View report page

41
PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
The resignation of Mr. S. H. Brown, Sanitary Inspector, in October of last
year, caused a vacancy in this Department, the usual advertisement was inserted,
and on the 2nd November, 1897, the Vestry appointed Mr. Alfred A. Linden, of No.
91, Warren Road, Walthamstow, E., Sanitary Inspector for Sanitary District No. 4
of the Parish, subject to the formal approval of the Local Government Board, which
was received on the 3rd December, 1897.
Alterations in the emoluments of the Staff will be found in the List of Official
Salaries comprised in the Abstract of Accounts.
PUBLIC HEALTH.
The greater portion of Public Health work executed during the past year is
fully dealt with by the Medical Officer of Health in his report, and it remains only
for me to deal with a few matters of general interest.
COMBINED DRAINAGE.
The Public Health Committee has constantly kept in view the present state of
the law which casts upon the local authority the heavy expense of reimbursing the
owners of private property for drains laid on the 'combined' system, where the
owners have succeeded in making the combination without the knowledge of the
Sanitary Authority, and in many cases where, presumably, they did not even know
that they were acquiring any rights against the public by laying such drains.
On the one hand the owners may succeed in casting such expense on the public
but on the other hand, as no owner can build over a Sewer without the sanction of
the Vestry, there appears to be a strong probability of the value of the property being
materially prejudiced by allowing a Sewer (as opposed to a private drain) to exist
thereon. The Committee, therefore, in addition to the effort being made through the
Public Health Conference to get the law amended, are pursuing the course of
apprising the freeholder, where a leaseholder makes a claim alleging right to repayment
of such drainage expenses from the Local Authority, in the hope that the former
may adopt means to prevent the leaseholder from allowing such free easement to be
be acquired.
SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS BILL.
The Bill lately introduced into Parliament was carefully considered by the Public
Health Committee and was referred by them to me for examination and report, with
the result that the Committee advised the Vestry to present a petition to Parliament
in due course praying that the Law might be amended in such respect as to make it
accord with the views of the Committee and the Society of Public Analysts.
The Committee were of the opinion that the Bill was defective in the following
respects, viz., that Sec. 12 does not make the Public Analyst's Certificate prima facie
evidence when the analyst is called and would encourage groundless demands for the