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Then I inspected the markets I found there in a filthy condition. In the Central market, which supplied nearly all the European population, the houses were dreadfully overcrowded, the coolies slept on the stalls at night and the bed clothes were over the stalls during the day, full of the filthiest description and lice, as all bedding of the poor is all over the town. There were clothes hanging over the meat, vegetables, fruit, and fish exposed for sale; the latter I found had often been washed in well water such as I have described as unfit to drink.
The market scavengers employed by Government lived in a room above the Market latrines, and through the interstices of the boards of the floor, the people in the latrines could be seen. There were thirteen market coolies and eleven of those employed in the year 1873 had died during the year.
During the first months of my inspections, I put myself in communication with the Surveyor General, Mr. Price, who, like myself, was a new arrival in the Colony and whose hands were full of work, and the Registrar General.
On April 15, 1874, I sent in a long report to Government of the result of my inspections.
These reports of mine astonished the Government and the different Departments affected by them so much that they hardly believed and generally considered me to have greatly exaggerated in the statements I had made; the result was that a commission was appointed, consisting of the Surveyor General, Mr. Price, an architect and engineer in private practice, Mr. Alford, and myself, to enquire and report on the state of things I had described.
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