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dwell on that part of the subject now. I may, however, make the,
perhaps, obvious remark that, without an adequate staff, it will be
impossible that the new and onerous duties imposed by recent and
impending legislation can be efficiently carried out by any Authority
or Medical Officer. Whether the staff in my department,
"reorganised" as it has been, under circumstances now to be set
out, will prove equal to the task, is a question to which hope
rather than faith would give an affirmative reply.
THE SANITARY DEPARTMENT: RE-ORGANISATION.
At the request of the Works and Sanitary Committee, I
submitted (December, 1889) a Report on the subjects dealt with in
the letter of the President of the Local Government Board, referred
to in the previous paragraph, taking occasion therein to illustrate
the difficulties of the Local Authority and their officers arising
from defects of the law, some of which were acknowledged and
have since been, in part, remedied. I also intimated the necessity
for an increase in the staff of Sanitary Inspectors, in order that
your Vestry might be in a position to discharge properly the duties
imposed by Nuisances Removal, Sanitary, and other cognate Acts.
My Report, which, with the official circular letter, was
published in extenso in my last Annual Report, was referred to the
Works and Sanitary Committee, who recommended the appointment
of two additional Sanitary Inspectors, and at the same time
requested me to state, for the information of your Vestry, the
grounds on which I had made the recommendation for an increase
in the staff. I did so, in my Report, dated April 23rd (No. 4, page
36); pointing out, in the first place, that the mere growth of the
Parish necessitated the proposed increase; the number of Inspectors
(four) being but one more than in 1866, when the population was
half what it is now, the houses not many more than half, and the
rateable value less than one-third of the present amount. I stated
that the staff had been increased to its present strength in 1877,
since which date there had been an increase of population by