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CLEANSING OF SOILED ARTICLES
During the year 701 collections of articles for cleansing under the
terms of Section 84 of the Public Health Act were collected from
premises in the Borough; 27 people received assistance and 8 were
still receiving the service at the end of the year.
Only articles which can be certified as coming within the terms of
Section 84 are dealt with under the scheme, these usually consist
of sheets, personal linen, and blankets. New cases are referred to the
department usually by the home nurses or the home helps organiser
and most of the persons using this service are sick and incontinent
old people who are otherwise unable to arrange for these articles
to be washed. Collection and delivery is undertaken twice per week.
The number of cases assisted at any one time has never been more
than 10, but the service undoubtedly fills a very great need and is much
appreciated not only by the persons themselves but by home nurses,
home helps, and others giving them care and attention.
FACTORIES
Although Hornsey has 245 factories within its boundaries it cannot
properly be described as an industrial area. It contains no large
factories of the kind found in the more industrialised parts of greater
London; instead, a number of very small factories have become
established many doing highly specialised work. The various types
have been classified in convenient groups and are shown in the table
which follows.
Light engineering with 75 factories is the largest category, but it
should be noted that 39 of these deal only with motor vehicle repairs.
Factories with more than 100 persons employed are a laundry, a
gas works, a film processing factory and a factory making hollow
metal-ware.
Other factories are smaller, but specialised work of a highly skilled
type is much in evidence, examples being the manufacture of scientific
instruments and surgical instruments, organ building, and making
stained glass windows.
The group "miscellaneous" includes factories making artificial
eyes, paint brushes and necklaces—these all employ less than five
persons.
The Local Authority is responsible for the inspection of sanitary
conveniences in all factories. In addition, in factories where no
mechanical power is used, it is responsible for enforcing the Regulations
regarding cleanliness, overcrowding, temperature, ventilation,
and drainage of floors.
The number of inspections carried out during the year and defects
found are shown in the table on page 44.
Less than 3% of the population of the borough work in factories
within its boundaries, although large numbers now travel to the
factories of London and surrounding boroughs.
One may wonder why Hornsey has not become more industrialised.
The borough was largely built in the last 25-30 years of the nineteenth
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