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133
"3. That delay is also experienced in procuring the
abatement of overcrowding, owing to the imperfect provisions
of existing law."
And it Recommended—" That the President of the Local
Government Board be requested to take steps for the amendment
of the law so as to secure :
" 1. Power to the Sanitary Inspector to initiate proceedings
for the abatement of nuisances on discovery.
" 2. Power to the Justices to inflict a penalty on the person
liable for causing a nuisance.
" 3. Power to the local authority to eject persons overcrowding
a house or part of a house, after the expiration
of a seven days' notice to abate overcrowding."
In the result the Committee simply recommended that the
Vestry should inform the Local Government Board that they
were carrying out the provisions of the several Acts to the best
of their ability, and this course was adopted.
Meanwhile, sanitary authorities are looking forward hopefully
to the increased powers which Mr. Ritchie's projected Public
Health, London (Consolidation) Bill will confer on them—a
measure to which, moreover, the County Council are also looking
in the expectation that it will confer on them the increased powers
they desire. It is known that the Bill will include a clause
to enable the justices to inflict a penalty on the person liable
for causing a nuisance; and it is reasonably hoped that, if power
to the Inspector to initiate proceedings by serving a notice for
the abatement of a nuisance immediately on discovery (without
which irritating and injurious delays must still continue) be not
conceded, at least power will be given to the local authority to
abate overcrowding without the monstrous expenditure of time,
in dilatory procedure, to which reference is made at page 126.
Should these concessions be not made by Parliament, it will be