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90
The sanitary work done by the Inspectors in the year
ending March 25th, 1888, is given in detail in Tables XIV.
and XV.
On the whole it differs very little in quality and amount
for that done in the previous year. I may point out, however,
that the primary inspections, which in the previous year
amounted to 9,781, in the latter year amounted to only
8,772, and that the re-inspections which were 6,088 in the
previous year, in the latter rose to 6,756. On the whole it
may appear from these figures that less work was done in
1886-87, than in 1887-88; and to some extent this is true;
for Inspector Mackay was incapacitated for some weeks
during the last year, and Inspector Sedgley (though not
actually laid by) has been ailing for some months, and has
been unable to do his duties as efficiently as he did in former
years. But, on the other hand, it is right that I should call
attention to the fact that, during the last few years, the
Inspectors have more and more been looking after the
niceties of drainage, if I may use that expression, and ensuring
as far as they can that, in all cases in which they discover grounds
for interference, all really important sanitary requirements
shall be carried out. The items (in the returns) of cleansing,
trapping and repairing drains, which, together, amount to
4,024, of repairing closets which reach 1,538, of houses and
yards drained into sewer which amount to 605, and of the
disconnection of rain-water, sink, and other pipes from the
sewers, which number 2,814, comprise, so far as this can be
done in tabular form, the works to which I refer. We now,
in fact, insist, systematically, on the absolute disconnection of
the bath, sink, and rain-water pipes from the sewers; a point
I need scarcely say of the highest sanitary importance,