View report page

32
before that date, these must fulfil the same conditions after the lapse of six months
from the 1st January, 1892, except to such extent as the Vestry may permit a
modification or dispensation of these requirements.
The Act requires that a Medical Officer of Health shall be legally qualified for the
practice of medicine, surgery, and midwifery; and also either be registered in the
Medical Register as the holder of a diploma in Sanitary Science, Public Health, oxState
Medicine under sec. 21 of the Medical Act, 1886, or have been during three
consecutive years preceding 1892 a Medical Officer of a district with a population of
not less than 20,000, or have before the passing of the Local Government Act, 1888,
been for not less than three years a Medical Officer or Inspector of the Local
Government Board.
A Sanitary Inspector appointed after the 1st January, 1895, must possess a
certificate that he has by examination shown himself competent to discharge the duties
of his office, or shall have, during three consecutive years preceding the year 1895,
been a Sanitary Inspector or Inspector of Nuisances of a district with a population of
not less than 20,000.
There is also a provision that one-half of the salaries of these officers shall, if
appointed or re-appointed after the Act comes into operation, be paid by the County
Council out of the Exchequer Contribution Account, provided the Local Government
Board approve such appointment or re-appointment as the case may be.
Among the several sections relating to legal proceedings may be mentioned that
which makes a defendant charged with an offence, and the wife or husband of such
defendant, a competent and compellable witness; and that which provides that all fines
are to be the property of the Vestry.
The Act promises to be a most useful measure, and one that can be easily worked,
and it is certain that if the Vestry and its officers fully carry into effect its very wide
and searching provisions and exercise efficiently its large and important powers, their
district will be put in due time into a thoroughly sanitary state, and although at first
some extra expenses will have to be incurred to meet the extra work, under the Act, the
prevention of diseases which cost large sums for treatment and isolation, and pauperite
so many of the artizan class, must in the long run effect a considerable reduction in
the Poor Rate, and the precepts of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The Vestry are
to be congratulated, so far as the amendments of the law are concerned, all the chief
requirements of their petition with reference to the Bill have been inserted in the Act,
and the clause requiring Vestries to cleanse the footways, to which the Vestry objected
in vain has proved so impracticable in working that a conference of Metropolitan
Vestries has recently recommended its abrogation.
(a) STEPS TAKEN BY THE VESTRY UNDER THE ACT.
At the Vestry meeting on the 22nd December, 1891, the Clerk asked for instructions
as to inviting tenders for sweeping and cleaning the footways in the Western division