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number of carts or horses which the Contractors may be able to
spare from the slopping in winter, or from the street scavengering
and watering in summer.
These latter contingencies, it is well known, have often seriously
affected the Dusting of the Parish, which has been made subservient
to them, as they, for obvious reasons, are considered as having
the first claim, the results of neglect in the public roads being more
generally observable than they can be in connection with the 28,000
private dust bins.
On occasions, especially when much slopping has been required,
very few carts, if any, have been seen engaged in Dusting; but it
is not the needs of our own Parish alone which may thus affect us,
for in one instance, at least, carts were taken off work in one parish
where they were urgently needed, and sent for hire into an adjoining
district to the same kind of work, in the performance of which
another Contractor was not succeeding, and although the Contractor
who thus acted was fined for neglecting his own contract,
it was afterwards a subject of self congratulation that the balance
upon the transaction was such that it could be regarded as an amply
sufficient reward for the imminence of the risk.
The adoption of the new system would render such improper
irregularities as these an utter impossibility, and the sooner the
fatal blow is struck the better it will be.
In conclusion, I very heartily commend it to you, as I believe
that it would prove to be in Islington, what it has already been
proved to be elsewhere, a most satisfactory solution of the important
and importunate problem which has of late years forced
itself into prominence throughout the Metropolis, and which, under
the continuance of the older system of contracting is not capable
of being solved, either by the bestowal upon it of any amount of
energetic labor and anxiety alone, or by the exercise of any kind of
administrative ability.
ANNUAL LICENSING OF SLAUGHTER AND COWHOUSES.
The Annual Licensing of the Slaughter Houses and Cow
Houses in the parish had taken place before my appointment, and
I shall therefore only refer to it in connection with one circumstance
which I deem it proper to record, viz.:—the granting by the