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imposed, was circulated in the district from house-to-house.
In the thirteenth report, for 1898 (page 132) I called attention to
the power vested in the justices, to inflict a penalty more severe
than direct money fines, to which recourse could be had should
overcrowding be again found, within three months, at any
house in respect to which proceedings had been instituted,
viz., by closure of the house, under the provisions of section 7
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which enacts that:—
"Where two convictions for offences relating to the overcrowding of a
house, or part of a house, in any district, have taken place within a
period of three months (whether the persons convicted were or were
not the same), a petty sessional court may, on the application of the
sanitary authority, order the house to be closed for such period as the
court may deem necessary."
The business of letting so-called furnished rooms in the
Notting-dale district, as already intimated, is a profitable one;
the "keeper" probably netting thirty shillings a week for a
house which costs him twelve or fourteen, the value of the
furniture being a negligeable quantity. I therefore advised,
and the sanitary committee directed, that, on occasion arising,
the magistrates should be asked to close a house, such a
course being likely to be more effective, as a deterrent, both
to offenders and others, than the infliction of a direct money
fine. A case subsequently arose, and an application to close
the house was made, but the magistrates, who imposed
substantial fines on the offenders, declined to make a closing
order, influenced, apparently, by their conception of the
inconvenience it might cause to the occupants of other rooms
in the house.
As a matter of historical interest, it may be mentioned,
that in 1898 at a conference of sanitary authorities on the subject
of Overcrowding and the Housing of the Working Classes,
convened by the Bermondsey Vestry, your Vestry being represented
thereat, the following resolution, among others, was
passed:—