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In connection with the inquiry by the special committee of 189G, as to the causes of the
high death-rate in the "Notting-dale" special area, an application was made to the County
Council to define the meaning of the term " common lodging-house," to which a reply was
received to the following effect:—
"The Council is advised that in order to bring a house within the operation of the Common
Lodging-Houses Acts, 1851 and 1853, it is essential that the following facts should exist:—
(1) The house must be kept by somebody for the purpose of gain.
(2) It must be open for the reception of all comers as lodgers.
(3) That persons resorting to the house must be of such a class as, if left to themselves,
would either be unwilling or unable to secure cleanliness and prevent overcrowding.
(4) Some one room or rooms in the house must be used in common by all the lodgers.
"A large variety of circumstances might arise in any particular case which might come before
the Council, but it is safe to say that if in any case one of the four facts above-mentioned
were absent, it would be a doubtful question whether the house could be regarded as a
common lodging-house within the meaning and intention of the statutes, and such a case
would need special and particular consideration.
" This opinion has been come to after a careful study of the decisions in the following cases :—
" Booth v. Ferrett.—Decision by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and Mr. Justice Mathews ;
" Langdon v. broanbent.—Decision by Mr. Justice Grove and Mr. Justice Lindley."
It thus became manifest that houses in the "Notting-dale" special area could not be
dealt with as common lodging-houses, excepting in so far as they should have been registered
as such by the County Council upon the application of the owners, a fact which the "special
committee" had recognised in their report.
DRAINAGE BY-LAWS.
The by-laws made by the London County Council and confirmed by the Local Government
Board last year, are for "regulating the dimensions, form, and mode of construction,
and the keeping, cleansing, and repairing of the pipes, drains, and other means of communicating
with sewers, and the traps and apparatus connected therewith." These bylaws,
made under the provisions of the Metropolis Management Act, 1855 (sec. 202), are the first
made by the central authority for the purposes named—45 years after the Act came into force,
and 16 years after attention had been called in these reports to the need for such by-laws.
They had been in preparation during five years—an unduly long period it may be thought; but
having regard to the necessity for consulting the sanitary authorities, and, so far as practicable,
meeting the objections of interested parties, and, not least, satisfying the legal requirements of
the Local Government Board, as the confirming authority, the delay is, in a measure, explicable.
It is the duty of the Borough Council to enforce these by-laws, which, for the most
part, deal with the drainage of buildings newly erected ; but, " so far as practicable apply to
any person who shall construct or reconstruct any pipe or drain, etc., in any building "already
existing, as if the same were being constructed in a building newly erected." (See By-law 21.)
A brief abstract of their provisions will therefore not be out of place.
Drainage of Sub-soil and of Surface Water.—1 and 2. Provision is made to secure in new
buildings the drainage of the sub-soil and the drainage of surface water : [important matters as
affecting the dryness and consequently the healthfulness of the dwelling-house].
Bain Water Pipes.—3. Rain water pipes must be made to discharge in the open air over a
properly trapped gully, or into such a gully above the level of the water in the trap thereof, and
no such pipe or channel may receive any solid or liquid matter from any water closet, urinal, slop
or other sink or lavatory.
Materials, &c., for Drains.—4. A sewage drain must be constructed of glazed stoneware or
of cast iron, "or of other equally suitable material;" the joints cemented or caulked, as the
case may be. The drain must not pass under any building if any other mode of construction be
practicable. It must not be of a less internal diameter than four inches. It must be laid on
and partially embedded in concrete, and with a suitable fall. It must be water-tight, and be
capable of resisting a pressure of at least two feet head of water. The thickness and weight of
iron pipes in proportion to diameter are prescribed. Whenever practicable, adequate means of
access to the drain is to be provided at each end of such portion thereof as is beneath a building.
The composition of the concrete is prescribed. Every inlet to the drain, other than that of
the ventilating pipe, is to be "properly trapped by an efficient trap so constructed as to be
capable of maintaining a sufficient' water seal." No bell-trap, dip-trap, or D-trap may be used
in connection with the drain.
Drains to be Trapped from Sewer.-—5. This by-law reads as follows:—"Every person who
shall erect a new building shall provide in every main drain or other drain of such building
which may immediately communicate with any sewer, a suitable and efficient intercepting trap
at a point as distant as may be practicable from such building, and as near as may be practicable
to the point at which such drain may be connected with the sewer. He shall, except in
cases where the means of access to be provided in compliance with the preceding by-law shall
give adequate means of access to such trap, provide a separate manhole or other separate means
oi access to such trap for the purpose of cleansing it."