The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-08-16 00:00:00

erorroponbmce.

LOCAL BOARD OF HEALTH.

To the Editor of the Dor.et County Eipreee axit
Agricultural Oa:Ate.

DY.AI: MIL EDrron,

i having, n common with my
fdlow ratepayers, had my attention only too intensely
fixed upon the protracted and difficult labours of the
Board of Health, in prosecuting the sanitary improve-
menta of our little town—a town so admirably
formed by nature for the adoption of these improve-
menta in a cheap, expeditious, and effective manner
—I am amongst those who have sought in vain for
anything like a sensible and satisfactory explanation
of the rererse of all these conditions which Dor-
chester has been fated to experience. But your last
week's Cotlllnentay on Mr. Whitehead's "flail
report" must, I think, have opened the eyes of some
of us to the real cause of the perverse delays and
' costly misadventures which have attended our opera-
tions in sanitary science. I have heard much
' more than I shall specially refer to here about pro-
fessional incapacity and blundering, as the main
source of the vexatious failures and crushicg expen-
diture with which we have been visited; and my
present object is simply to give you an extract from
an old number of the Builder newspaper, which I
happened to meet with a few days ago. It narrates
a state of things in regard to sanitary operations at
Burnham singularly identical with our own; but
whether the identity ceases here or not, is what I am
(pardonably I hope) curious to know. Will you
therefore be so good as to inform me whether the
Mr. Whitehead, who figures as a principal actor in
the scene described, is the Mr. Arthur White-
head with whom we ourselves are so familiar, and
have had (to our cost) so much to do? Is it possible
there can be in our hemisphere two stars of such
transcendant magnitude and lustre? Or is the genius
of Burnham, after all, our own genius loci?

" Berehaes.—Mr. Austin, of the General Board of
Health, lately visited this place and inspected the pro-
gress of the drainage works. Mr. Whitehead, the sur-
veyor of the Local Board, attended him. Mr. Austin
reported to the Local Board that the treacherous nature
of the subsoil—a soft slippery clay—had presented
unusual difiiculties in the execution of the contract; but
the contractor bad done his best to carry out the work
efficiently, and the main drain from low-water mark to
I the manure tank was very nearly finished. The cause
I which specially called Mr. Austin's presence was• differ-
ence between the surveyor and contractor with regard
to the manure tank,—the former insisted t het A 5,
original plan should he ironed out, and the latter de-
claring that it could not, and would not succeed, the
nature of the soil exerting a pressure upon the walls of
the tank, which twisted and turned them so as to render
them useless. Under the advice of the surreyer, the
Local Board expended an additional sum of money to
pile the earthwork : this had been expenckd is rain,
and after the contractor had endeavoured, by a consi-
derable expenditure of time and money, to carry out
Mr. Whitehead's plati, he at last reported to the Board
its impracticability, and Mr. Austin was called in to
decide between the surveyor and the contractor. Mr.
Austin reported that owing to the peculiar character of
the 'mil, the plan most be abandoned, and advised that
the Board should require another plan and specification,
to be made the subject of a fresh contract. He regreded
that the clerk of works persisted in compelling the coms•
tcartor to pursue a plan which at as early period pare
indications of insecurity, thus causing mach useless ex-
penditure; but possibly in the difference raised upon
the matter, both parties were somewhat in fault. Mr.
Austin's advice coincided in the main points with the
opinion of the chairman of the Local Board. We are
quoting the local papers."—The Builder, April 1, 1854.
am,
. _
Dear Mr. Editor,
Yours respectfully,
A RATEPAYER.