The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-24 00:00:00

CITY OF LONDON.

• " Out. 23.
" Gentlemen,—As very erroneous impresssions appear
to exist as to the nature and extent of the works carried
out by this Commission since the calamitous year 1832,
I beg, at the suggestion of the Chairman of your Hon.
Court, to submit to you the following brief and general
outline of your operations since that date:—From the
commencement of the year 1833 to the termination of
the year 1848, being a period of 16 years, the length of
public sewers constructed within the city of London has
been 124,272 feet, or 23} miles. In addition to this
length of new sewers, several miles .of ancient sewers
have been repaired and adapted to modern requirements.
About 3,770 service or private drains have also been
constructed for the internal drainage of houses and pre.
mixes .:The portion of the Fleet ditch north of Holborn,
which was the only open ditch which had existed within
your jurisdiction for upwards of a century, was eight
years ago covered in. There are now no open ditches
within the city of London. The whole of the street
gullies have been trapped, and improvements have been
made and are still making in the construction of the
traps. The whole of the publico ways, whether open
and frequented courts, have been paved with stone, and,
where practicable, with flagstones, and the most impel.-
tent condition of a non-absorbent surface, as well as a
surface best adapted for aiding the scavenger in main-
taining cleanliness has been obtained. Every court,
alley, and public place is lighted with gas lamps—there
is no public place without gas lights. All the streets
end alleys have been for come years swept daily,
and the dustmen are bound to remove dust as often as
required. In all these foregoing particulars the poorest
places have been as well attended to and looked after
as the important and more visible thoroughfares. During
the aforesaid period the opportunities which offered for
effecting improvements, by widening the thoroughfare,
easing the traffic, and letting in light and air, have not
been neglected, and where your funds have proved ade-
quate you have at ill time a cc-operated with the coreo-
ration committees, the public companies, and other bodies,
in the furtherance of such like beneficial objects. Many
of your works of drainage have been beneficially felt by
districts some miles distant from the city. Twenty-nine
outlets have been provided by you for the sewage for the
county of Middlesex. The highland of and about
Hampstead drains through the Fleet sewer; Holloway
and a portion of Islington can now be drained ;by the
London-bridge sewer; Nortonfolgate and the densely po-
pulated districts adjacent are also relieved by it. In so
general a statement I cannot enter into detail as to the
various important improvements made in the manage-
ment and formation of the works committed to your
charge; I can but briefly refer to the iieproved forms of
sewers and other detail of construction made by you, the
remodelling upon a system the whole of the lines of pave-
ments, the various important experiments of the levels
and gradients of the streets, the re-arrangement of public
lamps, the protection of the public ways from encroach•
went, and the gradual extinction of objectionable and
long existing projections, the erection of public urinals,
and various other works which have marked your vigi-
lance through the whole periods of time alluded to ; and
it should be borne in mind that until recently the func-
tions of your Hon. Court solely relatee to sewers, and the
paving and lighting, cleansing and conservation of the
public ways— that you had no control over private property,
no power to enforce water supply, and no compulsory power
of entry for inspection of or remedy of nuisances. You had
not even power to compel drainage to be made from those
premises where sewers were in the course of formation
or already formed. Upon the commencement of the pre-
sent year you, for the first time, had power to command
water supply, to compel drainage of premises, to regu-
late slaughtering houses, and suppress nuisances, See.
The time consumed at the outset of your new
operations by the requisite legal and other preliminary
arrangements, and more recently the suspension of all
works during the hot weather beyond the active suppres-
sion of nuisances, have left you but a very short time
to effect much in the way of works of permanent lin.
provement to the poorer dwellings in the City. Short,
however, as the time has been, your officers bare in-
quired into the condition of more than 4,000 of the
poorest habitations, with the view to the enforcement of
drainage, water supply, and cleanliness; and during the
season of epidemic disease 14,000 houses, out of 16,000
Comprehended in the City, were inspected for the dis-
covery of nuisances. Since the commencement of this
year upwards of 1,600 cases of nuisance have been
abated, 64 courts and places within the City have had
sewers constructed beneath them—the aggregate length
of sewers, amounting to 10,321 feet, or nearly two miles.
About 900 houses have been drained, and the whole of
the slaughtering houses within the City registered, and
such regulations as you had the power of compelling
had been enforced. In submitting to your Honour-
able Court this brief outline of your operations during
the period which has relapsed since the year 1832,
let me not be misunderstood as intending to imply that
nothing more remains to be effected; on the contrary,