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14
Your Medical Officer described the administration by the Corporation as
the Port Sanitary Authority, of its powers under the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, in relation to nuisances and infectious diseases, and the regulations
of the Local Government Board relating to Cholera, Yellow Fever and
Plague. A description was given of the methods adopted in carrying out
their duties, by the Medical Staff of Boarding Officers stationed at Gravesend.
It was brought out in evidence that, except in the case of infectious disease,
or under the regulations of the Local Government Board relating to Cholera,
Yellow Fever and Plague, your Medical Officer had no power to order vessels
to stop for the purpose of inspection. As a matter of actual practice, vessels
were ordinarily boarded while still under way.
Reference was also made to the arrangements in the early nineties, when
Cholera existed on the Continent, and in those ports from which Jewish
immigrants were arriving. At that time Masters of vessels bringing alien
immigrants furnished the Medical Officer of Health with a list of such aliens
and the addresses to which they were going on landing. This arrangement,
so far as it enabled the Port Sanitary Authority and the Local Sanitary
Authorities ashore to follow up such aliens, in view of possible cases of Cholera,
was only partially successful, owing to the absence of complete control by the
Sanitary Authorities. It was pointed out that, although the Port Sanitary
Authority possessed no power under the Public Health Act to compel a vessel
to stop, yet a power of entry existed under the Public Health Act if there
were reason to suspect a nuisance on board.
Your Medical Officer described the conditions he had personally found on
boarding vessels bringing alien immigrants, such conditions being practically
those previously described in this Report, and the filthy condition in which
at that time many Aliens arrived.
Allusion was made to Section 10 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,
which says that the Sanitary Authority shall have the right " to enter from
" time to time any premises (a) for the purpose of examining as to the existence
" of a nuisance thereon," and it was shown that a nuisance under Section 2 might
be defined as " a house or part of a house, so overcrowded as to be injurious or
" dangerous to the health of the inmates, or, is not kept in a clean state or free
"from effluvium from any drain, privy, or earth closets." Section 110 states
that " any vessel lying in any river or other water within district of a Sanitary
" Authority shall (subject to the provisions with respect to the Port Sanitary
" Authority of the Port of London) be subject to the jurisdiction of that
" Authority, as if it were a house within such district," and it was asked whether
the words " lying in any water" applied to a ship passing by. It was
pointed out that, on this point, some uncertainty arose, and that the power
of the Port Sanitary Authority in dealing with the undoubted nuisance which
existed on vessels carrying aliens was considerably weakened by the
uncertainty attaching to the terms of this section, because, as soon as the