View report page

26
opposition. I will only add, that having paid special attention to
the subject, I shall continue to use my utmost exertions to
minimize the evils of the Act by securing, so far as I am able,
the adoption of an efficient code of Bye-laws.
LICENSED COW SHEDS.
The Licensed Cow Sheds are 36 in number, viz., 18 in the
North Sanitary District, and 18 in the South. These premises
have been duly inspected. The cow sheds differ widely in respect
of size and suitability. A few of them are good, but the majority
are small and defective. Several are stables with inhabited rooms
over them, and therefore, in my judgment, unfit for the purpose,
because they cannot be properly ventilated. At my suggestion and
upon the recommendation of the Sanitary Committee, your Vestry
resolved to oppose new applications for licences for such buildings.
I believe this decision to be eminently proper. The ventilation of
a cow-shed cannot be too perfect if the cows are to be kept in good
health, and capable of giving milk fit for food. It must be remembered
that, as a rule, they are constantly in the shed.
They get no change of air, and the value of their secretion depends
on the state of their health. Some dairymen would keep the
sheds close and hot, because they find by experience that the cows
under those circumstances yield a larger quantity of milk—as
much as from 24 to 29 quarts per cow daily. It need hardly be
said that the milk yielded under such circumstances, though
"genuine" cannot be rich; and as the price of milk has lately
been enhanced 25 per cent., it is not unreasonable to insist upon
conditions necessary to ensure the health of the cows, and such
as are recognised and practised in some of our largest and best
dairies.
Several prosecutions for keeping cows without licenses were
undertaken by order of your Vestry, and convictions obtained.
One cowkeeper who failed to comply with the orders issued for
the reparation of his premises, and for the provision of a proper
water supply, and whose license was temporarily withheld, was
fined in the sum of Five pounds, for keeping cows without a license.
In several of the cow-sheds the water supply was formerly obtained
from shallow wells. With two or three exceptions, I succeeded
in getting the pumps removed upon the ground of the danger of
using, in a dairy, Well-water which is liable to be contaminated by
sewage; and in the excepted cases the Bench gave the licensees to
understand that if they used the well-water for any dairy purpose
their licenses would not be renewed. The danger of the admixture
of impure water, in any quantity, with milk was forcibly illustrated
by the outbreak of typhoid fever in Marylebone, to which
public attention was drawn a few months ago. With reference