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enquiries respecting the manner in which the dust and other
house refuse was removed in other districts, and, as the result,
the Sanitary Committee decided to recommend the Board to
divide the district into two parts, one to be worked on the old
plan of a fixed price per load for a man, horse, cart, and
implements to be supplied by the contractor, and the dust to be
his property; whilst in the other, the dust collected was to be
the property of the Board, and the contractor was to provide
only men, horses, and harness, the Board finding carts and
implements. The contract price for the district in which the
contractor provided all the plant, but retained the dust, was 2/7
per load; in the other it was 2/10 per load, but the Board having
agreed to sell the dust collected at 5d. per load, the price was 2/5
with about 4½d. per load added on for the carts and implements.
Considering that the facilities for shooting were not quite so
good in one district as the other, the prices may be considered
as about the same, at any rate there was no saving by adopting
the latter plan, and the work has not been carried out any better,
indeed not so well, as by the per load system. The total number
of loads removed during the year was 17,867, being a reduction
of about 1500 loads; but the increased price per load above that
paid in 1875-6, has raised the total to £2924. 14s. lid., even
after allowing for the amount due, but not as yet paid, for part
of the loads delivered. The sum paid to the men employed by
the Board was £476 3s. 0d., against £433 16s. 0d., the difference
having been caused by an increase in their wages during the
current year. The total number of requests, made at the Town
Hall, to remove dust during the year amounted to 2918, against
3383 in 1876.
There was one case of cholera that was fatal in about
16 hours after the choleraic symptoms developed themselves, but
the man had suffered from neglected diarrhoea for three days.
The structural sanitary arrangements about the house were good,
but the closet was very foul and the cistern by no means clean.