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28
ON THE SANITAKY CONDITION OF
had statutory notices served upon them through the Health
Department. Orders made in regard to chimneys sending forth
black smoke in such quantity as to be a nuisance, have in each
case been complied with.
Considerable trouble was caused by the difficulty in obtaining
smokeless coal during a large part of 1898 through a strike among
the coal miners of Wales. It is apparently easier to use a smokeless
coal than to so construct furnaces that they will consume the
smoke arising therefrom, with the result that when this kind of
coal is not to be had London has to suffer from a very great deal
of nuisance. Several magistrates unfortunately by refusing to
convict offenders contributed to the continuance of the evil.
Your Board had under consideration the growing nuisance
caused by steamboats on the Thames failing to consume their own
smoke, and a letter was sent to the Port Sanitary Authority (who
are empowered to enforce the provisions of the Public Health Act
relating to smoke consumption), urging that body to take immediate
measures to remedy the nuisance.
Systematic inspection of houses has gone on regularly throughout
the year as required by the Public Health Act. The houses
so dealt with include those in Sardinia Street, Yere Street, Stanhope
Street, Sheffield Street, Houghton Street, Denzell Street,
Bear Yard, Twining Street, Little Chapel Street, Diadem Court,
Hollen Street, Charing Cross Road, Bedford Street, Henrietta
Street.
In the blocks of buildings adjoining the insanitary area now
being dealt with are many houses which are in a condition unfit
for habitation and which should be closcd on the first opportunity.
The difficulty however of obtaining sufficient accommodation until
new buildings are erected and the growing tendency to overcrowding
of persons upon sites and in houses unsuitable for letting
in tenements would be further aggravated were these houses to be
closed at once. By placing them on the register of houses let in
lodgings they are kept under supervision. The proposed new
street from Holborn to the Strand will remove these houses if it
is carried out, but if it is not, they must be dealt with under the
Housing of the Working Classes Act.