HH62/1/AYR/67

Transcription

COUNTY OF AYR.

CARRICK DISTRICT REPORT.

The Carrick District occupies the whole of Ayrshire south of the
river Doon, and is coextensive with the old division of the county of
the same name. Its length, from the extreme north point at the
mouth of the Doon to the mouth of the Galloway Burn, Loch Ryan,
is nearly 35 miles. Its greatest breadth is from Turnberry Point to
the extreme east of Straiton parish, a distance of about 20 miles.
It has the largest area of the four districts into which the county has
been divided by the County Council, having over 270,000 acres.
Population. - Although the district has the largest area it has
the smallest population. Not including the burghs of Maybole and
Girvan, which have between them 9548, the population of the district
was, at the last census, 13,523 - about 1600 fewer than in 1881. Each
of the nine parishes in the district showed a decrease, the parish of
Dailly having the greatest falling off, viz., 417.

GENERAL SANITARY CONDITION OF DISTRICT, WITH
SUGGESTIONS AS TO ITS IMPROVEMENT.

Besides several special inquiries and visits, I have made a general
survey of every parish in this district, and it may be stated broadly
that the sanitary state is satisfactory.
The water supply in the villages of Ballantrae, Colmonell,
Dailly, and Patna is a gravitation one, being both good and
abundant. In all the other villages the sources of supply are wells,
which in the summer months do not always yield an adequate quantity,
while in several of the villages their suspicious proximity to sources
of pollution is undesirable. In such villages, however, on making
inquiry, the absence of any history of outbreaks of enteric fever and
other diseases so frequently found in close relation to polluted water
was noteworthy. As an exception to this rule, I may state that an
epidemic of enteric fever, involving 74 persons, occurred at the fishing
village of Dunure in the winter of 1879-80. Dr Littlejohn, who investi- [investigated]