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no direct authority in the Acts. While we were in doubt what
course to take in this difficulty, the whole question was raised by
the Board of Works for the District of St. Giles and St. George,
Bloomsbury, who summoned the landlord of a house for his neglect
to attend at the office of the Board to give the information and
furnish the statement above referred to. At the hearing Counsel
for the defendant objected that the regulation is ultra vires, " for
although the Board had power to make regulations for fixing the
number of persons who may lawfully occupy a house, yet it had
no power to make a regulation requiring the attendance of parties
at their office to supply the information."* The Board, on the
other hand, contended that as it had power to make a regulation
''for fixing the number of persons," etc.; it also had power to
make consequential regulations for obtaining this information.
The Magistrate (Sir James Ingham, sitting at Bow Street Police
Court) sustained the objection by deciding that the regulation is
ultra vires the Board, and dismissed the summons, but without
costs. Before giving judgment he had observed that the question
was too important to be finally settled by him, and that a case
should be stated for a superior court. The Clerk to the Board
Applied for a case, which was granted, but the Board did not take
the case to a superior court.
I may here observe that when regulations were under consideration,
I was unable to discover any power in the Act
enabling the Nuisance Authority to make a regulation to compel
the " landlord " to attend at its office to supply the particulars above
referred to, but on my applying to the Local Government Board,
I was informed that such a regulation might properly be made,
and that an offence against the regulation would render a '' landlord
" liable to a penalty, as provided in Regulation 20.†
* Other objections were raised by the defendant, but as they were overruled
by the Magistrate, whose decision was not traversed, it is unnecessary to refer
to them.
† The following decision seems to support the view taken by the St. Giles'
Authorities, followiag therein the opinion of the Local Government Board,
that a " consequential regulation " may be made :—" Public Health Act, 1875,
sec. 00. Bye-laws House let in Lodgings—Registration : High Court of Justice