The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-08-23 00:00:00

TB E STOTTRIVIDGE OTISFRVER.

aid not speak to him. He went on for about an hour
aml sahl he would make her speak. He had a lot of
tar mei grmse on his band and he drew it ACMES her
month. He kicked her out of the house and struck
her on the head and face. He was: continually ill-
treating her and she was obliged to go away at night.
Defendant was ordered to find one surety of £2O, to
keep the peace for one month. Defendant :
do that. The Bench : Then you will go to prison for
month. Defendant was then removed to the cells.
CHARGE OF EMBEZZLEMENT.—Henry Bate WON
charged with embezzling the sums of £5 13s 11d,
£5 14a 3d, £5 108 4d, and £3 8s 10d, the monies
of Mr. CI. J. Eveson. Mr. Perry appeared to
prosecute. Prosecutor said he was a coal merchant.
On the Ist of February last he engaged defendant
as clerk and collector, at a ,ishwy of £2 per week
and his coals. His duty was to enter cash received
in the petty cash-book, and al ways give receipts
from the printed forms supplied to him. lie was
to account weekly. He did not always account
weekly. When he settled with witness he pro-
duced the counterpart receipts. There is no entry
in the petty cash-book of £5 13s lid paid by Mr.
Charles Hanbrey, on the 20th of April. There is
no entry of £5 14s 3d paid by Mr. Charles Mills,
on the 20th of May. No entry of .£5 10s 4d re-
ceived from Mr. Whitehouse, on the 4th of July,
nor of .£3 814 10d paid by Mr. Henry Paget, on the
2nd of August, nor of any soul paid by Mr. Pagett
on that slate. There are no entries in the counter-
parts of any other sums. Defendant had never
accounted for either of those sums. He left the
service of prosecutor on the 11th inst. Mr.
Charles Haubrey said he paid prisoner the sum of
/ £5 13s lld on the 28th of April, and the receipt
I produced was the same prisoner gave him. Mrs.
Mills, wife of Mr. Charles Mills, said she paid
prisoner the sum of ZS 14s 3d on the 20th of May,
and the receipt produced is the same written by
prisoner. Mr. Whitehouse said he paid prisoner
£5 los 4sl on the 4th of July, and received the
receipt produced from prisoner. Mrs. Pagett, of
the Angel Inn, said she paid prisoner the sum of
£3 8s 10d, on the 2nd of August, Joseph Henry
I Shepherd, clerk in the employ of prosecutor, said
on the 15th inst, he walked towards the town with
prisoner who asked him who was snaking out the
town accounts ? Witness said he was. Prisoner
asked if witness had sent in Mr. Pagett's am! Mr.
Mills' accounts Witness informed him that he
had not, and then prisoner said there was a counter
account with Mr. Pagett, and Mr. Mills's account
is all right, his father was selling a house and in
a fortnight's time he would come and settle with
prosecutor. He asked witness not to send in those
two accounts. P.S Jones proved apprehending
the prisoner, who said, "Has he taken that step '1
if he had not the money would all have been
made right." Witness found the counterfoil
receipts produced in a chest of drawers. Prisoner
was remanded until Friday next ; bail being
accepted in one surety of £lOO, and himself in
£2OO.

