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92
THE WORK OF THE SANITARY INSPECTORS.
Table VI. (appendix) contains a summary of the work of
the sanitary inspectors. The duties of the inspectors are
carried out under the Sanitary Committee, your Vestry having
conferred on that body, by resolution, power to enforce the
provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, and the Factory
and Workshop Acts, 1878 to 1895. At page 2 will be found a
description of the inspectors' districts. The staff now comprises
seven inspectors, six male and one female, a reduction
of two, one of each sex, as compared with the number in 1895.
The inspector for the south-east district also acts as chief
sanitary inspector (vide page 3). The staff, as I have repeatedly
informed the Sanitary Committee, is quite inadequate for the
discharge of the duties devolving upon your Vestry as Sanitary
Authority. After the staff of male inspectors had been (in
1896) reduced from seven to six, the Local Government Board,
in assenting to the arrangement for a period of twelve months
on trial, requested to be informed, at the end of that period, as
to how the arrangement worked, and whether the duties of the
sanitary inspectors had been thoroughly carried out in all the
districts? In February 1898, the Board wrote requesting that the
" special report " required by their letter of 28th January, 1897,
might be forwarded. The Sanitary Committee advised that
the Board be (and they were) informed—
" That the arrangement made by the Vestry as regards
the sanitary inspection of this parish, communicated
to the Board on the 17th November, 1896,
has proved satisfactory, and that the duties of the
several sanitary inspectors have . . . been
thoroughly fulfilled."
I was not consulted in the matter; but I have no hesitation
in stating that, so far as practicable, the several inspectors have
fulfilled the duties of their office satisfactorily. It may be