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had no compulsory powers of purchase: and the land has since
been secured by the London and North-western Railway Company.
By the Poor Law Act, 1889, however, the Managers obtained
power, subject to the approval of the Local Government Board,
to acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of extending the site
of any of their hospitals. Armed with this power they approached
the proprietors of land situated on and adjoining the south-east
side of the hospital, with whom they have arranged for the purchase
of the freehold of, and the leaseholders' interest in, a plot
rather over three acres in extent, for the sum of £8150; and
they have arranged to take a lease, at £10 per annum for 999 years,
of the surface over the tunnel of the Metropolitan District Railway
Company of a further piece of land about a quarter of an acre in
extent.
The plans sanctioned by the Local Government Board provide
mainly for the extension and improvement of the staff and other
accommodation, which would be necessitated by an increase in the
number of patients, at an estimated cost rather exceeding £5000.
It is to be presumed that as soon as the land above referred to
shall have been obtained (the sanction of the Local Government
Board being required), the Managers will take into consideration
the question of providing additional accommodation for patients.
This question of the enlargement is one of supreme interest to
the sanitary authorities of the district allocated to the hospital
which, for all practical purposes, is as much the hospital of those
authorities as if they had themselves erected it under the provisions
of the Sanitary Act, 1866 (section 37). The duty of
providing infectious hospitals, happily, has fallen into the hands
of the Asylums Board, under the provisions of the Metropolitan
Poor Act, 1867, and the Poor Law Acts of 1879 and 1889, &c.,
much to the public advantage, as well as to the relief of the
Sanitary Authorities, who could never have properly carried it into
effect.