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Annual Report for 1889-90, they expressly stated that they '' consider
it to be of the greatest importance that a complete and satisfactory
code of sanitary bye-laws should be made: " they added, however,
that they had "met with great difficulties in formulating
such bye-laws, on accounnt of the limitations put upon them by
the terms of the sections," i.e., section 202 of the Metropolis
Management Act, above mentioned, and section 23 of the Municipal
Corporations Act, 1882. The 16th section of the Local
Government Act, 1888, gives the Council the power of making
bye-laws under that Act, "for the good rule and government of
the County or any specified part thereof, and for the prevention and
suppression of nuisances not already punishable in a summary manner,"
The committee hoped it would be possible shortly, to prepare
bye-laws which would meet with the approval of the Council, but
under existing laws much doubted if this would be practicable.
Accordingly they suggested the incorporation in the Public
Health (London) Consolidation Bill, which it was thought
Mr. Ritchie would introduce in the Session of 1890, of a more
unrestricted power to the Council to make bye-laws of this nature,
believing that if this suggestion became law, the Council would
undoubtedly be in a position to prepare bye-laws which would, if
uniformly enforced throughout the County, prove to be a valuable
addition to the sanitary regulation of London.
I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention here that, in an
Address which I delivered before the Society of Medical Officers
of Health, in October, 1884, I had insisted upon the importance
of bye-laws which, I believed, could have been framed under
the provisions of section 202 of the Metropolis Management Act,
1855; and that in April, 1889, I sent a copy of the Address to
each member of the Council. In their Annual Report for 1889,
the Sanitary Committee stated that they could not " too strongly
emphasize their opinion that the London County Council should
be empowered to frame bye-laws for the proper sanitary government
of London; that the new District Councils, or the existing
local bodies, should put them in force, and that the County