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of a nuisance being known to exist," but also for the purpose of
ascertaining as to the existence of any nuisance; section 10
giving the right of entry for this object. The defendant had
contested the point "on principle," as the claim of the right of
entry "cut away the ground from the generally accepted
truism that 'an Englishman's house is his castle'"; but in the
result he had to pay a line of twenty shillings for his fault, or
his ignorance of the law. A certain piquancy was given to the
decision, by the fact that the defendant was a member of the
Sanitary Committee of the prosecuting authority.
OVERCROWDING AND DISEASE.
Overcrowded tenement dwellings are usually " dirty " in
the worst sense, i.e., they reek with tilth of organic origin, the
product of animal secretions and exhalations, which, to a greater
or less degree in different cases, defiles the habitation. No insanitary
condition, indeed, is more perilous than overcrowding,
and no " nuisance " more difficult to deal with ; both because it
is usually difficult of detection, and because it is not seldom a
result of the poverty of people who, by reason of their poverty,
cannot obtain the accommodation requisite for healthy living.
It is to little purpose to call upon people who find difficulty in
'meeting the rent of a single room, to provide themselves with
additional accommodation in order to the abatement of the
statutory nuisance of overcrowding. A striking example of
this nuisance, and of evils consequent thereupon, formed the
subject of my first report in 1895, as follows: —
"Four cases of enteric fever, notified during the four-weekly period,
ended January 26th, originated at a registered house in St. Katherine's road,
under circumstances which illustrate the dangers of overcrowding, and of
insanitary conditions of life generally. The house comprises eight rooms;
two and a small kitchen on the ground floor ; two each on the first and
second storeys, and a small slip room over the kitchen. In this house, when
my attention was drawn to it, on the 11th January, there were some 27 or 28
inmates. A family of seven persons nominally occupied the ground floor and
the kitchen ; but of the kitchen no use was made. The front room (empty
capacity 1,155 cubic feet) was occupied, usually, by day and night, by a