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cases of complaint which have been laid before them by your Superintendent
Inspector, Mr. Collingwood, against the Contractors, who
have been fined by the Committee the sum of £202, if we include all the
penalties which have beeninflicted from the 25th January 1871 up to the expiration
of the Contracts just ended.
But notwithstanding these measures taken by the Committee, and the
fact that the contracts for the year have been as a consequence much better
performed than in the preceding one, it has not been without a large number
of applications for removal, 10,208 Letters and Postal Cards making this
request having been recorded in the department from June, 1871, to June,
1872, as well as 4,633 entries which were made on personal representation
at the Yestry Hall, making a total of 14,841 applications from inhabitants ;
this number must have been very considerably increased, but that the work
of the Inspectors caused 12,973 additional orders of removal to be given to
the Contractors, who were thus required in writing from the Yestry to remove
refuse from 27,814 premises. Of the 14,841 applications from parishioners,
9,339, or nearly two-thirds were received during the last half of the Contracts,
a fact which speaks for itself. How much worse the condition of
affairs would have been without some such steps being adopted may be
easily imagined, even although they have admittedly not effected all that
the Committee could have desired; this is, however, not surprising, for
one thing is certain, that so long as it continues to be the interest of the
Contractors to remove as little dust as possible, so long will the parishes of
the Metropolis suffer more or less from their neglect, and it is to be regretted
that no attempt has yet been successfully made to alter the mode
of contracting so far at least as to make the profit of the Contractors
to depend, as it used to do when dust was of value, on the removal of the
largest obtainable quantity of refuse.
The whole system of dusting may indeed, before long, have to
be re-considered, as it is a growing opinion that it would be a wise sanitary
measure to abolish entirely all dust bins, and substitute portable receptacles
in their stead; the Metropolitan Vestries making provision for the
daily removal of refuse from each houso. For the present, however, our
etforts must be confined to enforcing as stringently, though as fairly as possible,
the due performance of existing contracts.