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6
A reference to the table of works carried out during the year will
show that a large number of houses have had the rooms cleansed
and the yards and forecourts paved. Floor ventilation and permanent
ventilation to the staircases have been provided to an
increasing number of houses.
House drains have been reconstructed in about a thousand
cases. In a large and densely populated parish such as Newington
is, although much good and useful work is done in the year, the
necessity for better supervision on the part of the sanitary staff
becomes more pressing as time goes on. The subject of overcrowding
alone, if properly attended to, would pretty well occupy
the whole of the time of the present staff. Still it is pleasant to be
able to report that during the last few years a large proportion of
the houses in the district have passed through a very radical course
of repair.
The Vestry have also at considerable expense reconstructed many
old and defective sewers. The reconstruction too of combined
drains and sewers has entailed a good deal of expense to the parish.

The Registrar General's estimate of the population at the middle
of 1899 was 124,166.
The percentage of the population dying away from home in the
Workhouse Infirmary and the various public hospitals was 28.0
for the year.