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default all such expenses in and about the said proceeding or act as the County
Council incur, and are not recovered from any other person, and have not
been incurred in any unsuccessful proceedings.
In the report of his inquiry, the Medical Officer of Health of the County
Council, Mr. Shirley Murphy, stated that the opinions of those best qualified
to judge, are strongly in favour of By-laws, that difficulties have disappeared
where they have been seriously undertaken by "sufficient staff provided for
that purpose," that still better results would have been attained " if larger
use had been made of the power conferred by By-laws to proceed directly for
penalty instead of adopting the method of serving notices."
In his Report Dr. Hamer, the Assistant Medical Officer, stated that he
attempted " to learn whether or not the putting in force of a code of By-laws
or regulations enables conditions to be dealt with which are not capable of
being remedied, or can only with difficulty be remedied, under the general
provisions of the Public Health Act." He refers to the evidence given before
the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes in 1S85, by the
late Dr. Tripe, Medical Officer of Health, Hackney, where 5,000 houses were on
the Register, who stated that the great advantage of having regulations was that
proceedings could be taken for breach of regulations, and that it was not
necessary in each instance to convince the magistrate that what was complained
of was a nuisance injurious to health. He points out that, in the matter of
cleansing, the specific requirements of the By-laws have been most useful;
that, in the matter of overcrowdiny, the By-laws define overcrowding, that
they enable penalties to be more easily obtained, and that they enable
inspection to be made at other times than those specified in the general Act,
that placing houses on the register tends to cause owners to reduce the
number of occupants of tenements, but that in proceeding by notice to abate
overcrowding " presumably what happens in many cases is that the persons
merely transfer themselves from one tenement to another, while the amount
of overcrowding in the district remains unaltered; that, in the matter of
proceeding without notice, as regards cleansing, the experience is entirely
favourable, and, as regards overcrowding it is also favourable, but full use has
not hitherto been made of the power to proceed straightway for penalty on
proof of infringement. Other matters can be dealt with by By-laws, but
cleansing and overcrowding are the main questions. He concludes by indicating
some difficulties, the first being that of insufficient staff for the systematic
inspection of registered houses, the demand of other work upon the time of
Sanitary Inspectors having prevented even Chelsea (with 1700 registered
houses, and Hackney with 5000 registered houses), these two Authorities having
Regulations prior to 1885, from keeping their registers up to date ; the
second difficulty being that in Court the procedure is somewhat complicated,
formal proof of registration is required, and change of ownership may delay
proceedings, and in sub-letting, questions as to the person liable may arise.
In considering the working of the Vestry's By-laws, these several points
have also attracted my attention, and my views thereon are fairly definable.
Cubic-space and overcrowding.—It would be conducive to the better regulation
of registered tenement houses if a single minimum standard of cubic
space could be adopted instead of the varying amounts of 300 and 400 cubic