disease. The memorialists have not attempted to call in question the accuracy of this. They cannot contravene the fact that partial ruin has fallen upon the town generally, and total ruin upon very numerous families, by diseases that the highest medical authorities have, in this very Report, pronounced preventible. Irrespective of all this, however, it is abundantly proved in the Report that proper sanitary ! works would effect a great pecuniary economy. 4. The Nuisances Removal Act can never remedy the evils existing 1 in Alfreton. • That Act was in operation when the awfully destructive Ijfever broke out amongst the inhabitants, and yet all the radical sanitary I' defects of the town of Alfreton are at this moment in existence. 5. Setting aside the non-professional signatures to this memorial, it iff is signed by at least three lawyers, who either knew, or ought to have liknown, that no person can be charged under the Public Health Act, for 1'either sewerage or water supply, whose premises are not drained or ■supplied with water. The same remark applies to any other improve- liment under the Act. I 6. No gigantic machinery is recommended in my Report, and the i machinery recommended is not proposed as a source of expense, but as I a means of achieving economy. Your Honourable Board know that 3 the Act has been applied to smaller places, and is now in full operation, I with the best results. 7. It is not my duty to enter into the impressions and assurances of I those who obtained the 136 signatures to the original petition for a ■•preliminary inquiry as to the sewerage, drainage, and supply of • water, the state of the burial-grounds, and the number and sanitary ■ condition of the inhabitants, &c.; nor whether those 136 persons, | including the most wealthy and influential inhabitants, signed such )j petition hastily and inconsideratelybut I have shown, at pages I 26 and 27 of the Report, that the water would not, in any case, i exceed 2d. per week for each householder; and more, that the cottages ■ may very probably be supplied at Id. per week each. 8. This paragraph of the memorial is so utterly contradictory of all > the evidence in the Report, pages 17 to 20, that I leave the memorialists n to settle the questions as to the present quality and cost of the water, t with the witnesses, which they will perhaps the more easily do, as many I of the same individuals whose names appear in those pages of the I Report, have also written their signatures under this remarkable para- f graph. I might repeat here the whole of the evidence given on this r topic, but it would occupy too much space. Mrs. J. Walters, speaking | of persons begging water from her husband's premises, says, in dry I seasons they come all the way from the bottom of the town. George i Wilson, Esq. says, I have no doubt, when water is scarce, they are tglad to use any that they can get; and the Rev. J. R. Errington says, I some persons have to pay from 2d. to 5d. per week for water. 9. As to the necessity for the application of the Public Health Act [186] c
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