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casual or special inspections, or house to house inspection. The Special Committee on Notting-dale,
in their report (June 8th, 1896), stated that the yards in the " special area " were " saturated with
human ordure and filth of every description." The Committee were of opinion "that the yards
should be asphalted or paved," and the first of their recommendations, all of which were approved
by the late Vestry, was to the effect—
" That it be referred to the Works and Sanitary Committee to have notices served upon the
owners or occupiers of the houses in the several streets . . . requiring them to asphalte,
or pave with impervious material, the yards in the rear of such houses which are not in
proper condition."
Effect has, in a measure, been given to this recommendation.
The paving of yards is one of the matters dealt with in the Council's by-laws, the tenth
requiring, in respect of " any yard or open space, where it is necessary for the prevention or remedy
of insanitary conditions that all or part of such yard or open space shall be paved," that it be paved
forthwith, by the owner of the dwelling-house with which such yard or open space is connected.
It will be observed that the paving of yards is prescribed " for the prevention or remedy of
insanitary conditions," a fact which is too often lost sight of. That paving is "necessary" for this
purpose is indubitable, and the subject is deserving of the attention of sanitary authorities, by whom
generally, more would be done, probably were due weight attached to the hygienic importance of
cleanliness and dryness in the surroundings of dwelling-houses—a matter to which attention was
specially directed in my annual report for 1897 (page 146); the authority of the late medical officer
of the Local Government Board being cited in support of the views therein expressed.
In connection with this subject, reference may be made to the rubbish so frequently observed
in yards of houses let in tenements to the poorer classes ; broken bedsteads, rotten straw palliasses,
and other things of no value, once the " property," it may be, of dead or departed tenants or lodgers.
In the report for 1889 it was observed that " it is nobody's business to remove the things, which
simply serve as harbourage for collections of filth." The yards where they exist cannot be properly
cleansed, and might be regarded as premises, " in such a state as to be a nuisance or dangerous to
health." The importance of the matter is lost sight of in ordinary times, but let there be a cholera
scare, and everybody recognises the necessity for that general clearance of filth and litter which
should be effected systematically at all times.
HYGIENIC STREET PAVING.
During the year some progress was made in the paving with asphalte of streets in poor
localities where traffic is small; streets, moreover, used by children as playgrounds, in default of
more suitable provision. This practice, commenced in the Potteries district some years since, was
subsequently carried out to completion in the Notting Dale "special area" with manifest advantage.
During last year the following roadways were paved with this material, Childs Place, Queen's
Place, Boyne Terrace, and Lansdowne Mews, at a cost of more than eight hundred pounds.
When streets are paved with asphalte it is the practice to substitute syphon-trapped pan
gullies for brick gullies with flap-traps (which in the proper sense are not traps at all) ; and,
wherever practicable, sewer ventilators at road level are abolished, ventilating pipes being carried
up the front of adjacent buildings, the work thus constituting a very real sanitary improvement.
This question of the paving of carriageways was ably dealt with, some ten years, since by
the present Mayor of the Royal Borough, in a Paper read before the Society of Arts, which obtained
the silver medal of the Society. The comparative merits and demerits of the several materials
used for paving purposes—granite, wood, asphalte—were passed in review. To asphalte the second
place was assigned in respect of noislessness, safety for horses, and durability; the third place with
respect to economy, and the first with respect to the points which most concern a sanitary
authority; viz., public hygiene and cleansing. "On the score of hygiene" (the author said)
"asphalte holds pre-eminently the first place, owing to its impermeability, and the consequent
impossibility of absorption on its part; and in addition to this it may be stated in its favour that it
is more easily cleansed, and dries more readily than any other pavement." No one acquainted with
the asphalted streets in the borough can be in doubt as to the advantages of this material, and on
sanitary grounds I should be glad to see the use of it largely extended, a course which has for its
justification the admirable merit of economy.
PUBLIC BATHS AND WASHHOUSES.
The washers in the twelve months ended 31st March, 1903, were, 65,456, compared with
70,776 in the preceding year: the bathers, 78,357 (males, 67,094, females, 11,263), irrespective of
members of male classes, 1,582; of female classes, 894; male pupil teachers, 264; female pupil