View report page

1909]
240
DISTRICT INSPECTION.
The work of the District Inspectors was particularly heavy, owing to the
large number of cases of Measles reported by the London County Council
School Teachers, which had to be inquired into, with the result that the house
to house inspection suffered somewhat.
5,093 houses were inspected, which entailed 52,481 visits. The total
inspections, visits and calls were 05,801, the particulars of which are set out in
Table CXXVI., and show the sanitary work done by the Inspectors, as abstracted
from their reports. It may be stated here that the discrepancy between 80,371
total inspections and calls that were made in 1908 and the 05,801 made in 1909
is chiefly due to the manner in which the returns are now abstracted. Thus,
each Inspector is credited with only 1 visit for his inspections of shops, stalls,
and markets on Saturday evenings, whereas formerly if a stall or shop was only
glanced at, it counted as an inspection, and consequently some Inspectors would
have only 10 or 20 inspections to their credit, others would have four or five
times that number. Again, where formerly in the case of visits to stable yards
the Inspector counted 1 visit to each stable in that yard, and thus had 12
visits to his credit, supposing there were 12 stables in It, now the visit to
these places is counted as 1, as they are within the curtilage of a single
premises, although let to separate tenants. The object of these alterations
was, if possible, to arrive at some fair comparison between the
work of each Inspector. Even now this is impossible, because in no two
districts are the houses alike, and it cannot be pretended that to inspect a house
which is occupied by a single family requires the same amount of time as one
let in tenements. Nevertheless, the comparisons are fairer now than formerly.
The alterations were worked out by the Chief Inspector and Mr. Ansjel.
House to House Inspection.—783 houses were visited in this manner,
as compared with 1,202 in the preceding year. There is no work in which the
Inspectors are engaged in which they have met with more difficulties than in
these inspections, because very frequently the people resent the visit, particularly
if they should own the house, and only admit the inspector with the very
greatest reluctance, lest they should be called on to execute sanitary repairs.
It is to be regretted that the great epidemic of Measles and also the increase
in cases of Scarlet Fever interfered very materially with this work, while the
continued absence of Inspector Bacon, through illness, to which he subsequently
succumbed, materially interfered with the work of two of the Inspectors.