Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of LondonSimon, John
History
Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London
Simon, John
Cemeteries -- England -- London; Mortality -- Statistics; Sanitation -- England -- London
[2] In addition to the ordinary powers--given, for instance, in the
Public Health or City Sewers Act, for abating accumulated nuisances
and for enforcing wholesome constructional arrangements; a principal
requirement of all bodies having jurisdiction for the public health
is, that there should be vested in them some authority, _enabling them
to regulate_, in the spirit of the Common Lodging House Act, _all
houses which are liable to be thronged by a dangerous excess of low
population_. Almost invariably such houses are of the class
technically known as ‘tenement-houses,’ i. e., houses divided into
several tenements or holdings; whereof each--though very often
consisting but of a single small room, receives its inmates without
any available restriction as to their sex or number, and without
regard to the accommodation requisite for cleanliness, decency, and
health. The inhabitants of such houses, especially where of the lower
order of Irish, constantly lapse into the most brutal filthiness of
habits, and live in almost incredible conditions of dirt,
over-crowding, and disease. See sections of the following Reports,
beginning severally at pages 44, 146, and 195. Powers for dealing with
these evils might be given to Local Boards of Health, most usefully, I
think, in some such form as the following: 1) that--in respect of any
house occupied by more than one family, if it be situate in any court,
alley, or other place having no carriage-way, and be not assessed to
the poor-rate at a higher rental than £...... _per annum_; or if in it
any occupied holding consist of only one room, provided the rent of
such room do not exceed the sum of ......shillings per week, or if in
it there reside, or within three months previous have resided, any
person receiving parochial relief, medically or otherwise; on the
certificate of a duly authorized medical officer, that any such house,
or part thereof, is habitually in a filthy condition, or that from
over-crowding or defective ventilation the health of its inmates is
endangered, or that there has prevailed in it undue sickness or
mortality of an epidemic or infectious kind; the Local Board may call
upon its owner to register it in a book kept for this purpose; and in
respect of all houses thus registered, the Local Board may make rules
for periodical washing, cleansing, and limewhiting, and for the
regular removal of all dust or refuse-matter, may fix the number of
tenements into which it shall be lawful to divide any such house, or
the total number of inmates who may at one time be received therein,
may require its better ventilation by the construction of additional
windows or louvres, and may from time to time make such other
regulations and orders as they shall judge necessary for the
maintenance of health and decency; and may recover from the owner or
lessee of any such house penalties for neglect of any legal
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