The report then goes on to describe the town-
ship of Stourbridge, its form of local government,
its area, which consists of 4.50 acres, its inhabited
houses, which number 1,932, containing a popula-
tion of 9,376. After having spoken o its situa-
tion upon the south or left bank of the River
Stour, it gives a description of the genend aspect
of the town, its soil, and the chief manufactures
in which its labouring population are employed.
It states that of the 1,932 inhabited houses 773
are of an annual value of .£5 and under, and that
many of the lowest class of houses are situated in
courts; and adds that the township cannot be
said to be properly drained. The accounts which
I fellows is partly derived from a report made by the
surveyor in January 1871, and partly from his (Dr.
Ballard's) own personal observations. "The sur-
veyor states in his report that due provision exists
for the proper drainage of the centre of the town,
but many parts of the township possess no means
whatever of carrying away the surface water and
the drainage of the dwelling-houses," and parti-
cularly instanced some places on the west of the
township and Bouchall on the eastern side, "At
the present time there are 8,026 yards of streets
unsewered, and about 700 houses unprovided with
proper means of drainage. The account given by
the surveyor relates merely to main drainage or
sewerage, and before it can be represented as fully
representing the condition of the town asto drain-
age something more mast be added." Whilst
upon this subject, he makes observations to the
following effect:-
1. The depth of the sewers is insufficient to
drain the cellars in the town; when water gets
into these, as it sometimes does, it has to soak away
into the sandstone rock in which they are excava-
ted. The High-street sewer is only 4 feet 2 inches
from the surface of the road; that in New-street,
only 3 feet; and that in Birmingham-street near
to its termination, is only 4 feet from the surface.
There are times when, in consequence of the ful-
ness of the Stour at the point of the outran of the
principal sewer, the sewage cannot tow away, but
is backed up and causes a deposit of filth of 50
yards from the outfall.
2. There is no plan in the offices of the Board
showing the communications of the drains from
private premises with the public sewers; and the
existence of a public sewer is no guarantee of the
drainage into it of adjacent houses. As an
inst,ence of this he cites Birmingham-street, which
is sewered, and in which the domestic slops from
dwellings and courts adjacent run into the road-
side gutter, just as they do in other parts of the
town not provided with sewers at all.
3. Of the 238 gully inlets provided by the street
drainage 195 are untrapped. He points out that
when the street gullies are untrapped they pro-
vide necessary ventilation for the sewers; but as
they are placed without reference to this purpose,
the foul air issuing from them is both offensive
and mischievous.

4. The Commissioners have not taken any means
to ascertain whether the inlets to the drains of
private premises and courts which communicate
with these sewers are properly trapped. In the
course of his (Dr. Ballard's) inspection, he saw
many which were untrapped. He next refers to
tho "Town Ditch," which receives a portion of the
sewage from the upper part of the town, and runs
as an offensive open sewer through a meadow for
a distance of 180 yards, until it arrives at a spot
where it is culverted, and so converted into a flat-
bottomed semi-circular sewer, which joins the
High-street sewer. The outfalls of the sewers of
Stourbridge are either directly into the Stour or
into Washing Brook or into another filthy water-
course between Birmingham-street and the Stour,
into which the Birmingham-street sewer discharges
itself by a cascade several feet in length at the
aide of a dwelling-house. Such an outran as this
is a disgrace to the town, even putting aside alto-
gether the consideration of the ultimate discharge
of the sewage into rivers."

He accuse; the Conuniasioners of having almost
entirely overlooked Bouchall, and states that it
consists of about 65 cottages utterly without
drainage, except into dumb wells, while excremen-
tal and other nuisances abounded, no pains having
been taken to cause their removal.

With reference to the water supply of the town-
ship, he points out that though many of the
houses of the township are supplied with water
by the waterworks, many others are dependent
upon wells, some of which are close to privies, and
cannot fail to be more or less polluted.
He neat refers to the ash-pits and privies, and
shows that from the dilapidated condition which
many of them are in, and the neglect to have them
emptied sufficiently often, they must be very detri-
mental to health.

He makes a sweeping charge against the Com-
missioners to the effect that the habitations of the
lowest class of the population appear to have re-
ceived little thought or care from them, and that
it was in the localities in which they resided that
the most serious neglects of drainage were to be
met with. The courts about New-street (Round
Court especially), and in the neighbourhood of
Birmingham and Angel streets, occupied partly
by the Irish population, and the back premises of
tl.at part of Birmingham-street abutting on the
river are in a very unwholesome condition. He
says that "No one passing through the principal
street of Stourbridge, which being under public
view is decently kept, would imagine the abomi-
nations which have been permitted to exist within
a few yards distance, in the bye-places where the
poorer part ef the inhabitants are compelled to
dwell."
Dr. Ballard next animadverts upon the very
ineffective manner in which the sanitary condition
of the town has been attended to by the Com-
missioners and those acting under them,and shows
that in their catalogue of what constituted nui-
sances, want of ventilation, dirtiness, and over-
crowding of dwelling-houses seemed to have no
place, and were not attended toat all. He remarks
that the Commissioners have not thought it
necessary to provide a hospital for isolating in-
fectious cases which could not be isolated at
home; neither have they provided a mortuary nor
public appliances for disinfection; and wide that
"in these respects, as in other matter before
alluded to, they have ignored the most important
of their public functions as guardians of the public
health."

