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5
will have to be made to your Committee unless this position is fully
recognised. No good results can be obtained on other lines, and I
trust a proper feeling of good sense and some little tact may be shown
by all concerned in order that any further reference to this may be
obviated.
These small faults and blemishes are the more irritating because
there is no real reason for them, and because in the main and as a whole
your staff is doing good sound and satisfactory work, and the sanitary
condition of your borough is improving to an enormous extent and
the improvement is being continued each year.
Improved
sanitary
conditions.
It is not easy to exactly describe in an annual report how the
sanitary conditions of the borough do improve, but apart from one's
knowledge and observations we may perhaps be allowed to take as a
measure the operations of the Oxford House Sanitary Aid Committee
which it is hardly necessary to add is the local branch of the Mansion
House Council on the Dwellings of the Poor.
Local Sanitary
Aid Committees
These local aid bodies or committees were formed some years ago
with a view to inducing the several sanitary authorities to take up their
duties more energetically and much more extensively. Our branch
here was especially active and one can certainly say now there was
undoubtedly a very good field indeed for its operations.
Standard of
comparison.
As a convenient standard of comparison we may take the history
and proceedings of this committee as a very useful guide.
Some years ago, say fifteen or sixteen, this committee had not the
slightest difficulty in getting literally hundreds of cases to send in to
your predecessors in each year.
This went on for some time, but very soon after the organisation
of your Health Department on a practical working basis, your staff
having got to work they soon found they had a difficulty in keeping up
to their desired level of only one hundred cases per year.
This was some few years ago, and not only has every succeeding
year increased the difficulty they experienced in getting cases, but for