TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir, I trust that, being a resident in Broad street, St. James’s parish, where the present frightful epidemic has been raging so fearfully, you will allow me a line of your valuable space to mention a curious fact connected with this district.
Some two years back, when the baths and washhouses situated at the back of Broad-street were being constructed, the piers to support the building were obliged to be sunk some distance through the ground, this ground being the old parish burying ground; at that time I saw human remains (flesh and hair as well as bones) which from the dates on the coffins, must have been underground 100 years, in a most wonderful state of preservation. Is it not therefore reasonable to suspect that (seeing the earth in this neighbourhood appears to possess in a great degree the power of retarding animal decomposition) when the new sewer was constructed, here in some places 30 or more feet deep, it must have most injuriously disturbed the soil saturated with the remains of persons deposited here during the great plague of London (as mentioned in your journal by a resident of Regent-street), and this a deadly miasmatic atmosphere has been for some months arising through the gully holes connected with this sewer, poisoning the surrounding atmosphere and predisposing the inhabitants to any epidemic that might visit this metropolis?
It has been observed by all that this disease has more especially followed line for line on either side the course of this new main sewer.
In no other way, I think, can be explained the extraordinary virulence of the outbreak in our district, which considering its limited extent and good drainage has been more fatally visited than the worst drained districts south of the Thames; hardly a house in Broad-street, a street of 50 houses, has escaped without three, four, or even five deaths in it.
I trust that through the influence of your powerful journal the Commissioners of Sewers will be induced to take some measures to prevent as much as possible the emanation of poisonous vapour from this main sewer, and thus, under Providence, avert from us another such awful plague at any other visitation of an epidemic.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A RESIDENT OF BROAD-STREET
28, Broad-street, Golden-square.
SEPT. 11, 1854