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166
son on the following day.* "W. B. E." complained that the
Inspector on being asked if anything was wrong with the drains,
declined to express an opinion ; and being asked on his second
visit if he had reported on the house to the owner or taken any
action, replied, "Oh, no, we have to act very cautiously in these
matters." On hearing this, "W. B. E.", who had not seen the
Inspector on either occasion, was so "disgusted" with "Bumbledom,"
that he did what he ought to have done at first, " called
in a sanitary engineer and surveyor," who declared the house,
by reason of certain defects which were specified, to be "unfit
for human habitation, and dangerous to the health of its
occupants," a conclusion with which the Inspector did not agree.
On the 6th August "W. B. E." called at the Town Hall when
"all the satisfaction "he got, was the (unauthorised) statement
that "out of 200 odd houses in the road, not more than
perhaps 50 at the outside were in any better condition" than
his own. In his letter to the Times he asked "if this was
the system that should prevail," and "if such a state of
things did not prove the absurdity of placing the sanitary
arrangements of a district under the managementof vestries and
local boards, the members of which were, of course, interested
in sparing the pockets of the householders at the expense of
the health, if not life, of those unfortunate persons, like himself,
who were ignorant and inexperienced in the wonderful ways of
Bumbledom "?
I replied to "W. B. E.'s" communication in a letter published
in the Times,August 11th, to which was appended a copy
of your Vestry's notice served "upon the owner of the house.
Before, however, stating the facts of the case, and the procedure
adopted, I may observe that the "Kensington Authorities"
were not indebted to "W. B. E." or his medical attendant, for
information of the first case of illness, both having failed to
* The Medical Superintendent of the hospital subsequently informed me that
the servant's disease was not diphtheria but follicular tonsillitis: but this fact does
not affect the question at issue. Both of the patients recovered.