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202
Communications were addressed to the Lord President of
the Council, the President of the Local Government Board,
and the several Vestries and District Boards, with the view to
obtaining modification of the Bill in the sense above indicated.
The Bill was dropped, hut its main provisions were included
in the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1886. This is much
to be regretted, for it is unreasonable that the sole legal control
over dairies, cowsheds, and milkshops should be in the hands of
the Metropolitan Board, to the exclusion of the Sanitary
Authorities. The Board have no medical adviser, and but a
very limited staff of inspectors—seven, I believe,for all London ;
and these officers, moreover, are responsible for inspection of
the premises where explosives are stored, as well as the premises
where " offensive businesses," scheduled under the SlaughterHouses
(Metropolis) Act, 1874, are carried on. The premises
registered under the Dairies, &c., Order of 1885 alone, are, as
already stated, some nine thousand in number. The District of
the Inspector for Kensington embraces Paddington, St.
George's, Hanover Square; St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster
; Hammersmith, Fulhum, and Chelsea. The Vestries
and District Boards, by their fifty-four Medical Officers of
Health, and some hundred and fifty Sanitary Inspectors, have
no statutory right of entry upon any of the premises. What
power the Sanitary Authorities possess in respect of cowsheds
depends wholly upon their ability to oppose the renewal of
a licence if the business is not conducted to their satisfaction.
Dairies ; milk stores, and milkshops are no more under the
control of the Sanitary Authorities than other occupied
premises. They have no right of entry unless in the case of
nuisance or suspected nuisance. Under the arrangement proposed
by your Vestry, for giving to the Sanitary Authorities
co-ordinate power of inspection, with authority to enforce the
regulations, the sanitary staff in every district in the Metropolis
would have been made legally available in the supervision
of all registered premises,