Dr. Ballard concluded by making the following
recommendations.—(l) Steps should be taken as
speedily as possible under the advice of a skilled
engineer, to provide a parts of the district with
proper sewers, and to reconstruct such of the
existing sewers as are inefficient or defective, or
of insufficient depth, in such a wanner at such a
depth as shall suthe for the effectual drainage of
all cellars, and lowest parts of all dwelling-houses.
(I) The" Town Ditch" should be abolished. (3)
In pursuance of the advice given to the Com-
missioners by their own surveyor, the sewage of
the district should be intercepted from the River
Stour, and dealt with in such a manner as to pre-
vent it for the future polluting this stream or its
tributaries. (4) In part of the district, private
premises should be properly drained into the town
sewers, the open channels now in use for this
purpose being abolished. (5) For the ventila-
tion of the sewers, ample provisions in places
where their effluvia will not be offensive should be
made, and then all sewer openings in positions
where effluvia from them are offensive can be
trapped. All opening to sewers within houses
should be trapped. (6) All unpaved and badly-
drained courts should be required to be properly
levelled and paved, and drained by covereddrains
into the sewers. (7) The Commissioners should
provide, at the public expense, and for the benefit
of the inhabitants at large, for removing the ex-
crement of the population regularly. Excrement
should not under any circumstances remain un-
removed for a longer period than one week. (8)
Ashes and refuse ;should also be systematically
and frequently removed, so as to avoid accumula-
tion. (9) All those conditions declared to be nui-
sances by the Nuisances Removal and Sanitary
Acts should be dealt with speedily and with
decision. Especially the Commissioners should
direct their attention to such nuisances as are apt
to recur, such as dirty, ill-ventilated, and over-
crowded houses, and unwholesome piggeries. (10)
The Commissioners should provide in various con-
venient localities, supplies of wholesome drinking
water, by means of stand-pipes or fountains, and
as far as the state of the law permits, all polluted
wells should be closed and abolished. The 11th
recommendation is :to the effect that the Coin-
missioners should have a permanent hospital for
the isolation of any person (irrespective of his
being a pauper) suffering from an infectious
disease, who cannot be isolated at home, a con-
veyance for the sick to the hospital, and means
for disinfecting houses, bedding, clothing, Ac, and
a proper mortuary.

THE SANITARY CONDITION OF BRIEBLEY
HILL AND QUARRY BANK.
Dr. Ballard'a report on the sanitary condition of
Brierley Hill and Quarry Bank has just been printed,
from ellich we make the following extracts :—With
regard to Brierley Hill Local Board, Dr Ballard com-
menees by an allusion to the correapondenco on which
he commented when he had the recent interview with
the Board. It will be remembered that the Board, in
reply to a communication and enclosure from the Local
Gov, rnment Board, the Clerk of the Board wrote (1)
that the assertion that " smallpox 'NM raging in the
district very violently. was an exaggeration ;" and (2)
" that in the opinion of the Board everything necessary
had been done in order to stamp out the disease." In
his report Dr. Ballard reiterates in almost the same
merest he used at the Board that there could be no ex-
aggeration when there were 38 deaths from smallpox in
three months in a population of 11,046, that being
equivalent Loan annual death-rate of 1313 per thousand.
In regard to the second allegation, he points out that

