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complied with, which your Chief Sanitary Inspector has allowed
to lapse, and I have had prepared for the information of the
Committee a return of the outstanding notices, many of which
are now out of time. The larger number are in connection with
premises in North-West Battersea. This district, as the Committee
are aware, is the most insanitary in the Borough, and
calls for the most active supervision on the part of the Council's
officers. The yards are in a large number of cases kept in a
filthy condition, and in wet weather become quagmires. The
Committee will readily understand the danger to health to children
and others of such conditions.
"There is another aspect of the question which must be
considered unsatisfactory, and which requires the consideration of
the Committee with regard to the service of statutory notices.
In many instances the owners, either because they consider the
requirements of the Council reasonable, or in some cases rather
than contest the matter with the Sanitary Authority, comply with
the notices as to paving, and the work is accordingly done. On
the other hand, as the return herewith will show, on various
grounds some owners have refused or neglected to carry out the
notices, and no legal action to enforce these notices appears to
have been taken, apart from the fact that the issuing of (in my
opinion) a statutory notice should necessarily imply its being
complied with. It seems to be unjust, and in the highest degree
unsatisfactory from the point of view of sanitary administration,
where an owner who is served with a notice to pave the yard of
his yard carries out the requirements of the Sanitary Authority ;
another owner declines to do so because he presumes no further
action will be taken. In the appended return hereto, it will be
found, for instance, that in a certain street in the Borough the
notices as to paving have been complied with on one side of the
street, with two exceptions, while on the other side not one
notice appears to have been complied with in this respect.
"I shall be glad, therefore, if the Committee will give me
their instructions as to this important question, and the