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42
terminated and the parish was redivided into five districts, as at
present, and one of these was apportioned to each officer.
Other duties now called Mr. Frank Bate away and he ceased to
act as junior Clerk. Moreover, as the staff had been so largely increased,
Messrs. Weston and Foot did not feel called upon to devote
their evenings to clerical work at home but wrote out their notices
at the Vestry Hall during office hours as did the other three
Inspectors. Little or no assistance in this direction could be
rendered by Mr. Medway as his whole time was absorbed in posting
up the various records, and in preparing and forwarding the notifications
required by the Public Health (London) Act. Moreover our
system of book-keeping had grown up by various additions into a
somewhat cumbrous patchwork which obviously required revision.
Quite half the Inspectors' day was now absorbed by office and
Police Court work, so that my promise (on the appointment of a
fifth Inspector) to initiate periodical house-to-house visitation could
not be kept, indeed as a matter of fact very little more real work
was accomplished with a staff of five Inspectors than in the old
days when we had only three.
Late in the year 1894, the London County Council directed Dr,
Young (one of their Assistant Medical Officers) to report on the
sanitary condition and adminstration of Bethnal Green.
"The results of this inquiry into the sanitary condition of
Bethnal Green may be briefly summarised as follows:—
1. The death rates in the Parish, from all causes, from
the seven chief zymotic diseases and the infant
mortality, based upon the figures contained in the
yearly reports of the Local Medical Officer of Health,
are in excess of the corresponding rates relating to
London generally.
2. There is evidence of much work having been done
and considerable improvement having been effected in
the Parish, but in a large proportion of houses visited
defective conditions have been found to exist.
3. Systematic house-to-house inspection throughout the
district has not been undertaken, indeed the sanitary
staff is not sufficiently large for this purpose.