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obtain an order from the magistrate to compel the owner to remove the tenants, and shut up the
houses, until they were rendered fit for human habitation. It will be seen, on reference to
Table No. 2, that 1371 cesspools are reported to have been abolished; but it is greatly to be
regretted, that in some of these cases the inspectors have been deceived, the landlords contenting
themselves by fixing a pan and syphon-trap over the drain leading to the cesspool, but leaving
untouched the cesspool, which was the cause of the nuisance. This neglect and evasion of the
order have not been discovered until a complaint of the nuisance has again been made.
I have not thought it necessary to enlarge this report by detailing the instances of
indecent overcrowding which have come under the notice of the Inspectors in the course of
their investigations, and which they have for a time succeeded in removing, by serving notices
upon the owners. There is no law that I am aware of, which gives power to any local authority
effectually to prevent the gross immorality of adults of both sexes living together; for, if a room,
although occupied by adults of both sexes, be not overcrowded, and if the occupiers are members of
the same family, which is generally alleged to be the case, although such indecent practices
have been brought to light, the local authority cannot interfere. If, however, any room be too
small for the number of persons living therein, without danger to their health, proceedings can
be taken against the owner, to compel him to diminish the number, provided the house be let to
more than one family. If a room be let to, and occupied by, more than one family, then the
police can compel the owner to register the house as a common lodging house; but in the
practical working of the acts of parliament relating to overcrowding, the difficulty is found to be
very great; for, no sooner are proceedings threatened than a change of tenancy occurs, or the
overcrowding for the time is diminished, only to be again renewed on the first opportunity.
Before the police can compel the owner or occupier of a house, let out in tenements to the
poorer classes, to register it as a common lodging house, a notice must be served upon the premises,
giving the owner or occupier a month to comply with the provisions of the notice; the
delay thus occasioned defeats the object of the act of parliament; for, before the expiration of
the month, the party leaves, and carries on elsewhere this dangerous and immoral practice.
The evils of overcrowding were recently made painfully evident at No. 51, Grey
Eagle Street. In a small room in this house, there were three cases of typhus fever in one
family, viz: a man, his wife, and child. The room, occupied by this family, was divided
unequally by a partition, which converted one part of it into a kind of cupboard. In this
cupboard, which was lighted and ventilated only by an opening into the other part of the room,
was a bed on which the man slept. The woman, and the child, who was about 10 years of age,
occupied a bed in the front part of the room. A few days after my visit, the man died. The
evils arising from the want of sufficient space, then became greatly aggravated, by the corpse
being kept in the same room with the other members of the family; and owing to the poverty
of the relatives, the dead body was retained in the room for eleven days, when a complaint of
the nuisance was made by the neighbours, and after a visit from the Inspector, the funeral took
place. Another case of the prolonged retention of a corpse, in an advanced stage of decomposition,
occurred in a court where several Irish families resided, and considerable difficulty was '
experienced in getting the corpse interred, owing to the desire of the relatives to "wake the body."
Every possible impediment was thrown in the way of the Inspector, (Mr. James), to prevent
him removing the body ; and it was only after a lapse of several hours, (during which he was
actively engaged in obtaining the necessaiy assistance,) that the body was taken to the
cemetery.*
*Since the reading of this Report, the Board has directed a communication to he addressed to the Secretary
of State, for the purpose of drawing the attention of the Privy Council to the fact of the improper retention of the
bodies of the dead (a fact which is notorious throughout the Metropolis, and has been productive, to say the least of
it, of much personal inconvenience to the living), in order that some provision may be made to afford a remedy. I
am not aware of any existing law authorizing the interference of Local Boards to inforce the interment of the dead.