It may be information valuable to a town surveyor, if before closing this chapter I draw attention to the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, sec. 3, which gives corporations power to convert any corporate land into sites for working men’s dwellings, although the corporation are not authorised to erect the dwellings thereon. [199] The term “officer of health,” as respects any urban sanitary district in England, means the medical officer of health appointed by the urban sanitary authority under the Public Health Act 1875 (42 & 43 Vic. c. 64, s. 3). [200] The town surveyor is usually employed for this work. [201] _Vide_ ‘Industrial Dwellings from a Sanitary point of View,’ by John Price, Resident Agent, Newcastle-on-Tyne Industrial Dwellings Company, read September 28th, at the Congress of the Institute, held at Newcastle-on-Tyne. CHAPTER XXV. DEFECTS IN DWELLING-HOUSES, &C. There are many defects in dwelling-houses with which it is the duty of the sanitary inspector to deal, such as the Bakehouse Regulations Act, offensive trades, nuisances rendering houses unfit for human habitation, &c., but I propose to give in this chapter, in addition to those with which I have already dealt, such subjects under this head as come within the duties of the town surveyor. The first which I propose to treat is that of the question of _Cellar Dwellings._--These are at all times objectionable even if the clauses of the Public Health Act 1875 be strictly carried out, and the surveyor should discourage them as much as possible. Nothing more can be said with reference to them than is contained in the provisions of the above Act, which are as follows:[202] “It shall not be lawful to let or occupy or suffer to be occupied separately as a dwelling, any cellar (including for the purposes of this Act in that expression any vault or underground room) built or rebuilt after the passing of this Act, or which is not lawfully so let or occupied at the time of the passing of this Act” (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 71). And with regard to existing cellar dwellings they are only to be let or occupied on the following conditions:-- “Unless the cellar is in every part thereof at least seven feet in height, measured from the floor to the ceiling thereof, and is at least three feet of its height above the surface of the street or ground adjoining or nearest to the same; and “Unless there is outside of and adjoining the cellar and extending along the entire frontage thereof, and upwards from six inches below the level of the floor thereof up to the surface of the said street or ground, an open area of at least two feet and six inches wide in every part; and “Unless the cellar is effectually drained by means of a drain, the uppermost part of which is one foot at least below the level of the floor thereof; and