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127
or re-building houses without sufficient water-closet accommodation
is made penal, and baths which are now common
were then being introduced. In fact, we have to see how
an Act which is really obsolete in its structure and the
sanitary requirements contemplated by it, is to be made to
tit in with the requirements and conditions of to-day.
It is extremely difficult to form any idea as to the
precise meaning of the words used in Section 39:— "That a
supply of water for domestic purposes shall not include a
supply of water for baths, &c., &c." The words are not,
That a supply of water for domestic purposes shall not be
used for baths, &c., &c.; but if the words used have any
meaning the Act appears to contemplate two or more
supplies, and it is difficult to understand clearly exactly
what is prohibited.
The interpretation which the Company appears to put
upon the Act, places the public at the mercy of the
Company, for there appears to be no power in the Act to
compel supply for any except for domestic purposes : while
to adopt a construction which admits that the Company
has been given a statutory right to prohibit the use of
baths, or even of fixed baths in dwelling houses supplied by
them, must startle medical officers and sanitary reformers.
There are, in my opinion, two ways of regarding the
39th Section; one way— and that favoured by the Company
—is to regard it as a definition of domestic purposes,
indirectly and negatively. That is to say, baths and bath
supplies wherever found, stable and coach-house supplies
wherever found, are excluded from domestic supplies, and
must be paid for in addition.