But with few exceptions, they resolutely fought shy of dealing with the crucial evil--the condition of the tenement-house population of the metropolis. "There is no doubt," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, in 1871, "from the abundant experience and records of the Sanitary Department of this and other Vestries, that houses let out in single rooms, and to several families, have endangered the life of people, have favoured the spread of contagion, and are a source of pauperism and degradation." The various Health Acts gave them power to deal with most of the prevalent nuisances. But no Act gave them such rapid and effective means of action, or so fixed upon the owner the responsibility and cost of keeping his houses which he let as tenement-houses in proper sanitary order, as did the Act of 1866 by its 35th Section. This Act had conferred power upon them to make effective bye-laws or regulations as regarded such houses; and in 1874 the Sanitary Law Amendment Act conferred further powers upon them. Regulations could now be made as to the paving and drainage of premises, the ventilation of rooms, the separation of the sexes, and to securing notices being given to the Medical Officer of Health, and precautions being taken in case of any dangerously infectious disease occurring in a registered house. By such regulations the notification of infectious disease occurring in tenement-houses could have been made compulsory, and such notification would have been of the very utmost value in enabling sanitary authorities to combat the ravages of infectious disease. The regulations struck at the root of the very worst and most prevalent evils in the homes of the people, and had they been enforced, would have been a charter of health to millions of the people. The Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea, in one of his reports, well enforced their importance. "When it is remembered that the whole of the labouring population occupies but part of the house in which their families live; that in many houses three or four families live together; and not infrequently each family occupies only a single room; and when it is considered that whenever necessary all such houses may be registered, it will at once be seen how important is this regulation."[141] These sections nevertheless remained absolutely a dead letter in nearly every one of the metropolitan districts, and even the newly constituted Local Government Board did not exercise its power of declaring them to be in force in any district. From a return compiled in 1874 it appears that:-- (_a_) In only seven parishes or districts[142] were regulations made and enforced; how imperfectly even in these is illustrated by Lambeth where, in 1873, 47 houses only had been registered--there being 29,000 in the parish, one half of which were probably let in lodgings. (_b_) In six districts regulations were made but no attempt made to enforce them.