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30
At the present day Bethnal Green will compare favorably with any
parish in London from a sanitary point of view. The Vestry is of
opinion that the Public Health Act, 1891, provides sufficient
machinery for the purpose of dealing with insanitary conditions,
and by direction of the Sanitary Committee Mr. Foot serves and
enforces scores of notices every week to abate all manner of insanitary
conditions, including overcrowding. I consider it most unfair
to gibbet as recalcitrant a Vestry, which is doing real good work,
because it prefers direct proceedings under statute law instead of
under by-laws; which latter are always more or less unsatisfactory
and difficult to enforce.
The explanation of the matter is that the name of Bethnal Green
excites the susceptibilities of some people wholly irrespective of any
careful consideration of the conditions of the district, and no matter
what good work the Vestry do now they get no credit for it, but are
condemned on the assumption of the existence of a state of things
which has long ago ceased to exist. This is discouraging to earnest
sanitarians and very difficult to bear, and the more so as that method
of patient enquiry, which in these matters is the sole means of
attaining sober truth, is least likely to be resorted to by those who
use sweeping and misleading general expressions, where accuracy,
both of thought and word, is so very desirable. When I was
appointed Medical Officer of Health, alas ! nearly a quarter of a
century ago, the Vestry was composed almost entirely of do-nothing
landlords or their nominees. These gentlemen sat on the Board for
the express purpose of protecting their own interests, and for years no
sanitary progress was possible. To-day the health of the parish is
looked after by a body of earnest hardworking sanitarians, who
devote a great deal of time to the furtherance of the interests of the
parish, and who heartily support and stimulate the staff in their
efforts to improve its condition. And here let me say that no
brighter instance of the class of men to whom I refer can be found
than the late Mr. James Parnell, whose recent death has deprived
the parish of an energetic and very capable sanitarian, and the
Sanitary Committee of a most efficient and respected chairman.
Not even the Public Health Committee of the London County