View report page

62
The mortuary attendant is away on active service and temporary arrangements
have been made to carry on the duties, which have worked very
satisfactorily.
DUST COLLECTION.
The collection of dust is still carried out by contract. The district for the
purpose of collection is divided into 3 parts. The number of vans employed
regularly is 6, with extra picking-up vans for holidays, and the clearing of refuse
from the Edmonton Infirmary, and also from the Metropolitan Asylums Board
institutions, now occupied by Belgian refugees, and I can only reiterate my
former remarks that the number of vans is insufficient. The district should be
divided into 4 parts, and there should be at least 8 vans regularly employed,
besides the vans used for picking up refuse from the institutions, etc. The
sheets that I adopted for the dust contractor to fill up, showing the daily
collection, prove conclusively that some of the streets do not get a weekly
collection.
The contractor states that he is doing the best he can, but owing to the
present crisis it is difficult to get labour.
The Council's dust shoot at the Sewage Farm will become filled up in a
year or two, and as it will make it too difficult and dangerous for the horses to
deposit their loads if the shoot is raised, it will be necessary to provide another
shoot or, better still, build a destructor.
The number of van loads collected during the year was 3,910; approximate
weight of refuse deposited was 6,812 tons.
The number of complaints received was 31.
The dust on the shoot is still spread, levelled and the sleeper road kept in
repair, by a man who in return for his labour, gets the glass, bones, &c., that
he finds on the shoot. I regret, however, we have not been able to dispose of
the old iron and tin ware, as there is now a huge accumulation which would be
better away from the shoot.
The number of dustbins supplied was 282.
SLAUGHTER HOUSE AND FOOD INSPECTION.
The number of slaughter houses in the district in use is 5, 4 of which are
licensed under the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1890, and one registered,
this having been in existence for a great number of years, in which for the past
3 years only pigs and sheep have been slaughtered.