View report page

187
the parish, but that the actual inspections form only
a very small portion of the duties which these
officers have to perform, and that if they be compared
with the number of houses in the parish, to
inspect the parish thoroughly would, at the rate at
which inspection has been going on, require a period
of several years. But it should be explained that
systematic inspections are for the most part limited
to the poorer houses and poorer localities of the
parish, and to those houses, of whatever class they
may be, which lie along the lines of newly constructed
sewers, and that much of the worst
property has really been inspected pretty frequently.
There is no doubt, however, that a staff of two
Inspectors was quite inadequate to keep a constant
supervision over the whole of the poorer parts of
the parish, even at the time of their first appointment,
when the parish contained not more probably
that 11,500 houses, and that as the parish has
gradually been growing, until at the end of last
year it contained over 16,000 houses, such a staff
has become more and more unequal to the task
which it is evident that many persons supposed it
was their duty to perform. As population grows,
and as new and increased powers in reference to
sanitary matters are conferred upon the Vestry, it is