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authority to make proper offers of compensation: and for the protection of the interests
of the inhabitants of insanitary houses and unhealthy areas, the Act has empowered
Courts of summary jurisdiction, when making orders for the closing of houses unfit for
human habitation, to authorize the payment to the tenants of a reasonable allowance on
account of their expenses in removal, which will be recoverable from the owners of the
houses; while it has also enabled the local authorities to make similar payments to the
tenants of houses who are required to give up possession when the houses are to be
pulled down for the purposes of improvement schemes.
The above are some of the most important of the very numerous practical amendments
of the law which have been made by Mr. Ritchie's Act, and which have been
carefully designed with a view of strengthening the hands of the local authorities and
infusing new life into enactments which have from one cause or another been allowed
to remain for many years a dead letter. In most parts of the country the law on this
subject is now for the first time readily accessible to the public, and the Act has placed
it in the power of every sanitary authority and County Council in the country at a
comparatively small cost to do something substantial towards improving the sanitary
condition of the houses of the labouring classes. Experience has shown that in districts
where the law relating to insanitary dwellings is properly enforced by a local authority,
the resulting benefits are by no means confined to the individual cases in which
proceedings are taken. The knowledge that the law is being enforced operates as a
strong inducement to the owners of adjoining properties to carry out repairs and
improvements which would not otherwise be undertaken. It is from this point of view
that the provisions of the recent Act, which have so greatly facilitated the taking of
proceedings against individual owners of insanitary dwellings, are especially valuable.
ADVERTISEMENTS RATINGS ACT, 1890.
By this Act advertising stations are made liable to assessment, the owner of the
station who permits it to be used and receives the rent for its use as such being the
proper person to be rated.
FINANCES.
The Abstract of the Vestry's Accounts for the past year appear in an improved
form in this Report. Though the important changes effected in the staff of the
Accountant's office will be recorded in next year's Report, having occurred after
"Lady-day," 1891, it will not be out of- place here to refer to the appointment of the
Vestry's new Accountant, Mr. E. A. R. Adams, as it is due to his industry that the
Accounts are now published in their new form. The Vestry was fortunate in securing
the services of an official who had been trained in the offices of the Sheffield
Corporation whose accounts are admittedly kept on the best system and have served
as a model for many other authorities. It is this system which Mr. Adams has applied
to the publication of the present Accounts, and on which he is arranging to keep the
books of the Vestry. The system consists in keeping all books by double entry, so that