Amongst the questions which I addressed to the surveyors of the principal towns of England was the following:—"Is the house refuse collected by the Sanitary Authority or by a Contractor?" and out of the ninety towns from which I received replies, only thirty were found to employ contractors for this purpose, and of these the authorities of two of them proposed to dispense with the services of the contractor, and to administrate the work with their own staff, as they found the existing state of things was thoroughly unsatisfactory.

This is hardly to be wondered at when the nature of such contracts comes to be considered. The "dust" or "slopping" contractor, or whatever he may be designated, can hardly be expected to be a philanthropist, whose principal object in carrying out his contract is that of benefiting his fellow creatures and not himself; on the contrary, it may fairly be assumed that the contractor's object is to[87] serve his own interests, and to make his contract pay. It is but natural, although the result may not be eminently satisfactory either to the ratepayers, who require a careful and systematic cleansing of their dustbins and streets, or to the Sanitary Authority and their officers who have to look after him. The officers, if they do their strict duty, will probably be engaged in constant disputes and litigation with the contractor as to the due and proper observance of the terms of his contract, and the consequence of their time being thus occupied instead of in other more important matters, is naturally detrimental to the interests of the ratepayers.

If we turn to the articles of agreement or contract usually drawn up between a Sanitary Authority and a contractor for scavenging, we find that they are generally very binding in their phraseology, and enter fully into the details of the work; they should state very clearly the number of times in every week that the contractor shall cause all the ashpits in the districts enumerated to be emptied and cleansed, the manner in which this work shall be performed, and how the materials thus removed shall be disposed of and the place of their ultimate destination. The conditions should further specify what amount of manual, team labour, and carts, are necessary for the[88] work, and also what plant the contractor must keep............