Volume 2

First-[second] report of the Royal Sanitary Commission.

  • Great Britain. Royal Sanitary Commission
Date:
1869-1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First-[second] report of the Royal Sanitary Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    152/418 (page 144)
    W. J. Mantle, of nuisances should be a man who knows what a •^s?- nuisance is, and should be independent; and then, ~ again, those men are employed so much in visiting the Jf!°' villages that they have not time to do it. ] 1,224. But in the performance of their duties in relieving the poor they must come across a great deal of dirl, must they not ?—Yes, they do ; but those men are dependent upon the guardians for their living, and the guardians are composed, for the most part, of the farmers of the parishes Avhich they visit, and who have to bear the burthen of the expenditure. Those relieving officers, therefore, have an interest in being on good terms with the guardians, who are the great ratepayers, and they would rather hesitate to call upon those men to carry out certain measures with the force which is necessary to be applied to them. 11.225. Therefore, if the relieving officers were the inspectors of nuisances, and did their duty as inspectors of nuisances, they would very soon be ousted?—It Avould, I think, be very i:npleasant for them to be placed in such a position. 11.226. {Lord R. Montagu.) You spoke of the odium that would be incurred by persons who report nuisances, even in a very unhealthy place like Lincoln, where there are no ch'ains ?—Yes. 11.227. Is there generally amongst the ratepayers that feeling of odium towards any person who re- ports nuisances ? — A man is looked upon as an informer, and the lower class are so misguided by their landlords that they are apt to believe that the man lias some bad motive in view, rather than give him credit for a good intention towards them. The upper class of Lincoln are desirous that the Act should be put in force, but the lower class are not, being misled by tlie political party and the middle- class men. 11.228. What station in life do the people of that political party fill ?—They are landlords of houses, men who have raised themselves by trade to some degree of independence, and have built a lot of cottages. But before this Act came into force they could build up without any regard to the comforts with which they ought to supply the poor, and we have a great number of them in Lincoln; they are refilled tradesmen generally. 11.229. Persons in well-to-do circumstances now ? —Yes. 11.230. Are they not aware of the benefits that sanitary arrangements would confer upon the town, or do they not care for those arrangements, and dis- regard the welfare of the poor ?—The interviews which I have had with them have led me to this con- clusion, that they are afraid of the expense which as landlords they would be called upon to pay, and they have not much faith at present in the working of the Sanitary Acts in other places. They Avill not look at places which have been benefited, but they point out any one place in which sanitary operations have not been successful. 11.231. Do you think that an improvement in the Sanitary Acts would overcome their reluctance to be rated for sanitary purposes ?—I think nothing would ever overcome the reluctance of men like those to be rated. If you could improve Lincoln without inflicting a rate upon them they Avould be delighted. 11.232. Is that feeling, do you think, peculiar to Lincoln, or is it very general in the same class in other cathedral towns all over the country ?—I should hardly like to speak from experience, except that I was brought up in a cathedral city. Chichester is my native city, and I believe it is somewhat similaidy situated. I have been in correspondence there with gentlemen who have been assisting to get Chichester out of the mud, and the means which we had applied in Lincoln in 1865 to get the Local Government Act adopted were tried in Chichester, but without success. 11.233. Is the odium sanitarium very strong there 1 —Very strong, my correspondents at Chichester say, especially among the landlords of public-houses. I am connected with the cathedral of Lincoln, and I say that the authoi'ities there, and I also know that the cathedral authorities of Chichester, are strongly in favour of sanitary reforms, and indeed a sermon in Lincoln cathedral last January by the Archdeacon of Lincoln was a sanitary sermon in every sense of the word. 11,234. {Mr. Clive.) Ycu have not a very high opinion of the intelligence of the board of guardians ? —I have a very low opinion indeed of it. 1 ] ,235. Do not you think that they are improving at all ?—No. 11.236. Do not you believe that ultimately sanitary ideas will percolate through that inert mass H—Not as long as the board of guardians consists of 120, and out of that 120 the majority are sent from the little villages with this one object in view, to keep the rates down. 11.237. Are those men chiefly tenant farmers ?— Yes, chiefly tenant farmers, and they are bound to vote for reduction of expenditure. 11.238. Do you know whether at any time any offer has been made by the landlords to bear the expense of drainage ?—Yes ; at Scothern some years ago the late Mr. Ellison, who owned some property there, and who lived at Sudbrook, offered to find bricks for the drainage of the village if they would do the manual labour, and they refused. 11.239. {Mr. Richards.) You do not seem to have faith in the corporation, and you do not seem to have faith in the board of guardians ; what body do you think should undertake the proper duties of the local authority ?—I should recommend a central autho- rity with poAver to compel the local authority. I do not care what local authority you have, if you do away with the present permissive compulsion. At present the corporation tell us that they are not com- pelled, and I would not allow them to say that they are not. 11.240. I gather from your evidence that your view is, that indirectly the whole of the sanitary arrange- ments would have to be enforced upon districts by a central authority ?—Yes, by a central authority, and that central authority should make no doubtful sound. At present one part of the Government acts only in open court, another in a private manner, while another will not act at all as a part of the whole, but has its own modus operandi. The Poor Law Board has just sanctioned the construction of sewage tanks within 80 yards of the sick wards of the workhouse, because they would not call oh the Local Government Act Office to compel the local board to find an outfall for the drainage. This will entail additional expense on the guardians, and is quite at variance with the rules laid down by the Home Office ; its effect on the guardians has been to retard sanitary measures, and make them think the Sanitary Acts weak and doubtful. 11.241. Assuming that the vestry, the local autho- rity, had neglected its duty in one of the A'illages to Avhichyou have referred, and that the central authority had stepped in and done the Avork under the 49th section of the Act, do you think that that Avould have been sufficient to have induced the corporation of Lincoln to do the work themselves ?—Perhaps it would. 11.242. Do you think that that one instance Avould have a salutary effect upon the Avhole county—It might. I believe if the central authority sent down sin inspector to examine into the state of Lincoln, and told the local board that it Avould be compelled to do the sanitary work in a given time, it would be done, because I believe that many of those who vote against its being done do so because they are bound to their electors to vote against the measure. 11.243. {Mr. Shaw.) Will you tell us Avhat you would have the inspector from the central authority do when he came to a place like Lincoln ?—I should have him ask the local authority whether they had carried out the Act, to show a plan of the drainage of the city, for instance. I Avould have him examine into the question of the water supply, and see