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76
other new streets in this parish. In my last Report
occur the following remarks, which it must be conceded
are as applicable now to the matter in question as they
were when first written.
" It is much to be feared that the absence of good
approaches to rows of newly erected dwellings is the
main cause of their failing to attract suitable tenants.
To build houses, and to render them approachable only
through mud and filth, is surely a mistaken policy, and it
is submitted that local authorities should be vested with
quite as sufficient legal powers of compelling owners of
rateable house property to properly construct the first
roads and footways as they now have of compelling the
formation of the first drains and water courses in connection
with such property."
By the recent decision of the Court of Queen's Bench,
it appears that local authorities have the power, in the
event of the neglect of the owners, to execute works of
both drainage and paving in new streets, and of charging the
costs of the same upon such owners. This being the case,
the Disraeli Road nuisance cannot, it is imagined, continue
much longer a reproach to the parish.
There is one other matter upon which I desire, before
concluding this Report, to offer a remark, and that is, the
desirability of the constituted authorities endeavouring to
obtain from the Legislature increased and well-defined
powers of dealing with dilapidated house property, and of
purchasing and demolishing such houses that may be
certified to by competent judges as being unfit for human
habitation. A few such places, it is known, are to be found
in this parish, and there are unquestionably other premises
offering such great obstruction to the traffic of the public
streets as to constitute them nuisances of the worst kind.
The over-hanging and dilapidated houses situated at the
entrance of Windsor Street, and abutting on the High