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let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one
family." The Authority are enabled by their regulations to fix
the number of persons who may occupy a house. They may
register the house, and inspect it to see that it is kept in a
cleanly and wholesome condition. They may enforce the
provision of privy accommodation, water supply, etc., and
provide for the cleansing and ventilation of the common
passages and staircases, and for the cleansing and lime-whiting
of the premises at stated times. In all but a very few districts
in the Metropolis this useful enactment was ignored for years.
In 1871, further powers were conferred under the Sanitary
Law Amendment Act, enabling regulations, framed under the
first-named Act, to extend to the ventilation of rooms; the
paving and drainage of premises; the separation of the sexes;
and to notices to be given, and precautions to be taken in case
of any dangerously infectious disease occurring in a registered
house. The same Act conferred power on the Local Government
Board to declare the enactment to be in force in any
district. The sections, nevertheless, remained practically a
dead letter in most of the Metropolitan districts, the Board not
exercising their power. I brought the subject to the notice of
your Vestry in 1878, when the Sanitary Department had been
reorganised and the staff enlarged; and in April, 1879, I was
requested to make an enquiry as to the working of the Acts in
places where they had been put into operation. Meanwhile, I
had introduced the subject at the Society of Medical Officers of
Health, which resolved (1) That the Acts are practicable; (2)
That they should be put in operation in London and other
large towns; (3) That a uniform code of regulations for the
Metropolis was desirable; and (4) That the Society should
undertake the framing of such a code. At the request of
the Council of the Society, to which the matter was referred,
I drafted a code. This draft code, with slight alterations, was
adopted by the Society, and in May, 1879, the Regulations were
published "for the guidance of Urban Sanitary Authorities."
Your Vestry, finding that the Acts were carried out in but