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107
traps in place of such as are effete and useless, and of
efficient water-closet pans and traps, and water-supply apparatus,
in place of such as experience has shown to be
defective or dangerous.
But this has not been sufficient. It has long been
known to the Sanitary Committee that, however well
everything connected with the Parish drains has been
carried out, there has never been any efficient supervision of
the drainage and other sanitary arrangements of houses in
course of construction. It has been no part of the duty of
the Sanitary Inspectors to perform such functions; and there
have been no officers on the Surveyor's staff to whom the
duty has been, or could have been properly, entrusted. It
is true that every builder has been required, before constructing
his private drains, and connecting them with the
public sewer, to send in a plan of his proposed drainage
for the sanction of the Surveyor. But there has been no
machinery by which builders could be compelled to carry
out their private works in accordance with the plans submitted,
or to ensure that the details of their works had been
carried out in a workman-like or efficient manner. The
Sanitary Committee, the Surveyor and myself have long
been troubled about this matter; and all the more so, that
the inspections of houses even recently built have shown that
sanitary nuisances complained of have been largely due to
scandalous neglect of duty on the part of those concerned in
carrying out the drainage works; and that in most cases
the plans sent in have not accorded with the arrangements
finally adopted. The close attention and study which your
Sanitary Inspectors have of late years had to devote to
drainage questions, and the frequent reconstructions of
drainage which, owins to the default above adverted to,
H