Report on the sanitary condition of the parishes of Poplar and Bromley within the Poplar District with vital statistics.

  • Poplar (London, England). Board of Works.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Report on the sanitary condition of the parishes of Poplar and Bromley within the Poplar District with vital statistics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pop2 3 pumps with triple expansion cylinders, to assist their existing beam pumps, and also to pump the sewage of the new sewer which they are laying down in order to relieve the main low level sewer. This new sewer will take the Isle of Dogs and Hackney Wick branches in St. Leonard's Street, and will tend to minimise the risk of flooding of the districts drained by these branches. I reported to the Sanitary Committee the insanitary condition of the ditch which begins at the Thames in the Deptford Ferry Road, and after a winding course empties itself into the sewer near the Glengall Road end of Stebondale Street. This ditch is in the most part of its course uncovered, and receives not only the drainings from the mounds formed of the dredgings from the Millwall Docks, but also is used as a general receptacle for dead animals and vegetable garbage. I suggested abolishing the ditch by keeping the penstock shut down, and thus preventing the water flowing in from the river. The Committee inspected the ditch and agreed with me that it was in a most insanitary state. The County Council's portion was cleansed, and in order to prevent the escape of gas in the vicinity of the houses, a trap was fixed to the mouth of the sewer where the ditch empties itself. I also inspected the mounds mentioned above during the hot weather, but failed to find any nuisance arising from them ; no doubt the compressed air method adopted for blowing the dredgings on to the mound, causes aeration and lessens the danger of putrefaction. Poplar being a riparian district, the condition of its river is of the highest sanitary importance to its inhabitants. The purity of the Thames water has continued to improve. At the instigation of the Chairman of the Drainage Committee of the County Council, a test was carried out, which consisted in trawling the river with a small net off Erith. It was reported that there were captured in the net specimens of Whitebait, Jelly-fish and Shrimp. It will also be re membered that in the House of Commons, in April last, a question
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