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20
BAKEHOUSES.
These buildings, seven in number, were regularly
inspected and reports thereon furnished to the Council
from time to time. The condition found was generally
quite satisfactory. Nearly all are now of modern construction
and kept in a very creditable state. One still
remains in a very unsatisfactory state, being small,
badly ventilated, and ill kept generally, and has given
us a great deal of trouble. Unless these defects have
been made good, so as to bring about a permanent
improvement all round before my next inspection I fear
it will be my duty to advise the Council to take proceedings.
There are no underground bakehouses in the district.
HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES, &c.
There is ample house accommodation for all classes,
but rents for working-class dwellings are very high, and
this has led to the erection of a good many flats, to the
subletting of tenement houses, and the taking in of
lodgers, tending to overcrowding in some parts with all
its attending evils. This class of property has been very
much under observation since last I alluded to the subject,
the fact of there having been additional assistance
in the Sanitary Inspector's Department having rendered
this possible. Nearly 500 house-to-house inspections
have been made and 63 premises been under periodical
inspection; 186 cautionary notices have been served;
1384 inspections and re-inspections have been made by
the Sanitary Inspector. So far it has not been found
necessary to close any premises as being unfit for habitation.
A special and troublesome form of nuisance is the
keeping of domestic animals, fowls, dogs, rabbits, &c.,
in the small back yards and gardens of these small
houses, which are generally unpaved and very dirty in
wet weather. This is, hovever, gradually lessening as
time goes on. It is somewhat strange that in the portion
of the district south of the railway, comprising Burns,
Milton, Wordsworth and Shelley Roads, a class of property
not too well built, inhabited by working-class
tenants entirely, and where many structural and sanitary
defects have been found from time to time, the incidence
of infectious diseases has been very low, indeed at a
minimum.
PUBLIC HEALTH ACT (AMENDMENT ACT) 1907.
May I be allowed to re-state what I said in my last
Annual Report in regard to this Act, as its adoption by