The fifth annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1856 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • London (England). County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fifth annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1856 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sewerage of this Asylum. You will see by the report of our officers, that if your Inspector had communicated with then; when he paid his visit here, he would have been informed of other circumstances which would probably hav^e led liim to the same conclusion, as they have led us, that several other sources of contamination exist, of which he knows nothing, and over which we have no control. For instance, as you will see by the accompanying Report, the nuisance which your Inspector supposes to arise from the “ refuse of our gas work running into the brook ” really arises from a drain from Beaver Hall, bringing the tar from Mr. Thornton’s gas works. For a considerable time past the ammonia from our gas works has been evaporated on the spot, and the quantity which may accidently escape is as nothing compared with what is sup- ])lied by Mr. Thornton’s works. Again, your Inspector appears to be ignorant that all the sewerage from the railwav station is passed into the brook, and believes that the sewerage from the houses opposite, of which he says but a few are in¬ habited, is transmitted through 15-inch pipes directly into the brook. A comparison between the state of this brook where it leaves the Asylum grounds, and some 300 yards lower down, after the contents of these 15-inch pipes hav^e been emptied into it, will show at once that it must have re¬ ceived some very considerable reinforcement before it reaches Southgate. The stream that runs from Ely Place is, we belieV'C, one main pollution of the brook, and over this we have no control, except that it being within the precincts of the Barnet Union, I have already desired the ““ Officer of nuisances” of that Board to have it bricked over, it having come to my knowledge that four children who lived close to it have died, seemingly in consequence of these fetid ex¬ halations. This, however, will not relieve the brook lower clown.
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