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lighted and have through ventilation. The whole building is warmed by
hot.water pipes.
The drainage, water.closets, lavatory basins, baths, &c., were newly constructed,
and the whole of the appointments and fittings are of excellent design.
On 27th February of this year your Medical Officer laid before the Sanitary
Committee formal certificate with regard to this building as required by
Section 10 of the City of London Sewers Act, 1851, and the premises are now
registered as a common lodging.house for accommodating 453 persons.
The establishment of a common lodging.house of such dimensions within
the City will probably result in an increase in the number of persons chargeable
upon the City of London Union ; as destitute inmates will be removed to
the Infirmary, and will require careful supervision.
An important judgment was delivered last year in the case of Parker v.
Talbot, which decided that charitable institutions run on common lodging.
house lines and where no charge is made are not common lodging.houses, and
can therefore be carried on without licence or registration.
"HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE..
" COURT OF APPEAL, October 24th, 25th, November 1st.
" Before Vaughan Williams, Stirling, and Cozens Hardy, L.JJ.
" parker V. talbot.
" Common Lodging.House—Registration—No payment.
.' If no charge is made to persons who frequent a charitable instihition which is con.
" ducted on lines similar to common lodging.houses, such institution is not a
" common lodging.house within the meaning of the Common Lodging.IIouses Act,
" 1851.1853, and no registration or licence is required.
" This was an appeal from a judgment of Kekewich, J., holding that a charitable
" institution known as the Providence (Row) Night Refuge and Home was a com.
" mon lodging.house, and ought to have registered as such under the Common
" Lodging.Houses Act, 1851, and that a licence to carry it on should have been
" obtained under the London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1902. The
" action was started with the object of obtaining a decision of the Court of Appeal
" on the point, as a divisional court had held in Gilbert v. Jones (1905), 2 K.B. 691,
" that the institution was a common lodging.house, and there was no appeal from
" that decision. Kekewich, J., held in accordance with that decision.
" Vaughan Williams, L.J., said he would have decided the case in the same way
" as the divisional court had done, were it not for the Common Lodging.Houses
" Act (Ireland), 1860. He thought the definition clause in Section 3 of that Act
" was meant to apply to the English Acts of 1851.1853. That Section defined the
" term ' common lodging.house ' as meaning ' a house in which persons are harboured
" ' or lodged for hire for a single night or for less than a week at a time, or any part
" ' of which is let for any term less than a week.' People in this institution were
" not lodged for hire, and therefore it was not a common.lodging.house. The
" attention of the lower courts had not been drawn to this statute.
" It was afterwards pointed out to the Court that the Common Lodging.Houses
" (Ireland) Act, 1860, had been repealed. The Court held that this made no
" difference, as the Act declared what meaning was intended to be put on the
" earlier Acts."
. " Public Health," January, 1906.