View report page

186
1904]
DISTRICT INSPECTION.
There are fourteen Inspectors engaged in the inspection of the fourteen
sanitary districts into which the borough has been divided. In addition to this
work, they make inquiries respecting infectious disease, obtaining particulars
as to the schools which the patients, if children, attend, and also ascertaining
the names of the schools at which any other children living in the house are
instructed. It was pointed out last year that the amount of work falling on
these inspectors was very heavy, and particulars of it will be found on page 203
of the Annual Report for 1903.
Inspections and Visits.—During 1904, 7,133 houses were inspected, of
which 1,903 were examined in the course of house-to-house inspections, and
5,230 as the result of complaints, or owing to the appearance of an infectious
disease in them. These inspections entailed 53,163 subsequent visits, so that
altogether 60,296 visits were paid to the 7,133 properties, or an average of
visits to each premises. From this statement it may be easily divined that
some houses required to be visited a very large number of times before the
work required by Inspectors was completed. Indeed, there are a few owners
and one or two agents, of property, and that of the worst type, who take a
delight in thwarting, and putting obstacles in the way of the inspectors.
Latterly, certain of these people never attempt to abate a nuisance on the
receipt of an "intimation" from the sanitary inspectors, and consequently their
"intimations" have become so much waste paper, with the result that many
nuisances, though often of a pressing character, remain unabated for an undue
period of time. The primary cause of this is that it is no offence to ignore an
"intimation" from an inspector, and, therefore, certain owners and agents decline
to abate the nuisances, being much more sympathetic towards their own pockets
than to the health and comfort of their tenants. The practice of ignoring
"intimations" first arose a few years ago when it was found that the cost of work
done to a combined drain or sewer under an inspector's "intimation" could not
be recovered, because it was held by the High Court that an "intimation" is not
a notice of the sanitary authority—that is to say a statutory notice. Some
authorities in London have refused to refund their costs to owners, because
they practically say "it is an injustice that we, the sanitary authorities, should
be called upon to repair or relay a combined drain, which only became a charge
on us through a previous owner or owners of the properties having committed
an illegal act in not submitting a plan for the approval of the then existing
sanitary authorities, and now we will avail ourselves of the technicality that an
"intimation" is not a notice from us to execute works, and we will not pay you