View report page

66
and eighty-six such inspections have been made, and the various
defects noted have been attended to.
A great difficulty, which has been experienced in dealing with
this class of premises, arises from the fact that many small shopkeepers
in poor neighbourhoods add to their various other articles
kept for sale, milk, of which they only sell very small quantities,
say about one quart daily, and hence are not prepared, nor yet
are they able, to provide any separate place for the storage of this
commodity, and we find it stored in the general shop, alongside
of all sorts of other articles which may or may not happen to give
off odours of varying degrees of pungency, i.e., paraffin, pickles,
herrings, &c.
House-to-House Inspection. During the year the Public
Health Committee have, after much consideration, decided to
appoint temporarily two Sanitary Inspectors, for the sole duty of conducting
a house-to-house inspection throughout the Borough, with
a view to the detection of overcrowding, where such exists, and
also with a view to in this way deal with the housing problem by
giving each house particular attention, seeing that it is brought into
a sanitary condition, and not occupied by more persons than the
law would permit, in this way, as far as possible, endeavouring to
prevent the lapsing of certain classes of admittedly ancient and
poor property into the very slum-like condition which it might
otherwise acquire. We shall also, on the completion of this work,
be in a better position to judge as to our needs in relation to the
Housing question than we can possibly be at the present time.
The two temporary Inspectors have been appointed, and engaged
solely on this work, and the Tables, pages 95-98, give a resume
of the various particulars obtained in the course of such inspection,