During the first half of the year the parish was supplied with cannel gas
of 20 candle lighting power, and at the increased price of six shillings
and threepence per thousand cubic feet. Since July common coal gas of 16
candles has been exclusively supplied at a charge of five shillings per
thousand. The subjoined table, taken from the quarterly returns of the
chief gas examiner, shows the results of the daily testings of the gas
supplied by the Gas Light and Coke Company, at the testing station at
123, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill:—
Month. Illuminating AMOUNT OF IMPURITY. Number of
power in Examinations.
Sperm
Candles.
Sulphuretted Ammonia per Sulphur per
Hydrogen. 100 feet 100 feet
Grains. Grains.
January 21.28 4.11 21.92 25
February 21.76 1.15 18.46 23
March 21.47 0.86 15.63 26
April 22.04 0.56 17.37 22
May 21.53 0.39 17.97 23
June 21.28 0.48 17.93 20
July 17.13 0.50 18.76 26
August 16 70 0.37 17.79 23
September 16.83 0.15 17.17 25
October 16.53 (Present 3 0.19 16.44 26
times)
November 16.67 0.19 17.02 24
December 16.68 (Present 3 19.01 25
times)
The next table shows the maxima, minima, and averages of lighting power
stated quarterly:—
Period. Maximum. Minimum. Average.
1st Quarter (Cannel 22.9 19.6 {49a} 21.50
Gas)
2nd do. do. 23.0 20.3 21.62
3rd do. (Common Gas) 17.6 16.1 16.89
4th do. do. 18.2 15.5 {49b} 16.63
As regards sulphur impurity, the amount was in excess of the permitted
quantity (25 grains in 100 cubic feet of gas), on one occasion only
during the year, viz., 26.4 grains on 30th July. Sulphuretted hydrogen
was found on three occasions—in the months of October and December
respectively.
Ammonia was in excess on 19 occasions in the month of January, but of a
total of 25 testings: the average for the entire month being 4.11 grains
(maximum 7.5.) This excess above the maximum allowance (2.5 grains in
100 feet of gas) was due to unavoidable causes, in connection with
alterations being then made in the purifying machinery, which, having
since been perfected, the ammonia has sunk to an almost infinitesimal
quantity.
In the Appendix I have given the quarterly returns of the chief examiner,
showing the results of the _daily_ testings—for which I am indebted to
the courtesy of Mr. Wakefield, the Clerk to the Metropolitan Board of
Works. These returns show in detail the facts above stated, and prove
that the gas has been up to the Parliamentary standard, as estimated by
the prescribed tests. Nevertheless, complaints have been made by persons
living in various parts of the parish, of the deficient lighting power of
the gas. It must be assumed, therefore, that in some cases the burners
in use have been in fault. There can, indeed, be no doubt that many
consumers fail to obtain a proper light, owing to the habitual use of bad
burners, or to the neglect to cleanse good ones. Burners that were of
sufficient capacity for the cannel gas, with which the parish was
supplied during the first half of the year, are inadequate, and are not
adapted to burn common gas so as to produce a good light. Some consumers
who have reported the sufficiency of the light when proper burners have
been employed, have complained of the great increase in the amount of
their gas bills, and in a few instances, I understand, the
dissatisfaction has been so great as to lead to a discontinuance of the
use of gas. It is a remarkable fact, often observed—a fact that makes us
almost despair of ever getting “cheap gas”—that the bills seem always to
increase when the price is lowered! How this is brought about I do not
pretend to explain; but, so far as my experience goes, it would seem that
gas bills never were lower than when the price per thousand feet was at
its highest. I do not think that extravagance in consumption—as a result
of decrease in price—can be admitted to be a sufficient explanation of
the phenomenon. There are mysteries in gas manufacture and supply, which
may be revealed hereafter, and the discovery may both enlighten us on the
point now mentioned, and also explain the occurrence of complaints of bad
light, concurrently with the satisfactory results of the nightly
examinations of the gas at the appointed testing station.
During some portion of the year the supply was scarce. The Company, when
applied to for an explanation, attributed the scarcity to the refusal of
a “sister Vestry” to allow the roads in their parish to be broken up for
the purpose of laying down a larger main from the works at Horseferry
Road, to supplement the supply from the Kensal Works, which are
inadequate for the large district hitherto dependent on that source. I
am not without hope that when the new 24-inch main is completed some of
the causes of dissatisfaction to which I have adverted may be removed,
and that a sufficient and well-regulated pressure, with a full supply of
gas, will be obtained.
