View report page

It would also be necessary to obtain provisions for giving facilities to
local Boards to purchase, under compulsory powers, any property that is
required for the purposes of the Acts which they are empowered to execute.
The 47th section of the Sanitary Act, 1866, appears to give such power,
but it is so worded as not to be easily understood, and therefore not likely
to be enforced.
In the framing of the clauses of a new Sanitary Act relating to dwelling
houses it should be enacted that such structural alterations made in any
property held on lease, as may be ordered by any local board for the
purpose of rendering such property fit for habitation, shall not, if carried
out to the satisfaction of such authority, vitiate the lease. As the law now
stands I believe that any structural alterations made in property held on
lease, unless such are approved by the freeholder, will vitiate a lease.
Defective Ventilation of the Dwellings of the Poor.
The intimate relation between defective ventilation and the mortality
from tubercular diseases, convulsions in children, teething, atrophy, debility,
infantile diarrhoea, and insanity, is not sufficiently understood; and until the
public thoroughly understand that the above named diseases are caused by
the want of fresh air, sufficient attention will not be given to the danger
arising from the crowded localities in large towns, so that these nuisances
may be effectively dealt with.
Hitherto the attention of local boards has been principally directed
to the number of deaths from epidemic diseases, many of which are
supposed to be caused by filth and defective drainage; and hence the
formation of sewers and drains has been extensively carried out in the
Metropolis ; but the numerous deaths which are caused annually by consumption
and its allied diseases have not been duly considered. As the
local rates, however, are continually increasing for the relief of sickness
and the support of widows and orphans—the building of asylums for the
insane, and the providing of workhouse infirmaries for the debilitated
and prematurely old—it is probable that local boards will direct more
attention to the condition of the houses of the poor than they have
hitherto done.
The courts and.alleys in which are the residences of the poor have
been so frequently described that the public are now well acquainted with
them. These places have formed the stock topic of lectures, of declamatory
speeches, and of sensational articles in the periodical press, but the
meaningless generalities which are so freely indulged in do little or no
good; for neither the speakers nor the writers venture to suggest a
remedy. If talking would take down some of the defectively ventilated
houses and convert the sites into open spaces, the work would have
long since been accomplished, and we should not have to mourn the
annual loss of so many lives, and the annual increase of the poor rate.