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should be directed to. Elsewhere I have noted
that the number of children attending the district
schools alone is just upon 2,000, with another
thousand or two to be added within the few
years after school age, also that the population
is verging towards 20,000. We are counted as a
beautiful Thames side residential district, and
sometimes spoken of, though mostly by ourselves,
as the "Queen of Suburbs," yet with what should
at first sight appear to be every favourable opportunity,
we have no swimming baths or facilities
for bathing.
This is distinctly a matter of Public Health,
and the Council has the power of adopting the
Baths and Washhouse Acts where they are not
already in force in the district; also the provisions
of the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, in so far
as they concern public bathing, are for the purposes
of regulation in Urban Districts, incorporated
with the Public Health Act.
Now it is not on the grounds of cleanliness
alone by any means that I draw attention to this,
but it is mainly as an advantageous recreation,
and for the provisions of facilities for learning to
swim. There is practically no bathing hereabouts
so far as the mass of the population is
concerned. Those who have the means and opportunities
have certain limited facilities for bathing
early in the morning in the river. Boys
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