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The public certifier of deaths was to be a new official—a registered medical
practitioner—to be appointed by the Board of Guardians.
2. Deaths to be certified within two days of death instead of five as at
present, and at the time of notification, information to be given to the Registrar
as to whether the deceased person was or was not attended by a registered
medical practitioner.
In the former case, the name of the practitioner to be given.
Other clauses were inoluded which specified what should be regarded by a doctor
as "being in attendance''; provision for certification by the certifier of deaths when no
doctor had been in attendance; the presence of the certifier of deaths at inquests; the
holding of inquests, and provisions respecting burials.
Provision was also made for the registration of still-births, and for the purpose of
the section a still-born child would mean any child "who has issued forth from its
"mother after the expiration of the 28th week after pregnancy, and which was not
"alive at the time of its so issuing forth."
The Bill prescribed the form of the necessary certificates and provided for the
making of regulations by the Local Government Board and the Registrar-General.
SMOKE ABATEMENT BILL, 1913.
Amplification of the powers at present possessed by local authorities in respect of
the smoke nuisance has long been desirable, and had the Smoke Abatement Bill presented
in the early part of 1913 been made law, a material advance would have been made in
the desired direction.
The existing law forbids the emission of "black smoke in such quantity as to be a
nuisance," and it is the necessity to prove that the smoke is black that has been the
stumbling block to many a prosecution in cases where a very real nuisance has been
committed, but where the colour of the smoke was not sufficiently deep to justify the
application of the adjective " black."
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Section 1 of the Bill under discussion made it an offence to cause the emission of
smoke or grit from any furnace or its chimney. The Local Government Board, however,
were furnished with powers to make special exemptions in those cases in which it is
impracticable to avoid making smoke in carrying on a business, but such powers to
exempt to be limited to 10 years from the passing of the Act, and the exemption
to be renewed every two years.
Penalty clauses were included in the Bill, and provision was made for the
appointment of local smoke abatement authorities in those areas in which the local
sanitary authorities failed to carry out their duties with regard to smoke abatement.
In London the London County Council were made the Local Smoke Abatement
authority, and in this respect the autonomy of the City was not preserved.