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72
disinfecting chamber and the necessary staff. An establishment once
provided must be kept up, irrespective of the prevalence of infectious
diseases, whereas, under the present system, we pay only for results.
The work has been well done and without leaving room for suspicion
that any disinfected articles had retained infective power.
Your Vestry's officer to whom the duty has been delegated disinfected
222 rooms in 183 houses during the year. No charge is made to the
poor; but a small fee is required from those who are in a position to
pay, to cover the expense of the process.
BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES.
One step in advance has been taken during the year to give effect
to the sanction of the Local Government Board enabling your Vestry
to adopt the Acts for providing baths and wash-houses. Commissioners
have been elected and negotiations have been opened for the purchase
of a site at Notting Hill.
REGISTRATION, &c., OF "LODGING HOUSES."
The question of making application to the Local Government Board
to declare the enactment contained in the 35th section of the Sanitary
Act, 1866, and other Acts extending the same, to be in force in this
parish, was under the consideration of the Special Purposes Committee
for several months, having been referred to them for reconsideration
by your Vestry towards the close of 1878.* The section enables the
Nuisance Authority to frame regulations—subject to the sanction of
the Local Government Board—for the registration, inspection, &c.
of houses let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one
family, of which there must be some thousands in this parish. Before
coming to a decision on the subject, the Committee requested me to
ascertain to what extent the Act had been adopted in other parishes
in the Metropolis and throughout the country generally; and the
result of my enquiries having been to show that the Act had been
adopted in very few places, either metropolitan or provincial, and that
in the majority of such places the provisions of the section had been
carried out for the most part in a somewhat perfunctory manner, the
* The Committee had dealt with the subject on a previous occasion. Vide
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1877 (page 51),