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26
Medical Officers of Health Annual Report.
laws, not being occupied by more than one family. It is often the
case that small houses in which there is only one family need
quite as much attention to keep them sanitary as those that are let
in lodgings.
6.—We think therefore that it is preferable to have the
systematic house-to-house visitation which it has been the endeavour
to carry out in this District for years past. It is regrettable
,however, that in some of the sub-districts this has lately
shown a falling off, owing to the time of the inspectors being so
much taken up in the inspection and testing of the drains of new
houses, which are becoming increasingly numerous every year.
7.—We think it highly desirable that the inspectors should
be relieved of this duty, with the object of getting more house-tohouse
inspection done, and that in each sub-district one or more
properly qualified officers should be appointed to test the drains of
new houses. This we think would conduce more to the improvement
of the sanitary condition of the District than would the
making of a special effort to register and inspect houses let in
lodgings under the Bye-laws.
We lay stress on the fact that in this district the
objects of the Bye-laws have practically been obtained
for many years past. There has been a register kept
containing the details required under these Bye-laws of
the results of the house-to-house inspection which has
been continuously going on. This inspection is chiefly
confined to the poorer quarters of the district so that
certainly all the houses let in lodgings to which these
Bye-laws apply have been visited in most parts of the
district at least once in 2 years, and any defects as to
overcrowding, dirtyness, dampness, bad drainage, defective
water supply or other nuisance have been found out
and remedied. We think it would be a retrograde step
to give this system up, with which we have every reason
to be satisfied, for the sake of picking out particular
houses which happen to be let in lodgings to the neglect
of their fellows in the same street. Latterly, however,
there has not been enough of this systematic house-to-