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53
During the year three cases of notifiable infectious disease occurred
on premises in which there was a workshop, and on several occasions
the out-workers in connection with certain factories and workshops
had to be stopped from carrying on their work. A complete list
of all out-workers has been kept in the office; the information has
often been obtained on calling at the workshops, for some employers
still fail to realise their duty to send in a list of out-workers twice a
year, viz., in February and August, as the Act directs. Most of the
premises occupied by outworkers were inspected during the year.
The kitchens of the restaurants and public dining-rooms in the
Borough have been thoroughly inspected throughout the year, with
satisfactory results.
HOUSING.
In spite of the many legal measures which have been designed
to improve the housing of the masses, it must be admitted that there
remains great scope for improvement, and that conditions still
remain, all too prevalent, that cannot be regarded as satisfactory
from a sanitary or moral' standpoint. The problem of providing and
maintaining healthy and decent homes for all members of the community
is complicated by numerous social circumstances, not the least
being the poverty and low ideals of many of its members. In this,
as in so many other of the problems of public health, it must be left
largely to the individual to find his own salvation, and to assist him
to this end, our educational system must deal more with the actualities
of life in the future than it has in the past. Without individual
desire and initiative, legislation is, after all, but a poor weapon to
oppose to the conditions which exist. Without this, Local Authorities
may carry out improvement schemes which are robbed of much
of their value from the circumstance that those in whose interests
better homes are provided, cannot be prevailed upon to occupy them.
It is not too much to say that the provision often made and maintained
at great expense cannot well be justified, having regard to the fact