View report page

214
of success within it. The work is as yet only in its early
infancy, and we cannot clearly see how large a staff will be
needed to carry it out effectually. The actual Sanitary
Inspectors are now five in number, a number by no means
too large to do all the ordinary duties required of them by
Act of Parliament, apart from the special additional duties
which henceforth they will have to discharge. The former
duties cannot properly be neglected; the latter duties will
probably demand a very large amount of time and thought,
and if they grow, as doubtless they will, they will absorb so
much of the Inspectors' time, that in some form or other
assistance will have to be provided, or a further special
department created. I hesitate at the present moment to
suggest how the difficulty will have to be met. The difficulty,
however, is certain to arise, but I think it better to
wait, and to propose the remedy when the exact nature of
the difficulty to be met becomes apparent. But the new
work is so important and far-reaching, and its importance
will gradually become so manifest, that I feel sure that in
the course of time the Vestry will provide an adequate
staff for its efficient performance.
"I may add here, that necessary and important as the
supervision and arrangement of the drainage work of new
houses certainly are, the gradual reconstruction of the
drainage of houses already built is at least as necessary and
important, and is even more difficult. For the Sanitary
Authority have no power to compel the examination of
underground drains, unless they give evidence of being out
of order by creating a nuisance; and generally when such
a nuisance exists, and the drains are examined, they prove
to be altogether faulty, so that not only has new drainage,
probably on a new system, to be carried out, but the de-