Report of the Health of London Association on the sanitary condition of the metropolis; : being a digest of the information contained in the replies returned to three thousand lists of queries, which were circulated amongst clergymen, medical men, solicitors, surveyors, architects, engineers, parochial officers, and the public.

  • Health of Towns Association (London, England)
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Health of London Association on the sanitary condition of the metropolis; : being a digest of the information contained in the replies returned to three thousand lists of queries, which were circulated amongst clergymen, medical men, solicitors, surveyors, architects, engineers, parochial officers, and the public. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/70 (page 46)
    comforts of the poor are greatly abridged in consequence. It is, therefore, the duty of the Legislature, as the guardians of the poor, to impose certain conditions on the water com¬ panies, so that the poor should be provided with an abun¬ dant supply of water, and the public protected from unrea¬ sonable charges. The poor are not, as is sometimes sup¬ posed, dirty by inclination; give them a constant supply of water, without the labour of ascending and descending two or three flights of stairs—which, owing to the windowT-tax, are unprovided with a single ray of light—and an immediate improvement will take place, not only in their persons and dwellings, but in their health, comfort, and morality. The labour of fetching water induces many poor persons, par¬ ticularly the aged and infirm, to reside in kitchens, when they would otherwise have occupied more airy, and, conse¬ quently, more healthy apartments. Some of the poor have ailments, attributable to the necessity they are underof being obliged to carry water up and down the stairs of a lofty house. Since Nottingham has been well supplied with water, personal, house, and street cleanliness have increased, and there is less disease. Lately, when orders were given by parties under the direction of Dr. Lynch, to let the water run freely over some of the courts in the City of London, when disease was prevalent, the Water Company threatened to inflict a fine upon those parties whose philanthropy prompted them to issue the order for an increased supply of water. [27.] Would not a constant supply of water to the public at large, and to the poor in particular, at high pressure, instead of the present inter¬ mittent supply at low pressure, greatly con¬ duce to the comfort, cleanliness, health, and morality of the people ? The answers to this question inform us that the intermit¬ tent supply is quite inadequate to the wants of the poor. In Snow’s-rents, Westminster, there are sixteen houses with only one stand pipe in the court. On the principal cleaning day (Sunday) the water is on for about Jive minutes, and it is on also for three days in the week for one half hour, and so great is the rush to obtain a modicum before it is turned oft that perpetual quarrelling and disturbance is the result. About Stepney the water is supplied at so low a pressure.