View report page

22
I have hitherto advised your Worshipful Committee to allow the inspection
to be made by the Inspectors in their daily round of the Docks and district
generally.
This has the great advantage of not wasting valuable time in looking for
the boats, and at the same time ensures a regular and systematic visiting of
the district, which under any other plan would be difficult if not impossible.
Your officers find that the Acts are now thoroughly well understood, and
there are but few owners or masters who have not had some experience of
the power of the law.
No difficulty is ever experienced in obtaining entry at any reasonable
hour, and papers are freely shown and information readily given.
Overcrowding exists to a very limited extent, though where present being
due to poverty and impossibility of providing a house on shore, it unfortunately
affects for the worse the young children, who are most seriously
injured thereby.
The 624 boats inspected were registered for 2,293, and were occupied by
only 1,531. I have pointed out in a previous Report one great reason for
this wide difference, viz., the practice of some Authorities to register according
to the cubic space only, and to altogether neglect the accommodation
provided. Thus it is no uncommon thing to find a boat registered for eight
persons, which is only fitted for three, and which never requires to carry
more than the smaller number.
There can be no question that the policy of gradually enforcing the Acts,
cautioning owners and masters, and only proceeding to extremities in those
cases where other means have failed, has disarmed much of the opposition
at first shown to their provisions, and has greatly assisted in carrying them
into effect.
The boats as a general rule are well kept, and the masters are inclined to
look upon the Inspectors as coming between them and the owners, and
obtaining structural alterations and improvements which, unaided, they would
be unable to get carried out. Gradually, I am happy to report, the "family"
boat is beginning to disappear, and instances are becoming more common
where the craft is worked by men alone.
This is an improvement fraught with the most important results as regards
the proper rearing and education of children and the moral elevation of the
women, for whom canal boats cannot supply proper accommodation.
In 18 cases during the year the boats were found to be without certificates
on board. In all these instances the owners were communicated with and
the defect remedied. With the exception of the wide river barges, where
the difficulty of proving habitation before a magistrate is great, and where