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88
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1910.
During 1910 the Council was engaged in negotiating with the sanitary authorities for th
cleansing of children from the schools, and of adults from common lodging-houses. The principle
adopted by the Council in respect of adults from common lodging-houses was that the sanitary
authorities should cleanse free of charge any persons sent for that purpose to the cleansing station
by the Council from common lodging-houses in their district, but that any person sent by the Council
from common lodging-houses in neighbouring districts, in which no provision for cleansing had been
made, should be paid for by the Council. Arrangements have thus been made during the present
year with the sanitary authorities of St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, Hackney, Poplar, Bermondsey,
Camberwell, and Woolwich.
With respect to the cleansing of children from the schools, the Education Committee of the
Council proposed to utilise under certain conditions cleansing stations of the sanitary authorities, where
suitable provision for this purpose had been made, the Council paying a fee for each child cleansed.
The London Equalisation of Rates Act, 1894.
The Equalisation of Rates Act provides that the London County Council shall in each year
form a fund from a rate of sixpence in the pound on the rateable value of London. The contribution
from each parish to the fund is to be in proportion to its rateable value, and the amount thus produced
is to be distributed among the local authorities in proportion to population. Where a
sanitary district comprises two or more parishes, and the aggregate of the contributions from such
parishes is less than the grant apportioned to the district, the difference is paid out of the fund
to the sanitary authority of the district, and no payment towards any equalisation charge is required
from any parish in the district. Subject to the above, when the contribution from a parish is
less than the grant due, the difference is paid out of the fund to the sanitary authority of the district
forming or comprising the parish ; and if it exceeds the grant to the parish, the Council, for the
special purpose of meeting the excess, levies on the parish a county contribution as a separate item of
the county rate.
Every sum paid to a sanitary authority must be applied in defraying the expenses of the
sanitary authority incurred under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and so far as not required
for that purpose those incurred in respect of lighting, and so far as not required for that purpose
those incurred in respect of streets, and where the sanitary district comprises two or more parishes
the sum paid must be apportioned among such parishes in proportion to their population, and the
amount apportioned to each parish credited to each parish in the reduction of the rate required from
such parish towards the above-mentioned expenses.
A statement of the amount of the grant or equalisation charge made to or levied upon each
sanitary district in the county in respect of the year ended 31st March, 1911, will be found in
Volume I., page 51.
Water supply.
In his fifth annual report Dr. Houston states that while he recognises the remarkable bacteriological
improvement of water effected by sand filtration, he is not satisfied that sand filters exercise a
special selective action in the separation of pathological bacteria, but that on the contrary it is known
that excremental bacteria may pass through them in much the same proportion as innocuous microbes.
He has satisfied himself that the raw sources of London's water supply, notwithstanding their being
sewage polluted, do not uniformly contain the microbes of water-borne diseases unless in such small
numbers as to be practically negligible in view of the further purification processes. He adds, however,
that the purification policy of the Water Board is wisely based on the supposition that the Thames
and Lea should always be regarded as potentially dangerous sources of supply, and, therefore, an
equalising and devitalising process (storage) is now interposed between the river and the filter beds
and that the present position, though not entirely satisfactory, marks a great advance, for now all the
storage reservoirs are utilised to the fullest possible extent, and that so far as this is practically possible,
he is informed, no river water is ever passed on to the filter beds without previous storage.
Dr. Houston further states that belief in the value of storage does not justify the Board in
relaxing vigilant watch over the quality of water taken into its storage reservoirs and that his bacteriological
examinations of London raw river water in 1910-1911 show wide range between the best and worst
month's results, indicating the need for judicious selection of river water for waterworks purposes, and
forces the conclusion that the more water that is abstracted from the river the less easy will it be in
the future to avoid using water of bad quality.
Health visitors.
During the year 1910 owing " to the small and rapidly sinking surplus on the Exchequer
Contribution Account " the Council felt itself obliged to attach the following conditions to contributions
by the Council to salaries of health visitors, viz. :—
(1) That the contributions are for one year only.
(2) That the contributions are dependent upon there being sufficient surplus on the
Exchequer Contribution Account to enable payments to be made after making provision for the
discharge of the existing statutory charges on that account in full; and
(3) That in the event of the available surplus being insufficient to meet the payments
in full the Council's contribution will be liable to abatement or may be discontinued altogether.