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51
ing the offal through the streets. These Bye-laws are enforced
by the Vestry. Soon after they came into operation a copy
was sent to every person engaged in this trade, and one firm
who owned the largest number of vans at once had their
vehicles altered to comply with our requirements. A number
of smaller ones still continue to create the nuisance, but as a
means of escaping our attention went through the district in
the early hours. Their attention was again called to the Byelaws,
but with no effect. We therefore determined to stop the
nuisance, and our Inspector, Mr. Cox, on a number of occasions
awaited the arrival of these particular carts as early as
seven o'clock in the morning, and eventually succeeded in
catching them in flagranti delicto. A messenger was sent for me,
and legal proceedings were instituted, altogether six summonses
were taken out which had the effect, so far, of mitigating the
nuisance.
Disinfecting.
The subject of disinfecting houses and clothing after infectious
disease is one which is of great importance to Health
Officers, and it is our duty to make the system we carry out as
perfect as possible.
But the apparatus at the disposal of the Vestry is not all
that could be wished; it has been repeatedly demonstrated
within the last few years that the best method in the disinfecting
of clothing is by superheated steam—that is steam under
pressure. For many years we have employed the dry heat
process: placing the clothing in an oven and heating it
up to a certain temperature for a length of timo. I pointed
out several years ago to the Sanitary Committee that this
method was obsolete and unsatisfactory. As a means of
temporizing, certain alterations were made to the " Old
Frazer Oven," by which steam could be used. In theory,
this seemed to have got over our difficulty, but in practice
it has signally failed. The oven was not originally
constructed to resist steam pressure, and will not do so,
and although steam is injected into the oven from a small