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47
feet state of the law, and the want of a public prosecutor,
necessitates the greatest circumspection in dealing with.
I am pleased to report that during the past year no sales
or frauds of the kind referred to were detected or brought
under the notice of the authorities in this parish.
In concluding this report, I must once more venture to
urge upon the attention of the authorities the still unsatisfactory
arrangements for the supply of water in some few
localities within the Sub-district. The intermitting system
of the companies, as well as the supplies drawn from surface
wells, and from wells in the vicinity of cesspools or drains,
where there is danger from the percolation of fœecal matter,
are still to be deprecated and deplored throughout the
entire Wandsworth District—the one as affording an inadequate
amount for closet-flushing and other domestic purposes,
and the other, a most unwholesome, not to say in
many instances, poisonous supply of one of the greatest
necessaries of life.
I have heard it frequently expressed as appearing somewhat
extraordinary, that the decision in the well-known
case of " The Wandsworth District Board of Works v.
Tinkler," has not yet led to ar^y effectual amendment of
the Metropolis Local Management Act, upon the closet
question, since very many houses inhabited by the labouring
poor throughout the District (I can point to some few
such in this parish) are still found to be entirely without
water for the purposes indicated—a long-existing evil, for
which there is no excuse, but which past legislation appears
to have entirely failed to remedy.
B. HA11LAND WHITEMAN,
Medical Officer of Health for Putney and Roehampton.