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168
Local Management Act, 1855, enables the vestries and district
boards to "provide and maintain urinals, water-closets, and like
conveniences for both sexes, in situations where they deem such
accommodation to be required;" but your Vestry's efforts to
provide this necessary accommodation for the male sex have
frequently been thwarted by local opposition. A proposition to
erect "chalets," as a commercial speculation, has been long
under consideration, and one chalet has been erected in Norfolk
Terrace, Westbourne Grove West; but as the proprietors lately
made an application to your Vestry to take it over, it may be
doubted whether the speculation has altogether answered
expectation. Accommodation is provided at about 170 publichouses—not
of a very satisfactory sort in many instances, but
better than none at all, and much improved as the result of
proceedings directed by your vestry to be taken in 1888.
The County Council, in May, 1889, signified to the vestries and
district boards its opinion of the necessity for chalet accommodation
for men and women, or the construction of places giving
such accommodation below the level of the ground, in the manner
which has proved successful in the City and elsewhere; moved
thereto by the "many cases of physical injury coming to the
knowledge" of the medical profession, which are "traceable to
the want of proper accommodation of this nature in London."
Little, however—nothing at all in this Parish—has been done
hitherto to give effect to the views of the Council.
PUBLIC BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES.
The Baths and Wash-houses, at the junction of Lancaster
and Silchester Roads, Notting Hill, opened in April, 1888, have
been well supported. But for the majority of parishioners the
site is not sufficiently central for bathing; and obviously it is too
remote for washing purposes. The same objection would apply
to any single site in the Parish. Much good might be effected
by the provision of buildings, on a modest scale, in several