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163
Surveyor's Report to General Purposes Committee with reference
to Annual Report of Medical Ofticer for 1896.
8th July, 1897.
Gentlemen,
Since your last meeting I have received a printed copy
(unbound) from the Vestry Clerk, of the Medical Officer's
Annual Report for 1896, and in accordance with your request
I beg to make the following remarks which I consider affect
my Committee, i.e., Works Committee.
In the first place I must observe, the Medical Officer has
spent much valuable time in producing such an elaborate
report, and I feel very diffident in being called upon to
comment thereon, even though it affects my own department.
Until paragraph 42 is reached I have nothing to say, but in
portions of this paragraph, as in others that will follow on, I
cannot quite agree with the Medical Officer.
He states that sewage finds its way into the White Hart
Lane Sewer overflow. This certainly takes place during
storms, and has done so for many years. But during the
time the storm overflow comes into operation the sewage is
very much diluted.
The obstruction he speaks of was reported on by me to the
Public Health Committee, 4th March, 1896 (see Surveyor's
Report Book, No. 5, page 29). Such obstruction might take
place in any sewer unless the entrances to same are under lock
and key, for, no doubt, the obstruction was wilfully done.