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any gases, vapours, dust, or other impurities generated in the course of the
work carried on therein, that are a nuisance, or injurious, or dangerous to
health, or so overcrowded, while work is carricd on, so as to be dangerous
or prejudicial to the health of those employed therein. Although not
specially mentioned in the Act, it will unquestionably be the duty of the
Sanitary Officers of the Board to see that there is sufficient privy accommodation
provided for the work-people employed in every factory over
which the Board exercises jurisdiction. The want of sufficient privy
accommodation is fraught with great mischief to the health of all persons
working in factories, and particularly to the young. The workshops
which will more especially require inspection in this district, are, where
the businesses of millinery, tailoring, wax-flower making, shirt making,
feather dressing, rag sorting, lucifer-match making, and a few others are carried.
In conclusion, I may remark, that the sanitary condition of the houses
in this district has, within the last two years, been considerably improved.
This improvement has been effected by your having a larger staff of Inspectors,
by whose agency not only is the district more frequently inspected, but
the work ordered to be done to improve the sanitary state of the poorer
localities, is seen to be carried out. The mere superficial inspection of the
district and the serving of Notices are of little practical benefit; for, unless
the Notices, which the Inspectors serve upon the owners of property to
remedy the sanitary defects which have been pointed out to them, are not
followed up by repeated visitations, they will be only partially remedied.
The recording in books, prepared for the purpose, the defects discovered
in the houses of the poor, together with the preparing and serving the
Orders to get the defects remedied, necessarily occupies a large amount
of the time of the Inspectors. Unless everything required to be done
in the way of sanitary improvement be duly entered, and when carried
out, properly recorded, the results would not be known, and much of the
labour of the Inspectors would be uselessly spent.
In order that the sanitary work of the district may be properly performed,
it is absolutely necessary that a staff of not less than four Inspectors
be employed. If reference be made to the amount of work performed
by the Inspectors during the last year, it will be seen that 35,577 visits were
made to the poorer class of houses, and 2,773 preliminary Notices served.
If each Notice only referred to one house, it is manifest that these
visits are important; but it frequently happens that one Notice contains
orders for the sanitary improvement of several houses. I have no hesitation
in saying that unless all the poorer localities, and the houses which are
let out in tenements, are frequently inspected, and the nuisances that are
continually occurring therein, either from defective drainage, over-crowding,
or from the neglect of periodical white-washing, disease will be engendered,