H.—3l.

much required, has been carried to completion, which will be in a short time, as it is now in progress. It was left to stand over, too, for the reason that a Drainage Board has recently been formed embracing Dunedin and its suburbs, whose duty it will be to provide drainage for the district in question, and who will thus have to tackle this difficult matter. Meanwhile the stream is being closely watched, and the amount of pollution diminished as much as possible, several of the works, which are the chief culprits, having been ordered to adopt means to purify their effluent as much as may be. Inspection of Meat, &c, intended for Human Consumption, In this department much has been done since the establishment of our public abattoirs, and a close watch is being kept on the importers and sellers of meat, fish, and fruit. Mr. Snowball's reports to his Department (Agriculture) will show how much good work he is doing in the way of meat-inspection. City Inspector Donaldson has examined 111 carcases of beef, 480 sheep, 36 calves, and 3,025 pigs ; and, acting along with us, he has seized and destroyed five pigs and 181 hams and rolls of bacon out of the 1,544 which have been examined. Inspector Gunn condemned a lot of hams and bacon at Port Chalmers, the owner paying all expenses. Two separate consignments of fruit were pounced upon, ordered to be picked, and the decayed fruit destroyed. This amounted to 123 cases of oranges and 25 cases of lemons, all far gone in decay. On two occasions freezing-works, where a large amount of fish, &c, supplying Dunedin and the surrounding country is stored, were visited ; the first visit resulting in the seizure and destruction of 6-J- tons of provisions, principally fish, far gone in decomposition, and at the second in about 2-|- tons being simlarly treated. The owner of the works was prosecuted and fined, with expenses, and the works shut up till they had undergone a thorough renovating and cleansing, to my satisfaction. In this connection it may be mentioned that seventy-nine dairies for the sale of milk in the city have been inspected and licensed, and that over fifteen of the suburban dairy farms have been visited, and generally found not to be properly kept clean. This state of matters was ordered to be amended, and that the farms and surroundings be better seen to in the future. Lead Contamination in Beer. In the beginning of this year Dr. Truby King consulted me in reference to a case which he had treated in Seacliff Asylum, presenting most of the symptoms of lead-poisoning, and requesting me to follow up the case by making an examination of the beer sold at the hotel this man was in the habit of frequenting. Inspector Gunn therefore visited the hotel, and took a sample of the beer which had stood in the beer-tap all night, and sent it to Professor Black, who pronounced that it was contaminated with lead. Following this up, Inspector Gunn visited the hotels which did an early-morning trade in beer; and, as his visits were at an hour when he got the first draw-off, he was enabled to have fair samples of the beer as supplied to workmen on their way to work in the morning. In nearly every case these were found by Professor Black to contain lead in more or less quantity, its source being, as I have stated in my report on the matter, the leaden pipe which leads the beer from the cask in the cellar to the tap at the bar. I am further following up this, and meantime it is being attended to by the trade, with a view to find a better method of drawing the beer. I did not judge this a subject for a prosecution, as the thing had been the result of inadvertance, not of negligence or design, but have thought it better to let the trade devise a remedy, which they are both willing and anxious to do for their own sakes. This will probably be in the direction of finding a substitute for the leaden pipes. So far as I have been able to learn, the man in question has been the only victim, and it was the excessive amount he drank which led to the result by which he was injured. A prosecution having been undertaken by the local authority for the selling of jam which was proved to be adulterated with fruit substances other than that which it professed to contain, we had some samples taken from various places, but these were certified by Professor Black to be genuine articles, with no adulteration of any kind. Sanatoria for Consumptives. As instructed, I kept my eyes open while travelling through my district to find out if it contained any place or places suitable for the retention of patients suffering from consumption, and for their treatment and cure. Two places only struck me as meeting requirements. On one of these, the Beaumont Valley, I have fully reported; and on the other, Tapanui, though much has been learned regarding it, I have not been able to visit it to make a special examination, and I have not ventured to recommend it on imperfect information. The former of these combines most of the necessary requirements; but the latter has this in its favour : that it is more reachable, having the railway within a short mile. Both our quarantine stations were examined, and are now in working-order, ready for any emergency. v My Inspectors have been attending to the disinfection of premises where that has been required from\he occurrence of infectious disease, and on two instances I had to see to the disinfection of articles which came here from Tasmania to the paper-works.

69