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might have been had there been a dry summer it is impossible
to say, but most likely we should have had a serious amount
of illness. As it was, beyond the inconvenience to the tenants
from the smell, and the damage done to the carpets in certain
cases, no ill effects followed.
With the increase in our staff we have at last been
able to arrange for a much more systematic inspection of the
various trades in the borough. Besides casual inspections, all
the milkshops, workshops, board schools, urinals, etc., are
regularly inspected from twice during the year down to once a
month, according to the different premises.
During last year also the places where food is prepared
have continued to receive attention. We have prepared a
register of such premises which will now be under regular
inspection.
A case which attracted a good deal of attention at the
time was that of a cow seized at a slaughterhouse, 255, Southampton
Street. Both the sender of the cow and the owner of
the slaughterhouse were prosecuted; the former was condemned
to six months' imprisonment, which was upset on
appeal, his counsel raising a point that at the time of the
hearing of the case at the police court he had not been asked
whether he would be tried there or at the Quarter Sessions.
The presiding Justices upheld this objection. The owner of
the slaughterhouse was fined £5 and 3 guineas costs. The
case was followed up with great determination and intelligence
by your Inspector Kerslake. The licence for this cowhouse
was withheld by the London County Council in October, 1903.
The unsound food destroyed, as set out in the tables,
has reference partly to seizures by the Inspectors and also to
those instances where the owners themselves brought the food
and asked us to destroy it.
During the year 1903 five certificates were granted in
respect of houses the owners of which had claimed exemption
from Inhabited House Duty. This, however, does not represent
the number of applications. In the case of about twenty
tenements I refused the certificate outright, and in other
instances I could only have granted it on the carrying out of
various improvements, the expense of which would have more
than counterbalanced the reduction of taxation.
With the increase in the staff it has also been possible