"We are now paying very dearly both in health and money for the errors of preceding generations in their having allowed houses to be packed closely together.... Several cases have recently occurred in this district of landlords erecting dwelling-houses in the back-yards of those houses which were formerly occupied by a single family. This is a serious evil and ought to be prevented. We have power to prevent the overcrowding of rooms, and we certainly ought to have power to prevent the cramming together of houses on sites of insufficient size for the healthy existence of the tenants." Even burial-grounds were not sacred, nor were public authorities even immaculate in this respect. Thus in St. Luke:-- "The Quakers' burial-ground by the side of Coleman Street is now (1876) in progress towards being covered with buildings, and a portion was taken by the London School Board for the erection of a school. In the process of excavation for the foundation, human remains were discovered." And the areas at the backs of houses were also being rapidly covered over. The Act of 1855 had provided that 100 superficial feet should be left open-- "But the exigencies of trade have led the Metropolitan Board of Works and the District Surveyors to permit the area on the ground storey to be covered over."[119] In fact, the insufficiency of the laws as regarded buildings intended for human habitation, and the mal-administration or non-administration of those laws which existed, resulted in the creation of evils which inevitably and most injuriously affected the health of the public, not merely at the time, but for many years to come. The Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles', in 1871, pointed out the necessity of a change of the law. "It is very much to be desired that the law gave more stringent powers to local authorities to prevent the re-erection of buildings upon the old sites, so that the new buildings might not become as unfavourable to health as the old ones.... Such a perpetuation of mischief ought not to be permitted, and the rights of landlords should be subordinated to the public good." The condition of existing, as apart from new, houses also stood in need of many changes of the law to effect their redemption. The necessity was forcibly portrayed by the Medical Officer of Health for St. Marylebone in 1870. He wrote:-- "Of all the obstacles that stand in the way of anything like effective sanitary operations, not only in St. Marylebone, but in nearly every other district of the metropolis, there are none so formidable, so apparently irremediable as the miserable house accommodation provided for the labouring classes. Year after year I am called upon to tell the same unvarying story of rotten floors, broken walls and ceilings, windows and roofs that let in the wind and the rain, chimneys that will not let out the smoke, and of these wretched tenements being crowded with honest, hard-working people, from the cellars to the attics."