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need of extensive repairs; (3) That no action be taken at the (then) present time in the direction,
of recommending the paving of Southam Street, Calderon Place, Park Street (Latimer Road),
Edenham Street, or Snarsgate Street. The Committee were unable to view St. Mark's Grove,
South Street, North Street, and Seymour Place (Fulham Road); but they expressed the hope that
the Works Committee might see their way to view the same, and, if they thought it desirable, to
give directions for provision to be made, in the estimates for 1904-5, for those streets being paved
with asphalte,should extensive repairs be needed thereto. The Works Committee deferred for six
months consideration of the recommendations of the Public Health Committee with reference to
the eight streets above named, and on 19th September resolved to postpone action with reference
to the paving of the said streets until the Council should have manufactured its own clinkerasphalte
blocks in connexion with the Destructor of house-refuse. The Council's destructor will
shortly be brought into use, and should the manufacture of clinker-asphalte blocks be as successful
as the Borough Engineer anticipates, it is to be presumed that extensive paving works of a hygienic
character will ere long be initiated.
Work for the Unemployed.—In December, when the outcry for work by the unemployed was
most pressing, I invited attention (in the twelfth four-weekly report) to this question of asphaltepaving
as affording the means of providing a considerable amount of employment; recalling the recommendations
I had made in a report to the Public Health Committee in January, 1903, of certain
streets as being suitable for the purpose. The streets named are of moderate length, the traffic
over them not great, and they are much used as playgrounds by the children of the inhabitants.
The report which was approved by the Committee was referred by them to the Works Committee
The Borough Engineer (who had reported in favour of asphalte-paving of streets in suitable localities,
as an economical as well as a hygienic course to be adopted), further recommended the asphaltepaving
of additional streets at a total estimated cost of about £5,200. The Works Committee
reported recommending that no action be taken in the matter. In the report of January 26th, 1904,
I renewed the recommendation for the paving of the same and other streets—with what result has
been explained above. At the meeting on December 20th, 1904, a deputation of the unemployed
waited upon the Council to request (inter alia) that with a view to finding work, Golborne Road,
Bosworth Road, Adair Road, Southam Street, Appleford Road and Edenham Street should be paved
with asphalte forthwith. The streets were viewed on 19th December, but the only one recommended
to be paved, at an early suitable opportunity ,was Snarsgate Street, and this work will soon be put in
hand.
Ventilation of Sewers.—At the same meeting I recommended for the abatement of offensive
smells, in streets, viz., by improving ventilation of sewers, a further means of finding work for the unemployed
to wit the abolition of dead-ends of sewers, about 300 in number, but no action has hitherto
been taken in that direction (see further on this subject, page 84.)
PUBLIC BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES.
The washers in the year ended 31st March, 1905, were 71,448, compared with 71,709 in the
preceding twelve months; the bathers 104,913 (males 81,544, females 23,369) compared with 94,050
in 1903-4. The total of males includes pupil teachers 390 (males 159, females 231), members of
evening continuation classes 2,731 (males 1,577, females 1,154), school children 9,795 (males 2,569,
females 7,226), and 958 members of a boys' club. I can only repeat here what has been remarked in
many previous reports, that for the majority of parishoners the site of the establishment is not
sufficiently central for bathers, and is too remote for would-be washers. The same objection would
apply to any single site in the borough. What is wanted is the provision, in convenient localities,
of buildings, on a modest scale, to which the poor in the central and southern districts might
resort for laundry purposes.
CLEANSING OF PERSONS ACT, 1897.
This Act gives power to the sanitary authority to permit any person infested with vermin
to have the use of the apparatus which the authority may have provided for cleansing the body
and clothing, and authorises expenditure on buildings, appliances, and attendants that may be
required for the carrying out of the Act. Nominal effect was given to the Act soon after it
passed, by an arrangement made by the late Vestry with the Guardians, whereby cleansing and
disinfecting apparatus at the able-bodied workhouse, Mary Place, in the Potteries, was made available,
on payment of a small fee—an unsatisfactory arrangement which is still in force. Little use
has been made of the apparatus, owing, probably, to ignorance of the arrangement on the part of
the poor intended to be benefited; and probably, to some extent, owing to the locality and owner-