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the conditions of refuse removal are, to use the mildest word, obsolete
they are made more frequently, three times a week holding good in
some of these. It is to be hoped that before long a daily collection will
certainly be made in a ll the densely populated parts. One would like
to especially commend to the Council the practice adopted so largely
abroad, and also in certain parts of London, of taking the domestic
rubbish and depositing it in boxes on the footway in front of the
houses, where it is easy to shoot it into the carts, thereby saving the
time of the dustmen in going through the house to fetch it. There
are objections raised to this practice—children are supposed to play
with the refuse, wind is described as scattering it about; and, again,
this practice is not in accordance with the by-laws; but, on the other
hand, it rids the community of a potent source of trouble in the way
of accumulations of decaying animal and vegetable matter.
Sanitary Inspection of the District.
The number of inspections made by each inspector will be seen in
the table, with the particulars of the premises that were visited and
the cause. For the whole Borough there were 7,803 intimations
and 3,197 statutory notices.
It will be seen that there is a distinct increase on 1919.
Various causes have contributed to this—the bringing up of the staff
to its pre-war state, the appointment of an Assistant Medical Officer
of Health, of a Pood and Drugs Inspector, and also of an additional
woman inspector. The Committee have also favoured the policy of
pressing on matters much faster than heretofore, and although this
has often led to financial trouble in the case of the small houseowner,
it has made for a greater amount of work to be done.
Besides this, the difficulty of getting material and labour, which
seems to be ignored by those who had not the onus of seeing to
sanitary work in those difficult times, has now disappeared, together
with the necessity of permits and all the restrictions of war time.
For instance, in 1919 there were 73 summonses, while in 1920 there
were 186.
The result of such intimations, notices and of the summonses
that had to be issued will be seen in the tabular statement of the
work carried out. There were 41 inspections made of the six
registered slaughterhouses. During the war a number of them
were not used for any slaughtering, and the licensees seem to have
given up the idea of applying again, hence the fall in the number
from 85 in 1914 to that of this year. The cowsheds also show a
diminution, there being now only two.
The carrying on of the milk trade has now passed almost
entirely into the hands of the various combines or trusts, who for
their supplies depend on importation in bulk from the large milk
farms. The difficulty, of course, in the case of the town cowhouse is
possible nuisance to neighbours, and the requirements in terms of
space if the cows are to live under healthy conditions. If only
these obstacles could fee dealt with, the advantage of being able to