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15
5. For the cleansing and lime-whiting at stated times of
such premises.
The nuisance authorities may enforce these regulations by
penalties not exceeding 40s. for any one offence, with the
additional penalty of 20s. for every day during which a
default in obeying such regulation shall continue.
As each adult person requires for the preservation of health
some 500 cubic feet of air space in a sleeping apartment, and
without a sufficient supply of air he is breathing over again
an impure and poisoned atmosphere, which is certain to be
deleterious, it is important that some limit should be placed
upon the number of persons inhabiting houses, and their overcrowding
prevented.
But difficulties attend this subject. In this district rents
are expensive, and although it may be perfectly evident that
a certain quantity of pure air is necessary for each individual;
yet, it is patent to every one conversant with the house
accommodation of the poor, that some families live, cook, eat,
drink, wash (frequently dry clothing), and sleep in a room
with a smaller air space than above mentioned; and that, if
in all cases a sufficient air space were insisted on, some would
find it difficult to find a residence.
Still it is not of the less importance that we should endeavour
as far as possible to insist upon sufficient air space,
and ventilation, otherwise disease and mortality will occur.
The subject of ventilation, however, requires less delicacy
in handling, as whatever the kind of accommodation rooms
afford, still they may be ventilated, and a small quantity of
cubic space well ventilated is better than a much larger space
without such ventilation.
Ventilators should be fixed in every room, passage, or stairease,
and these ventilators should be constant objects for
examination by the inspector who visits, to see that they are in
good working order.
With regard to the registration of houses let or occupied
in lodgings, a registered list, kept at the office oi the Loard of
Works, of such houses, with a measurement of their cubic
contents, would much facilitate their inspection, and enable