Complaints were also made by some of the Medical Officers of Health that in attempts to enforce the law against "overcrowding" the magistrate leant very much to the landlord. This, too, might have acted as a discouragement to them. What, however, is certain is, that the Vestries and District Boards were not attempting to grapple with the most crucial questions of all--the overcrowding, and the housing. The Medical Officer of Health for Clerkenwell pointed this out, so far as his parish was concerned (1861):-- "The principal sanitary improvements during the last five years related almost exclusively to the drainage, whilst the overcrowding and impure state of the dwellings of the poor have been but little interfered with." The more serious blemish was pointed out by Dr. Hunter in his report of 1865 to the Medical Officer of the Privy Council on the subject of overcrowding, and the removal of persons from houses about to be destroyed:-- "There is no authority which can deal with London in these matters as a whole, and they are matters in which uniform treatment is quite necessary. The local authority which finds the whole of its district overcrowded, naturally hesitates before beginning action which may relieve one house only to overfill the next, and may reasonably think that such action, unless done thoroughly, not only through the district, but through the whole capital, might prove hurtful."[101] And his opinion is weighty. But the local authorities were very far from doing what they might have done to abate many of the insanitary evils connected therewith. Dr. William Rendell said[102]:-- "We have had till now but one Inspector of Nuisances--an unwilling man.... "This is not a question of a defect in the law. These bodies have the power of appointing Inspectors, but when Inspectors are appointed it brings of course a large amount of work in low property, and expense and trouble are incurred. Therefore the easiest way to avoid it is not to have Inspectors enough, so that the work may not be found out." In fact, the fuller the information on the subject is, the more clear it is that most of them did not want to move in the matter. The evidence of witnesses, not under Vestry control, examined before the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government in 1866, throws some light on this point. Mr. James Beale, himself a vestryman, said:-- "I have seen a great want both of intelligence and ability among vestrymen. "I should say you may divide Vestries into divisions--one-third, as a rule, are of the right class of men who ought to be returned, and two-thirds are not of the class who ought to represent the intelligence or the property of the districts from which they are sent. "The powers of Vestries are administered with too great a regard to economy. Efficiency is always sacrificed to economy. If an Act of Parliament requires them to do certain things, it is as a rule avoided."