PDF (Whole thesis) - UTas ePrints - University of Tasmania

: .
121
they needed much greater effort to correct them than the young Council
could muster, if the calamity and suffering predicted by thoughtful ,
responsible persons were to be avoided. By the end of Apri l, the
epidemic of influenza was still raging throughout the city, causing the
Hobart Town Guardian to join in the attack on the lack of proper drainage
and the large accumulations of filth which were causing a foetid, impure
atmosphere:
In many parts of this stragg ling city there are nuisances
tihich \'>'Ould be disgraceful" to the· dirtiest hamlet or village
in any country in the world; drains pouring into the
streets from cess-pools, water closets and other abominations ;
dark green, stagnant and putrefying pools and ditches of
decomposing vegetable matter , pregnant with abundance of
malaria \'>'hich is wafted by the wind all over the city -
to the mansions of the wealthy, and to the hovels of the
poor - and being closely incorporated with the air we
breathe, the pestilent miasma is at once received into
the system where it vitiates, impoverishes and contaminates
the blood, deranges the who le nervous system and, in a
word, places the unfortunate victim under the decided
influence of the influenza.s
In May, the suffering and loss of life caused by the influenza,
t'lhich mainly affected adults , \'>'as increased alarmingly by an outbreak of
a virulent form of scarlet fever which concentrated on the chi ldren .
the 16th , the Colonist, with a slight note of panic, \'/arned again that ,
unless the streets , lanes and alleys \'>'ere cleaned, a far more fatal
pestilence would result;
failure to clean the streets immediately;
now the City Inspector was blamed for his
a horse and cart and one
constab le, always under his orders, should be provided to assist him.
Three days later the Hobart Town Rivulet was described as a common sewer
and a depository for every filth, including dead animals ;
the sheds,
built by encroachers oyer the creek in places where the water was
stagnant , were also highly objectionable.
susceptible to the prevailing sickness , many had died;
As dogs were particularly
there was
scarcely a street but where two or three of the decaying and mutilated
bodies \'>'ere lying about in the pub lie thoroughfares.
Fortunately, it
was \'>'inter time and cold, or the stench would have been intolerable.
Although there was a clause in the Police Act to control such nuisances ,
it was not enforced and should be now.
On
On May 21, the Guardian insisted
that there was scarcely a street in which a nuisance of some offensive
kind did not exist;
streets such as the High Street on the east side of
··
i
'·
\
f
s
Guardian, April 30, 1853.