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well-being, and general health of the population
depend largely on the way it takes its work in hand
and does it. The general sanitation of the district
has for years past been directed in a liberal spirit
and carried out with intelligence and discretion, and
the proof of this is apparent in the favourable
character of the statistics shown and in the pages of
the Sanitary Inspector's report. During the last
nine years no fewer than 1,029 houses have been
re-drained, and the benefit that this means to the
occupiers, present and future, and to the reputation of
the neighbourhood as a desirable place of residence
must be very considerable. There is one point,
however, that offers room for improvement and that
is the almost universal want of adequate accommodation
for the storage of food in most of the
houses built for and occupied by the working classes.
The late Prince Consort laid it down that " every
working man's home should have a porch and
an oven," and to this might now well be added
—a larder. All food requires care in storage, and
close unventilated cupboards or open shelves in
a living room or wash house are hardly in accordance
with well known principles of hygiene, and while
some articles of food are more susceptible than others,
yet changes by decomposition and taint occur so
rapidly to all that ill health must be and often is due
to causes of this nature. Nor is this danger confined
to only the smaller houses, for in many of the larger
and better class the larders are often—very often —
dirty, damp and ill ventilated and require far more
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