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House-to-House Inspection.
This important branch of the public health service
has received close attention during the past year, and
I am pleased to report that the importance of the
work has been more clearly recognized, and that it is
now a statutory duty of every local authority under
the Housing of the Working Classes Acts. In this
connection I might mention that Chiswick for a
number of years led the way in the matter of house-tohouse
inspection in the County of Middlesex, and there
is no doubt that as a result of these inspections the
sanitary condition of the houses has been enhanced.
This is clearly proved by the fact that, although an
annual inspection is made of the scheduled areas,
many and varied nuisances are discovered and abated;
and as there is no appreciable diminution in the
number of sanitary defects dealt with, the need of
frequent inspection of tenement houses is very
apparent.
On referring to Table 4, it will be observed that
2,689 houses, comprising 3,830 tenements were
inspected during 1910, as compared with 3,024 and
4,320 for the previous year. The variation in the
number of houses and population is chiefly due to the
fact, that a portion of Bedford Park was scheduled
for inspection in 1909, as a special area, by direction
of the Public Health Committee. Otherwise the
number of inspections remains approximately the
same, owing to our strict adherence to the table of
scheduled areas for each month.
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