HH62/1/DUMFRI/5

Transcription

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HOUSE ACCOMMODATION.

The total area of the six Districts, excluding burghs, fore-
shore and water, is 679,879 acres, or slightly more than 1062 square
miles. At the recent Census the inhabited houses were 9650 in
number and the population 47,115, giving an average of nearly
4·9 persons to a house. The numbers for each District were as
follows:-

--- Acreage --- Inhabited Houses. --- Rooms. --- Population.
Thornhill --- 214,348 --- 2,585 --- 10,032 --- 11,910
Dumfries --- 76,445 --- 2,106 --- 7,885 --- 11,137
Annan --- 83,203 --- 2,156 --- 8,185 --- 10,495
Lockerbie --- 79,035 --- 1,377 --- 5,498 --- 6,484
Moffat --- 91,622 --- 588 --- 2,703 --- 3,046
Langholm --- 135,226 --- 838 --- ? ---6,043

Many of the houses have been returned as having only one room,
but the majority have two or more. This, however, is a point on
which I hope to have further information for a future Report. The
number of complaints that have been made to me directly of insanitary
conditions actually existing in dwelling-houses has been small, but
an inspection, which since the appointment of assistants we have
been able to carry out in a more systematic manner than we could
formerly have attempted, reveals in not a few of them defects of
construction and arrangement that may more or less seriously affect
the health of the inhabitants. Chief among these may be men-
tioned the want of proper provision for the prevention of damp,
want of proper drainage, the too close proximity of byres, pig-
styes, and midden heaps, and generally the want of suitable privy
accommodation. Clay floors have not yet entirely disappeared
from houses tenanted by the working-classes. In new houses one
might look for damp-courses, but they are seldom visible, while a
less frequent and more easily remedied fault is the absence of rain-
gutters and pipes to roofs. These defects form a serious evil in
dwellings situated on wet and retentive soils in low-lying situations.
To many houses there is no drainage whatever, and slops are got
rid of by being thrown on the surface or along with solid refuse
into an ashpit, too often in close proximity to a well. Where
drains are provided they are frequently constructed of ordinary
field tiles, which are by no means suited for the removal of liquid
filth. In a few houses, but chiefly better class ones, are internal
sinks and water-closets. Where there is a good and reliable supply

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of water these are probably convenient, but where the supply is
not reliable (e.g., in cases where it is gathered from the roof) they
may constitute a dangerous nuisance. Trapping and disconnection
of closets and sinks are sometimes neglected. In older houses one
may expect to find occasional examples of this, but it was with
some surprise that I observed last summer in new houses, the
erection of which was just finished, the kitchen sinks directly con-
nected by untrapped pipes with drains constructed of field tiles,
which were carried within a few yards of a well, and into a stream
about forty yards above a point where houses lower down took
water for certain domestic purposes. The great want of privy
accommodation is at present receiving the attention of the Sanitary
Inspector and the assistants, and a very considerable improvement
is likely to be effected ere long.
As a result of our inspection, one house in the Thornhill
District was declared uninhabitable, and proceedings to have it
closed ordered to be taken by the District Committee. A new
building now occupies its site. There are certain other houses in
the County which are in such a state of disrepair that they may
require to be dealt with in the same way. One in the Lockerbie
District is so often visited by fever outbreaks, and is in such an
insanitary condition, that it may be considered a veritable plague-
spot, and it is doubtful whether mere patching will ever put it
right.
Three schools - Brownhall (Dumfries), Boreland (Hutton), and
Moniaive - were examined and reported on at the request of the
respective School Boards. At the Brownhall School some of our
recommendations have been carried out. One or two, particularly
the removal of a leaky cesspool from the play-ground, still remain
to be done. At Boreland, earth-closets acting automatically have
been substituted for the old privies, which had become abominable
nuisances. The earth-closets are giving every satisfaction, and we
were therefore encouraged to recommend them to the Glencairn
Board as a substitute for the water-closets at Moniaive School. In
country districts I am certainly of opinion that, if regularly
attended to, they are far more wholesome than any other form of
closet and less productive of nuisance. They get rid of the pollu-
tion of streams which water-closets are apt to cause, and it is not
by any means a difficult matter to keep them clean and free from
odour. They might with advantage be introduced by other Boards
in the County.