Though something was being done as regarded the inspection of houses and the repair of sanitary defects, hardly any progress could be said to have been made for the improvement of the dwellings of the poor. The Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act (Torrens) of 1868 was to a small extent being made use of. In some parishes houses considered by the Vestry or District Board as unfit for human habitation had been closed, and were only allowed to be reopened upon proper repairs having been carried out. In other cases where no amount of repairs could put the house into habitable condition, the landlord was directed to pull down the buildings (without his receiving any compensation), and, in default, the Vestry could pull it down at his expense. The site remained unoccupied, until the owner or landlord used it again for building purposes, or sold it to some one else. In St. Giles' (1873-4) the District Board has been enabled under the Act to enforce "considerable improvements in and immediately adjoining the worst parts of St. Giles'." (Houses in yards and courts were demolished.) In St. Luke the total number of houses "pulled down or closed" amounted by the year 1875 to 104.[133] In Holborn the Board had been-- "Applying or threatening to apply the Act to houses that could be fairly subjected to it. Besides having 150 houses, chiefly belonging to one owner, put into a complete sanitary repair, it has been actually applied to 136 houses; 70 thoroughly repaired, 40 demolished, 26 to be rebuilt, and 10 to be closed." There were many difficulties in using the Act. Notice of houses being unfit had to be given to "owners." A certain case in Chelsea was mentioned where-- "There were freeholders, lessees, under-lessees, and sub-lessees, and their trustees and mortgagees, and besides there were the occupiers." But in the great majority of parishes or districts no steps were taken under the Act. The Act did not give any compensation to the owners of condemned property, as Parliament had declared by it that compensation should not be given to those who permitted their property to fall into such a state, whilst at the same time extracting the fullest benefit from it. To such a doctrine there was, of course, the strongest hostility by all those who held the opinion that a man might do as he liked with his own, and extract from it the uttermost farthing regardless of the infliction of disease and suffering and death upon those who were so unfortunate as to become his tenants, and reckless as to the injury his action was inflicting upon the community at large. And so:-- "The reluctance of the local authorities to take away a man's property was insuperable, and consequently no very great demolition took place." The Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras wrote (1876):--