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26 SANITARY POWERS OF THE COMMISSION.
9. You have certain powers to which I adverted
in my former Report, as likely to come into activity
whenever the injurious practice of intramural
burial might cease; powers, namely, relating
to the disposal of dead bodies in certain specified
cases: and under your new Act, you have acquired
some further authority (likewise only to be exercised
after that cessation, and with the consent of the
Bishop of London) to appropriate the disused
burial-grounds for purposes of improvement. At
the time of my last Report I looked "forward to
the complete discontinuance of burial within your
territory as a matter for warm congratulation among
all who are interested in the cause of sanitary improvement
and it is with proportionate disappointment
and regret, that I have now to report to you
that the Order in Council, which was to have closed
all metropolitan burial grounds, has never yet been
issued; and that negociations, conducted by the
General Board of Health for the purchase of a
sufficient extramural cemetry, were suddenly arrested
at the close of the last session of Parliament.
Your powers in relation to these matters remain of
course meanwhile inoperative.
10. The most important additions made to your
power relate to the dwellings of the poor, and are embodied
chiefly in the tenth section of your new Act.
The definition of "lodging-house "given in this clause
is so extensive, and the power of regulation conceded