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109
sufficient number of men, horses, and covered vans to ensure a
weekly visit to each house in the Borough. Penalties are provided
for any breach of the contract.
For the purposes of house refuse removal, the Borough is divided
into two divisions North and South. To each of these divisions
the Council has appointed a dust inspector, whose duties are generally
to see that the Contractor's men visit and remove the house
refuse from occupied houses regularly at stated times.
Each division is divided for convenience into a certain number
of sub-divisions, each of which is of a size sufficient to enable the
carman in charge of a dust van to call at each occupied house at
least once a week, and remove the house refuse therefrom.
These sub-districts number 17 in the North Division, and 19
in the South Division.
As a check upon the collection, each carman is provided daily
with a sheet, on which he is instructed to enter the numbers of
every occupied house visited, where he is unable to remove the dust
and stating the reason. These sheets are sent by the Contractors
to the office the next morning. If a subsequent complaint of nonremoval
of house refuse is made, the returns will show whether
this is the fault of the dustman or the householder.
While a weekly collection of house refuse is insisted upon,
it has been my practice for some years to have large blocks of tenement
dwellings cleared of house refuse at least twice a week ; some,
indeed, three times a week, and some large institutions have been
visited daily by the dustmen (except, of course, on Sunday). In
the course of a year the dustmen record a very large number of
refusals on the part of the householders to have the dust removed.
There is also almost an equal number where the dustmen get no
replies to their applications to remove the refuse.