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19
Committee objected to licenses being granted to three butchers,
and to the applications of several others, as well as from cowkeepers,
and asked the justices that the licenses should not be
renewed until the works necessary for putting the premises into a
proper condition had been carried out. This course was agreed
to, and as all the works were done before the next meeting
of the justices, the opposition was withdrawn. The number
of licenses granted for the keeping of cows was 89 against
87 last year, there being several new applications; but there
were only 71 slaughter-house licenses granted against 81 in
1874, as several butchers did not apply for renewal and others
were refused by the justices.
In the course of the year I attended 81 summonses at the
Worship Street and Clerkenwell Police Courts to give evidence
for the removal of nuisances on premises situated within the
district. Most were for neglect of whitewashing and repairing
houses, for not providing a proper water-supply and water-supplying
apparatus, or for want of proper drainage; but two were of
an unusual kind, one being for illegal slaughtering of pigs in an
unlicensed shed, when the defendant was fined £2 and costs; and
the other was for boiling offal on premises which were unfit for
the purpose, and not using proper means for preventing the escape
of offensive effluvia. The defendant was fined £8 and costs.
My attention has also been directed again to the river Lea,
which still remains in a bad state, although perhaps it is not so
dark coloured,or offensive as in 1874. I was informed, in reply
to some letters I wrote to the River Lea Conservancy Board, that
the Tottenham authorities were using a new patent which they
hoped would prevent any nuisance for the future, but, as I pointed
out in my last report, some time must elapse before the river and
cut can be restored to its proper condition.
Although the scarlet fever has not been quite so severe as in
1874, yet we have disinfected or issued notices for the disinfection
of 255 houses against 224; and in all cases where the
disinfection was not done by the officers of the Board, care was
taken that the disinfection was satisfactorily performed. There
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