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Unfortunately, however, the Local Government Board has not
given its sanction to this number (suggested by your Medical
Officer of Health and approved by the Vestry), with the
result that the Parish is still (May, 1896) left undermanned
as regards the Inspectorial Staff. I cannot help but feel
that it would have been more politic on the part of the
Board to have sanctioned the three additional Inspectors,
and afterwards to have pressed the Vestry to appoint more,
when represented to be necessary by your Medical
Officer of Health, Such a line of action on the part of the
Board would, I submit, have been more to the advantage
sanitarily of the Parish of Lambeth.*
The surroundings of the inhabitants of the Inner Districts
are not satisfactory, and it will need the full support
of the Vestry (a support which, I feel sure, I shall at
all times obtain), to enable your Medical Officer of Health
and the Inspectors to improve them. Many houses will
have to be closed, or (what would be better) rendered
fit for human habitation, but to accomplish this your
Officers are beset with difficulties which some of the
members of the Vestry can, I think, have no conception
of, what with the vested interests of this person and that
person, whether in the shape of a superior lessor or a
ground landlord. As your Medical Officer, I am sanguine
that the unanimous support of the Vestry will enable my
Department to override most (if not all) of these obstacles,
and so slowly but surely give the poorer members of the
Community surroundings and conditions of life to which
they are justly entitled, and the possession of which will
tend to make their lives happier and brighter, and so to
*On April 16th, 1896, the Vestry decided to appoint four additional
Inspectors, a number which at last has been sanctioned by the Board
in a letter dated June 10th, 1896.