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 power in SpermCandles. | Amount of Impurity. | Number of Examinations. | ||
Sulphuretted Hydrogen. | Ammonia per 100 feetGrains. | Sulphur per 100 feetGrains. | |||
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 times) | 0.19 | 16.44 | 26 |
November | 16.67 | 0.19 | 17.02 | 24 | |
December | 16.68 | (Present 3 times) | 19.01 | 25 | |
The next table shows the maxima, minima, and averages of lighting power stated quarterly:—
| Period. | Maximum. | Minimum. | Average. |
| 1st Quarter (Cannel Gas) | 22.9 | 19.6 [49a] | 21.50 |
| 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.