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6
attendance was thereby reduced to a very considerable extent
the Council did not think fit to adopt my recommendation
to close the Schools for a period of three weeks.
The want of an Isolation Hospital was not urgently felt
as in previous years, yet there were occasions when such
an Institution would have been of great, benefit, and I
cannot refrain from again pressing the Council to provide
one without delay.
The water supplied to the District by the Barnet
Water Company is remarkable for its purity, and on sis
occasions that I analysed it I found it always of the same
excellence. But whatever may be said as to its quality,
it cannot be said that its quantity is all that can be
desired. The summer of 1897 was not characterised
by any lengthened period of drought, and yet shortly
after the dry weather set in, the Company requested
the Council to refrain from watering the roads, owing to
short supplies in the wells. The stoppage of watering
the roads causes a great deal of inconvenience to the
residents, and is not calculated to improve the health
of the District. But as this matter is engaging the
attention of the Council I need not further refer to it
here.
Complaints have been made from time to time of smells
issuing from the manholes of the sewers, but I cannot
think that the sewers are always at fault. I believe in
many cases that the fault lies in the house drains leading