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183
Local Management Act, 1855, enabled the vestries and district
boards to " provide and maintain urinals, water-closets, and
like convenienes 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, were very generally thwarted by local opposition.
Increased powers for the purpose of such provision, are given
by the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which, to facilitate
the construction of underground conveniences, vests the
sub-soil of roadways in the Sanitary Authority, who, moreover,
have power to compensate persons injured by the
erection of these conveniences near their houses, &c.
Accommodation is provided at about 170 public-houses—
not of a satisfactory sort in many instances, but better than
none at all, and much improved as the result of proceedings
taken by your Vestry in 1888.
The County Council, in May, 1889, signified to the
vestries and district boards their opinion of the necessity for
Chdlet 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 cf
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,
has been done hitherto, it will have been seen, to give effect
to the views of the Council.
THE METROPOLITAN SEWAGE QUESTION.
In my Annual Reports for 1885 and 1886, I referred,
under the heading "Metropolitan Main Drainage," to the
steps taken by the late Metropolitan Board of Works to clarify
and deodorize the sewage of the metropolis before its discharge
into the river; well-founded complaints having been
made with regard to the condition of the river, resulting from