§ Mr. SUTTONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the River Ouse, upon which Newhaven is situated, receives sewage from Lewes and other places, and that the river is thereby very seriously polluted; whether he is aware that the Newhaven authorities have complained of this state of affairs without any improvement having been effected; whether the river runs quite close to the houses in which the small-pox cases recently occurred at Newhaven, and thus conduced to the insanitary condition; whether at certain states of the tide there is a most foul odour from the river; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the evidence adduced by the medical inspector of his Department in 388W support of the theory that the outbreak of small-pox was due to infection from person to person, and not from the unhealthy and overcrowded houses in the locality where the cases were found?
§ Mr. BURNSI am aware that the River Ouse is polluted by sewage from Lewes and other places. The town council of Lewes are now undertaking a new sewage disposal scheme which will, it is hoped, remedy this state of affairs so far as their district is concerned, and the question of the disposal of sewage of other places on the river is under consideration. With regard to the proximity of the houses in which cases of small-pox occurred to the river, I am informed that none of them were within fifty yards of the river. An account of the outbreak will be given in the Annual Report of the medical officer of the Local Government Board.