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proposed to amalgamate with the Consolidation Bill)*, containing,
as it does, provisions of a character certain to excite more or
less opposition on the part of the Sanitary Authorities. Prefixed
to the Bill is a Memorandum setting out the titles of the
numerous statutes in which we have now to grope for the law
relating to Public Health in London. In the fourth schedule the
enactments to be repealed are set out, and from this we learn
that 14 Acts will be wholly repealed, and parts of 18 others,
including several sections of The Metropolis Management Act,
1855, which, however, it is proposed to re-enact. The Bill
consolidates, among others, the Nuisances Removal Acts, the
Sanitary Acts, the Infectious Disease (Notification and Prevention)
Acts, the Slaughter-houses Act, and the Smoke Acts, as well as
the provisions relating to the Asylums Board Hospitals, which
are partly contained in the Poor Law Acts and partly in the
Disease Prevention Acts. Some of these enactments were consolidated,
as respects the rest of the country, by the Public
Health Act, 1875, and substantially they are re-enacted in
the Bill in the form in which they appear in that Act. The
Common Lodging-Houses Acts of 1851 and 1853, which are
in force over the Metropolitan Police District, are left outstanding.
In a series of notes the manner is described in which the main
difficulties found in an exact reproduction of the existing law
have been met. The Bill, to be known as the Public Health
(London) Act, is comprised in 116 sections, to which are
appended four schedules.
The Public Health (London) Law Amendment Bill stands
on a different footing to the Consolidation Bill. The latter, as
already stated, would not be likely to meet with any serious
opposition. The Amendment Bill, however, contains—with
many provisions that would be welcomed by all interested in the
*The two Bills were amalgamated into one, by the Standing Committee on
Law, with various amendments, some of which were suggested by the Vestry or
myself. But several proposed amendments, which would have added to the
practical value of the Act, were not adopted,