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14
During the past year I have been keenly alive to the importance of
preventing the sale of provisions which, from disease or decomposition,
have become unfit for food. With the aid of the Inspectors of
Nuisances I have had to seize quantities of putrid sausages, beef,
mutton, and fish. In each case a fine has been imposed by the
magistrates and the article of food destroyed. The knowledge that
your officers are on the alert, will I trust, act as a salutary check to
such pernicious practices.
Complaints have been daily poured in of the non-removal of domestic
refuse. These were so numerous during the spring of last year, that
legal measures were obliged to be resorted to, to enforce the terms of the
contract. Our dust-bins are usually placed in the very worst position,
close to our doors or under our windows, and as this dust often contains
considerable quantities of vegetable and animal matter, it must
prove detrimental to health, unless frequently taken away. The dustbins,
especially in the poorer localities, are usually in a dilapidated condition,
and I have caused many new ones to be erected or old ones to be
enlarged, though in one case not without being obliged to issue a
summons.
You will remember that I had the honor to present to you an analysis on
Bread, principally with the view of detecting that injurious introduction,
alum; and I have now much pleasure in informing you that the
views which I then laid before you have since been fully recognized,
and only last week a prosecution was sustained against a baker using
that substance.
OVERCROWDING.
Perhaps the most difficult question we have to deal with, is the
overcrowding of human beings in confined localities. Overcrowding
has reference, not only to the number of people congregated together
on a given place, but also to the facilities for ventilation. Our worst
spot in the parish in this respect is Jenning's Buildings; here, as
I have already reported, a separate family inhabits each room; there
is no privy accommodation; there is no water in, nor drain from, the
houses; there is no convenience within the buildings, all must be sought
for without.