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and unwholesome over-crowding was a matter of
very common occurrence, I advised you to appoint
an additional sanitary officer to the sole duty of
inspecting and improving this class of houses.
Rules and regulations in accordance with the provisions
of your Act of 1851, were also drawn up
and enforced for their proper management; and
from that time to the present, the registered common
lodging-houses of the City have been under constant
supervision. In consequence of this alteration, the
number of inspections of houses at once rose from
less than 6,000 in the year to nearly 8,000, and little
by little it increased to rather more than 9,000,
but beyond this it rarely advanced. It was evident
to me, however, that it was still necessary to extend
the sanitary work of the City; and finding it
could not be done with the then existing arrangements,
I recommended you to make a complete
change in the mode of performing the work, and to
appoint officers who should devote the whole of
their time and attention to the sanitary business of
the City. This recommendation was adopted in
1864, and with a staff of three sanitary inspectors,
the number of inspections was increased from about
9,000 in the year to 10,700; in 1865 it was
11,008, and last year it was 12,213. But here,
again, it was found that we had reached the limit
of work that could be properly done by such a
staff of officers; and although the number of