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struction, has been used to bring the whole system of
sewerage in this Sub-district into practical operation.
The only drawback, and it is confessedly a very serious
one, to the thorough efficiency of this great undertaking,
is the difficulty, (not however confined to this district, but
appearing to be very generally deplored wherever works
of this kind have been carried out) of obtaining the ventilation
of the sewers without the necessity of placing the
gratings, &c., for the escape of the generated gases, in the
most frequented and exposed parts of the public thoroughfares
and streets. Though difficult of remedy, it is hoped
that science and engineering skill will not be long in
devising something towards the abatement at least of this
acknowledged evil.
With regard to the recent Act for regulating the hours
of labour of women and children in factories and workshops,
which is just now exciting considerable notice, it is to be
greatly apprehended that the condition of those whom the
measure was intended to benefit will be but very slightly
improved, unless some more effective machinery than that
now employed for working its provisions, can be adopted.
" In the regulation of their hours of labour," remarks a
public writer upon this subject, " they (the labouring
classes), see only the limitation of their wages, and of course
in their poverty and necessity such a limit is eminently
distasteful to them. The police cannot enforce the law in
the places where it is most necessary, therefore no change
is made in the old disastrous state of affairs."
Happily in this Sub-district there exists scarcely an
establishment to which the Act referred to will apply,
and I have reason to believe there have been no attempts
to evade any of its provisions on the part of employers
in this locality.
Besides the usual report submitted to the local
authorities upon the condition of the slaughter and cowhouses
in the Sub-district, the sale of adulterated food and
of provisions unfit for human consumption, has been a matter
not overlooked, though it is one which the present