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146
sumption sections of the Public Health Act, and that of inspecting
certain factories, and all workshops and workplaces as defined by the
Factory and Workshop Act, 1878. It is manifestly desirable, moreover,
that we should resume the important work of registering, and
should effectively supervise, houses let in lodgings. These duties cannot
be executed in any effective way with the present staff, which is
really inadequate for current duties under existing laws. The Inspectors
are but four in number, or about a third of the number
employed in some provincial towns with a smaller population and a
comparatively insignificant rateable value. I take no account of
the Street Inspectors, supposed to act as Assistant Inspectors of
Nuisances. They have been far too busy in attending to their proper
duties, to be able to assist the Sanitary Inspectors in that capacity, and
I should be glad to see them transferred entirely to the departments of
the Vestry Clerk and the Surveyor. Having regard to all the facts of
the case, then, I cannot conscientiously recommend a smaller addition
to the staff than four Inspectors and one efficient clerk. Assuming
that your Vestry adopt this recommendation, the question of 'cost'
would depend on the salaries assigned to the several officers. And
here it must in frankness be pointed out, that the salaries paid to
Inspectors in this Parish are decidedly low, especially having regard
to the fact that candidates are required to produce evidence of special
qualification for the office. I have quite recently seen advertisements
for Inspectors at a commencing salary thirty pounds a year in excess
of the maximum salaries of our Inspectors; and I respectfully invite
your Vestry to reconsider the scale which was unintentionally fixed
with the present maximum some fifteen or sixteen years ago. Should
my opinion be desired, I should certainly recommend that the future
maximum should be fixed at one hundred and fifty-six pounds per
annum, after, say, seven years' service, this being the amount paid to
the several Inspectors prior to 1877. The commencing salary, I
humbly submit, should not be less than one hundred and twenty
pounds. The annual increase, on this scale, would be about five
pounds. Should this view find favour with your Vestry, and should
the proposed new Clerk be placed in the fourth class, it would follow
that the immediate 'cost of carrying out the Acts,' in the shape of
salaries of new officers, would be five hundred and forty pounds per
annum. Should the present Inspectors be placed in the improved
position here recommended, there would be a further sum to be added
of about eighty pounds, raising the total additional annual cost to six
hundred and twenty pounds. The total 'cost' of the department in
salaries—of Medical Officer, clerical staff, (four in number), and
Inspectors (eight in number) would then be, in round numbers, two
thousand pounds, barely exceeding the amount produced by a farthing
rate."