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and limewhiting of such houses. This list of subject matters was somewhat extended by the Sanitary
Law Amendment Act of 1874. Sir John Simon, in referring in the course of his evidence before the
Sanitary Commission of 1869-71 to the effect of the passing of the Sanitary Act of 1866 upon overcrowding
in dwellings said—"There again immense progress has been made. Overcrowding as such
is declared a nuisance, and the local authority, with the approval of the Home Secretary, is able to
regulate the occupation and keeping of tenement houses. There is thus immense progress in principle,
but we have been in chaos since then, so that it has not yet borne fruit. After the report of the
Commission we may hope to get an effective working of those things."
That this hope was not realised may be judged from the fact that the report of the Royal
Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, 1885, states that inquiry made by the Local
Government Board as to the working of the regulations dealing with houses let in lodgings showed
that "two authorities, Chelsea and Hackney, had been specially active, but that comparatively little had
been done by others." Evidence was given before the Commission to the effect that 1,700 houses were
on the register at Chelsea and 5,000 at Hackney, and Dr. Tripe, the medical officer of health of the
latter district, stated that the great advantage of having regulations was that proceedings could be taken
for breach of regulation, and that it was not necessary in each instance to convince the magistrate
that what was complained of was a nuisance injurious to health. The evidence from other districts,
however, showed that there was a strong feeling adverse to the enforcement of the regulations, and the
Commissioners state, " it is therefore evident that the 35th section of the Sanitary Act, which contains
a remedy for some of the evils which have been described, is likely to remain a dead letter in many
districts of the metropolis until some improved means be devised for putting it in action." The
Commissioners showed their own sense of the need of the general adoption of regulations under
section 85 of the Sanitary Act, by placing first on their list of recommendations the following : " Your
Majesty's Commissioners therefore recommend that the vestries and district boards which have not
already made and enforced by-laws should proceed to do so, although it is not likely that in all cases
such action will be taken until the people show a more active interest in the management of their
local affairs."
Following upon the action taken by the Local Government Board and this strong recommendation
of the Commissioners, attention was more largely directed to the question of the adoption and enforcement
of tenement regulations. The Sanitary and Special Purposes Committee of the Council in 1889
caused inquiry to be made as to the extent to which regulations had been adopted and enforced in
London, and from a summary of replies received from vestries and district boards which was prepared
by Captain J. Sinclair, at the request of the Committee, it appears that regulations had been adopted at
various dates in 31 of the 40 London sanitary districts ; in 10 of these 31 districts however no attempt
was being made to enforce the regulations, and in several of the remaining 21 districts the number
of houses on the register was either not stated or was quite small. A considerable number of houses
appears however to have been registered in some nine districts* in addition to the two districts wbich
had employed the regulations prior to the Local Government Board's inquiry above referred to.
The powers given under the Sanitary Act were optional powers, which were obtainable on
application being made by the nuisance authority to the Secretary of State. The Local Government
Board, to which had been transferred in 1871 the functions of the Secretary of State with regard to
tenement regulations, in 1888 declared the enactment empowering the nuisance authority to make
regulations to be in force in those districts (16 in number) which had not already made application.
On the enactment of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, a further and more important step was
taken, inasmuch as under section 94 of the Act (which replaced section 35 of the Sanitary Act, 1866,
and section 47 of the Sanitary Law Amendment Act, 1874) the enforcement of by-laws as to houses let
in lodgings was for the first time declared to be obligatory. Beyond this the Act provided for the supersession
by the Council of an authority which had made default in executing or enforcing provisions of
the Act, among which is included that relating to the regulation of houses let in lodgings.
A return prepared by the medical officer of health of the Council, and dated December, 1895,
shows that regulations under the Sanitary Act of 1866 or by-laws under the Public Health Act of 1891
dealing with houses let in lodgings had been made in all the Londou districts. The return shows for
each district the " number of houses on the register regulated at the present time " (December, 1895).
From the figures supplied, it would appear that in eight London districts an appreciable proportion of
the inhabited houses (that is to say, upwards of 2 per cent, of the total number of such houses) was
under regulation. In 16 other districts the regulations were being used, though only to a limited
extent. In a few of the remaining districts by-laws under section 94 of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, had only recently been confirmed, and there had not, at the time of the return, been
opportunity of enforcing them. Again, in a certain number of districts, the question of enforcing
existing regulations had been postponed, apparently because the authority was in communication with
the Local Government Board with reference to replacing the regulations by by-laws under the Act
of 1891.
The result of inquiry as to the operation of by-laws in those districts in which they have been
extensively used, points unmistakeably in one direction. In the first place, it appears that the specific
requirements of the by-laws with regard to cleansing have been found most useful. Considerable
difficulty has been experienced with regard to this matter in some parts of London in districts in which
the by-laws have not been made use of. Thus, at the end of 1894, an illustration was furnished by a
decision of the magistrate at the Westminster Police Court under the following circumstances—The
Chelsea Vestry had called upon an owner to cleanse and repair a dirty and dilapidated house. The
magistrate held that the vestry could not proceed under section 2 of the Act, which deals with nuisances,
and he dismissed the summons. The solicitors to the vestry reported upon the case as follows—" The
evidence proved that the house was in a dirty and dilapidated state, but the magistrate did not consider
*Bermondsey, Clerkenwell, Hampstead, Islington, Kensington, Limehouse, St. Giles, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Marylebone.