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105
A careful person using such a sink for all three purposes could prevent
any effluvia or exhalations by flushing it after use, and from time to
time cleansing it with a pailful of boiling water strongly impregnated with
washing soda. But a careless person, or one who neglected the necessary
flushing and cleansing, might create an intolerable nuisance in a house. The
houses so fitted and occupied by such careless or negligent persons may
require considerable additional inspection until the occupants become educated
to the proper usage of such sinks. An inquiry was received from the London
County Council asking whether the provision had proved beneficial, and your
Borough Council, on 29th July, 1908, replied that no notices had been served
under the section, and resolved that no action be taken in the matter.
(b) With regard to accommodation for the cooking of food, this is a question
of the kind of grate or stove which will permit of the cooking to be done for
the family. If there be no grate or stove at all in the dwelling the position is
clear, but to define what is "sufficient and suitable" accommodation for the
cooking of food is 0[:en to wide and varying interpretations.
(c) With regard to "sufficient and suitable accommodation" for the storage
of food, the same difficulty arises as to interpretations and opinions. Some
families supply their want by a network cage on a window sill, to obtain
ventilation and exclude flies, vermin, and animals. Provision may extend
from such a simple appliance to an elaborate structural erection, complying
with the three requirements — (1) complete enclosure, (2) permanent ventilation
from thy external air, and (3) exclusion of flies, vermin, and animals.
Inscribed Dwellings.
For the purpose of periodical inspection a List of Inscribed Dwellings is
kept. This List includes—
1. Cottage* of one, two, three or more rooms occupied by one family and
which cannot be registered, e.g., Equity Buildings.
2. Dire/lings orer Stables which require periodical inspection bat cannot be
registered, e.g., Wakefield Mews.
3. Houses in certain areas represented under the Housing of the Working
Classes Acts, some of which are registrable and some not, e.g., Chapel Grove
and Eastnor Placc areas.
4. Tenement Houses let in separate dwellings, but in which the dwellings are
not separately assessed, or, if separately assessed, in which the dwellings do not
differ in arrangment or construction from those in an ordinary tenement
house, but which houses, it may be contended, are not registrable as a whole.
5. Working Class Flats habitually overcrowded or kept in an insanitary
condition.
(c) Underground Dwellings.—Attheendof the year there were on the Register
458 underground rooms which had been illegally occupied as dwellings, and
had been ordered to be closed, and of which 193 inspections had been made and
71 re-inspections after notices served. Time is allowed to the occupants to these
rooms to find rooms elsewhere, and during the time allowed the illegally occupied
rooms are kept under observation and the number vacated or otherwise