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17
In neither of the Schemes as prepared by the Home Secretary, or by
the Board of Works, has any provision been made for the ventilation of
the rooms, nor for the size of the windows in the rooms, nor for the light
and ventilation of the staircases and passages; and there is no prohibition
against the building of cellars. Cellars under these buildings may not only
become nuisances, but they may be rendered dangerous from the storeage of
inflammable materials.
Suggestions for the Amendment of the Nuisances' Removal Act.
In any Bill for the Amendment of the Nuisances' Removal Act, which
may be laid before the Houses of Parliament, it would be desirable to insert
clauses to the following effect:
1.—That the clauses of the New Act should be set forth in full length,
and should not contain references to former Acts.
2.—That a minimum penalty, say the eighth of the maximum penalty,
should be fixed by the Act.
3.—That when a nuisance in one District affects injuriously the inhabitants
of another District, the local authority for the District so affected
should be empowered to take proceedings against the parties by whose act,
default, permission or sufferance, the nuisance arises.
4.—That when Articles of Food, unfit for the use of man, have been
brought into a District, the Medical Officer of Health, or the Inspector for
that District, may seize the same ; although they may have been removed
into another District.
5.—That a definition of overcrowding should be given in the Act.
6.—That the Works ordered by a Magistrate shall be done to the
satisfaction of the Medical Officer of Health.
7.—That to obtain uniformity of action, the word nuisance, in addition
to the nuisances enumerated in section 8 of the Nuisances' Removal Act,
1855, and in section 19 of the Sanitary Act, 1866, shall include—
1.—Any dead body retained in a room, used as a living or sleeping
room longer than four days, or any body in a state of decomposition,
or the body of any person who shall have died from an
infectious disease.*
* The prolonged retention of a dead body in a living room is of frequent occurrence in this
District, and is a very serious evil; but it might be mitigated if it were made compulsory
upon every local authority to provide a mortuary.