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245
Officer to the Board, in view of a threatened visitation of
Cholera. The Board had communicated to the Sanitary
Authorities the views of their Medical Officer, as to cutting
off all connexion of waste-pipes with drains, a point on which
the late Sir Francis Bolton, the Water Examiner, had been
insisting, in his reports, for years, but without effect. Should
there be an outbreak of Cholera this year, it is probable
that the Board will again give similar advice to the Sanitary
Authorities, as they did last year, but without taking any steps
to enable those Authorities to give effect to their advice, viz., by
procuring the desired amendment of the fourteenth regulation.
It would be well could the Board be induced to comply with
the recommendation transmitted to them by jour Vestry on
the subject, in 1883; when, moreover, they were also asked
to obtain power to enable Sanitary Authorities to enforce
other of the regulations having a sanitary bearing: those
numbered 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24,25,31, and 32,
being specified. Your Vestry's action in this important matter
was fully set out in my Annual Report for 1882-83 (pages
117 to 126 inclusive) and I would recommend that the attention
of the Local Government Board(or better still, that of the
County Council) be again invited to the subject. It may be
here mentioned that the regulations of the Water Companies
were made in 1872, under the provisions of sees. 17—25 of the
Metropolis Water Act, 1871, and have never been altered.
But any company may repeal or alter existing regulations, or
make new regulations instead of any of the same (sec. 18),
and if the Metropolitan Authority (i.e. the County Council)
or any ten consumers of the water supplied by any company,
request the Company, in writing, to repeal or alter any of the
regulations, or to make new regulations instead of any of the
same, and the company refuse to do so, the Local Government
Board may appoint a competent person to report as to the
expediency of altering or repealing such regulations, or of
making new regulations, in conformity with such request, and