"The Act is almost inoperative. The highly penal nature of this statute, which in the event of demolition gives no compensation to the owner whose property is destroyed, makes Courts of Justice extend every possible leniency to the owner. Moreover it does not contemplate any scheme for the reconstruction of the houses demolished, or other provision for population displaced...." And the Medical Officer of Health for St. James', Westminster, where no action was taken under it, wrote (1872-3):-- "It is scarcely necessary to say that such an Act could not be acted upon without the grossest injustice to the owners of property, and the infliction of the greatest hardship on the poor." But there was another view, much nearer justice, which was given expression to before the Select Committee in 1881. "An owner of property who allowed his property to fall into such a miserable state as to be unfit for human habitation is not a man that deserves the slightest consideration of any kind from Parliament--he ought to be treated rather as a criminal than an owner of property. To compensate him is a mistake entirely." And the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel said it was his opinion that-- "If the landlord leaves his house in a very bad state, and will not listen to any representations, he ought not to be paid by the public when he is creating a nuisance." The Act of 1868 having helped so little to a solution of the housing problem, and the matter being one of ever-increasing urgency, an effort was made to deal with it in 1875, when a Bill for facilitating the improvement of the working classes in large towns was introduced into Parliament by Sir R. A. Cross, and was carried. It often happened that in some of the worst slums, the houses were the property of several owners, and it was not therefore in the power of any one owner to make such alterations as were necessary for the public health. The Act[134] of 1875 contemplated-- "Dealing with whole areas, where the houses are so structurally defective as to be incapable of repair, and so ill-placed with reference to each other as to require, to bring them up to a proper sanitary standard, nothing short of demolition and reconstruction. Accordingly, in this case, the local authority, armed with compulsory powers, at once enters as a purchaser, and on completion of the purchase proceeds forthwith to a scheme of reconstruction."[135]