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45
place the value of a healthy home above all other considerations,
and that by suffering such menaces to health to exist they not
only neglect a duty that they owe to themselves but one which
they also owe to those around them. I may state that any
complaint is always received in the strictest confidence and
that in no case is the name of the person lodging the complaint
ever divulged.
There are few sources from which foul and dangerous
odours rise more generally than from the large dilapidated dustbins
which are still in use in considerable numbers; the animal
and vegetable matter so frequently mixed with the ashes is
kept for dangerously long periods in these receptacles, which
not infrequently also receive infectious rubbish. I have no
doubt that the general substitution of galvanised iron moveable
dust-bins, made of such dimensions as will necessitate a
weekly clearance, and kept constantly covered, would have
a favourable influence upon the public health, and more
especially upon the health of children who so generally use
the back-yard or garden as their playground.
During the year a house to house inspection of several
streets was made—those streets being selected which were
found to furnish the worst records from infectious illness.
Poor-class property—invariably "jerry-built"—so frequently
lapses into an insanitary condition that it seems almost
necessary that a systematic inspection at least every six
months should be undertaken by the Sanitary Authority. In
a district such as Finchley, where there is comparatively little
of this class property, this routine inspection would not be a
difficult matter to accomplish, and such a step is additionally
desirable when it is considered how invariably overcrowded
such property is and what a large proportion the young
children (who are particularly susceptible to the effects of
insanitary conditions) bear to the total occupants. It has
often occurred to me such house to house inspections are not
made so frequently as they should be; the large bulk of our
sanitary work follows upon the outbreak of some disease and
we then discover and remove insanitary conditions in order to