Some of the Vestries stated that they could equally well attain the same results under the powers of the Nuisances Removal Acts; but that was not the fact, for there were many and considerable advantages in this form of procedure over the procedure prescribed in other Acts relating to health and sanitation. Indeed, the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham declared (in 1884) that-- "This section gave almost all the legal power that could be wished for to place the dwellings of the poor in a proper sanitary condition." And in the following year he wrote:-- "It will therefore in future be the fault of the Sanitary Authority if the dwellings of the poor are not kept as they should be." The Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell, discussing the general aspect of the matter, wrote (1884):-- "I cannot help remarking on the feebleness which constantly spoils the best intentioned sanitary legislation, and which is conspicuous in the enactments relating to houses let in lodgings. "The Local Government Board have declared that certain enactments are in force, but they cannot compel the Vestries to frame any regulations of their own, nor even can they compel Vestries to carry out and enforce regulations which the Vestries have framed and the Board have sanctioned. "Now I am one of those who think that by the judicious regulation of lodging-houses of certain kinds, and in certain localities, very much good might be effected, and much advantage would accrue both to the lodgers and to the public. But it is clear that it ought never to have been left to individual Vestries in a place like London, to adopt or not to adopt, the enactments referred to, simply according to their pleasure, still more that they should never have been allowed to frame inconsistent orders or regulations.... "The opportunity (of the Act of 1874) might have been seized, not for giving an empty power to the Local Government Board, but for requiring the Metropolitan Board of Works to frame suitable regulations for the whole of the metropolis, which the Vestries might have been required to enforce as they are required to enforce other provisions of the Sanitary Acts." A similar opinion was expressed by the District Board of St. Olave, Southwark, which, after stating that it had been one of the first to make regulations, it had been found unnecessary or impracticable to enforce them, went on to say:-- "The fact of the enactment having been practically inoperative throughout the metropolis, ... it was considered that it would be unjust to enforce stringent regulations in the district, while in other parts of the metropolis regulations might differ in principle, and be neglected in practice: and what the Board wanted to see was a system of sanitary regulations which should be strictly uniform throughout the metropolis, and in which there should be no option on the part of local authorities of enforcing or neglecting."