The dissatisfaction with the gas led your Vestry to adopt a curious
experiment during the current year, viz., that of burning mineral oil
with the Silber light in a certain number of street lamps in the
Kensington Road. I offer no opinion at present on the comparative value
of the two sources of light; but I may mention the fact already well
known, and referred to in my monthly reports, that the lighting of the
streets in this parish is very unsatisfactory, inasmuch as we are still
using burners adapted to consume three feet per hour, as in the days of
cannel gas, whereas 4½ feet burners, at the least, should be employed. A
suggestion has been made that the average meter system should be adopted
in this parish, and it has my cordial approval—already expressed in my
monthly reports—as it is only fair and proper that public bodies should
pay for the gas they consume and no more. The average meter system has
been adopted in the parishes of Paddington and St. Pancras. It has given
entire satisfaction, and in a very short space of time the first cost of
applying the meters to every twelfth lamp will have been defrayed by the
saving in expenditure on gas. In Paddington the Vestry have undertaken
all the necessary work of lighting and repairing the lamps. The gas has
been burned for a somewhat shorter average period nightly, and a further
large saving in expenditure has thus been effected. With reference to
the cost of gas in this parish, I may be permitted to mention that during
the year the revenue of the Company was many thousand pounds more than
necessary to pay the ten per cent. dividend—which, in fact, might have
been paid without the increase in the price of the gas, sanctioned by the
Commissioners appointed by the Board of Trade, in the month of January.
If, however, the price had not been raised during 1874, it is probable
that the price charged in 1873 would have been maintained. But, in the
face of the enormous over-taxation of gas consumers in 1874, and the
reduced cost of coal, the Company could not apply to the Board of Trade
for a revision of the price in 1875, the result being that the charge
reverted on the 1st of January to the Parliamentary price of three
shillings and ninepence per 1,000 cubic feet.
* * * * *
I cannot conclude my report without special acknowledgment of the
assistance rendered to me by the sub-district registrars of births,
deaths, &c., during the past year, which has been one of crisis. For
many years the Registrar-General had presented to the several Medical
Officers of Health of the Metropolis the original manuscript returns of
the causes of all deaths registered within their districts during the
previous week, these returns being forwarded by the sub-district
registrars to Somerset House, and forming the basis of the
Registrar-General’s “Weekly Return.” For this duty the sub-district
registrars received no remuneration. The necessity of similar
information being supplied to Provincial Medical Officers of Health arose
out of the passing of the Public Health Act, 1872, but no such returns
being in existence, the information was not forthcoming. Hence many
difficulties, into which I need not enter. Suffice it to say that in the
Public Health Amendment Act provision was made for the payment of the
sub-district registrars by Provincial Sanitary Authorities for
information of a precisely similar character to that which had hitherto
reached the Metropolitan Medical Officers without expense to the Local
Boards. On the passing of the last-named Act, the London registrars,
feeling themselves entitled to remuneration for the “secondary use,” by
the Medical Officers of their manuscript returns, applied to the
Registrar-General on the subject, and he, in turn, requested the Society
of Medical Officers of Health to bring the question of payment on a
proposed scale before the several Vestries and District Boards. The
Society, however, declining the somewhat invidious task, the
Registrar-General addressed a similar application to the Local Boards.
In the result very few of them consented to the requisition of the
Registrar-General, who thereupon gave notice to the Medical Officers that
after an appointed day in October he should no longer forward the weekly
returns; and he was as good as his word. Greatly to their credit,
Messrs. Barnes and Hume spontaneously put themselves in communication
with me, promising to send me a duplicate copy of the returns as before;
and this they did, until, some time afterwards, a fair and mutually
satisfactory arrangement was completed between your Vestry and these
gentlemen. The upshot is that I obtain the returns early on Monday
morning instead of on Wednesday evening, and I am thus enabled to
tabulate the vital statistics up to a period within four days of the date
of my monthly reports, instead of eleven days, as under the former
arrangement. Additional information of value is also supplied by the
registrars, and they continue to forward from day to day, on special
forms, notice of any deaths that may have been registered from small-pox,
scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, enteric, and simple continued fevers,
and puerperal fever, &c., so that no time is lost in taking the necessary
steps after _fatal_ cases of these infectious diseases.
I have to express my obligations to the officers of the Board of
Guardians for information of cases of infectious diseases, &c.; and I am
happy to testify my sense of the cordial support I invariably receive
from the Sanitary Inspectors, and of the efficient manner in which their
onerous, often delicate, and always important duties have been performed.
Some portion of the time of Messrs. Wood and Langman has been taken up in
attending to the new duties imposed on them under the Adulteration of
Food, &c., Act—especially in attending the police court to conduct
prosecutions. Much of the work of general inspection is still done in a
desultory way, owing to the magnitude and inconvenient configuration of
the parish, and to the necessity of attending to complaints as they arise
from day to day—a necessity that impedes, more or less, the important
duty of systematic inspection of the houses in streets, &c., inhabited by
the poorer classes of the population. It is desirable that the 35th
clause of the Sanitary Act, 1866, should be adopted, in order to the
registration and regular inspection of all houses which are let out in
tenements. No doubt this would involve much additional work for a time,
but the benefits would be commensurate, for the risk of overcrowding
would be diminished, ventilation would be improved, and the cleansing of
the rooms, staircases, &c., would be systematically carried out. It
seems to me that this is the direction sanitary improvement should take
in the future; and the staff having been increased by the appointment of
an additional officer, I am not without hope of being able to bring the
subject under the notice of your Vestry at an early date, with reasonable
prospect of success. A principal difficulty in connection with sanitary
administration is that of securing an efficient record of work done—a
difficulty which has been much lessened in this parish by the conspicuous
care and ability with which Mr. Rudman has performed the clerical duties
of the department.