the Board provided no hospital, nolmortuary, that they
took no pains to asce dein( the houses in which there
were eases of smallpox, and that they provided no means
of public disinfection. It was true that some prose-
cutions were instituted against some persona who
exposed themselves, but there were not "followed up in
such a manner es to show that the Board wes in earnest
in carrying out the 38th section." In conclusion, on
this point, Dr. Ballard says .—" On:April 8. 1872, the
Board appointed a Medical Officer of Health for a
limited period of six mouths, and for his services,
during this period, he was paid £l5 15s. The small
amount offered him, and the fact that et.the expiration
of the six months his services were nolonger considered
necessary, shows the imperfect estimate formed by the
Board of the value and functions of such an officer. I
cannot, therefore, agree with the final verdict passed by
the Board upon its own conduct, that" the Board has
worked assiduously to stamp out the small-pox, and
certainly cannot be accused of negligence." Of the
Quarry Bank Local Board Dr. Ballard says :—" During
the period of the epidemic of small-pox at Quarry
Bank, where it carried off eight persona and maimed
and disfigured an indefinitely larger number, the Local
Board of the district took no steps whatever to ascertain
the extent of its prevalence, and did not exercise any of
the powers vested in it by the legislature to arrest Hie
progress." He comes then in conclusion of this 'liaison
of his report to the Rural Banltary Authority, and on
this his verdict is that in the district assigned to Mr.
Barrett alone was there any efficient action to carry out
systematically any of the powers •• , , •
Ace with thin view of arresting the progress of infectious
diseases. In that district the disinfection of houses
was actively carried out, but in the others the:inspectora
seemed to have contented themselves with requesting the
owners of infected houses to limewash them, and with
giving away chloride of lime_and McDougall's powder.
Proceeding to deal with the district of Brierley Hill
Board, Dr. Ballard repeats the complaints he made in
his speech to the Board, which must be familiar to our
readers. Dr. Ballard's verdict is—" Generally it may
be said that the sanitary administration of the district
is most defective." His recommendations to the Brierley
Hill Local Board are as follows : —(1.) The Medical
Officer of Health and tire Inspecter of Nuisances should
be required to perform the disties laid down in the
Orders of the Local Government Board, dated November
12th, 1672 ; and such a salary should be given to each
officer as shall be commensurate with bows fide services
to be rendered. (3 ) Systematic inspections, such a:
are ordered by section 20, of the " Sanitary Act. 1836,"
should be made for the diecovery of nuisances, and all
omditions declared by the Sanitary Acts to he nuisances
should be actively dealt with. (5.) The whole district
should be effectually drained, and inasmuch as difficulties
are likely to arise in consequence of the mining opera-
tions carried on in the neighbourhood, the advice of an
ergeueer, well skilled in overcoming such difficulties,
should be obtained. (6). It is distinctly the duty of the
Local Board that privies and athpita do not become
'misuse. ; and with this view the Board should itself
undertake at the public expense and for the public
advantage the removal of all excrement •nd sthes from
all parts of its district, at abort intervals not exceeding a
week. :I am informed that ritsce my inspe,tion the
Board has undertaken the work of removing excrement
at the public-expense ) (7.) The Board should provide
that all parts of its di-trict are supplied abundantly with
wholesome water, and, as far as the state of law permits,
wells, the water of which is polluted, should be closed
or abolished. The Bth recommendation is that the
Board should provide a hospital, a carriage for infectious
cases, a mortuary, and public means for disinfecting
houses, clothlng, and bedding. With regard to the
Quarry Bank District, Dr. Ballard repeats what lie told
the Board, namely, that "nothing can be worse than the
sanitary- condition of the whole of this district." This
head of his report lie concludes as follows:—" A strong
representation should be at once made to the Quarry
Bank Local Boare, that it is by no means optional for it
to perfotin or to neglect its sanitary duties, and should
this representation tail of effect, the 4ffils section of the
Sanitary Act, 1866, should be put in force is the district
to compel the Board to exercise its functions. Were I
to meke reconameedations in detail, they would be
similar to those made in respect of the Brierley Hill
district." Dr. Ballard says he is informed that enteric
fever is rarely, if ever absent, from Brierley Hill and
Quarry Bank.—The report will come up in due course
for discuss:on by the two Boards concerned.