"It has been long known to the Sanitary Committee that there has never been any efficient supervision of the drainage and other sanitary arrangements of houses in course of construction.... It is true that every builder has been required before constructing his private drains and connecting them with the public sewers, to send in a plan of his proposed drainage for the sanction of the Surveyor. But there has been no machinery by which builders could be compelled to carry out their private works in accordance with the plans submitted, and to ensure that the details of their works had been carried out in a workmanlike or efficient manner. The inspections of houses even recently built have shown that sanitary nuisances complained of have been largely due to scandalous neglect of duty on the part of those concerned in carrying out the drainage works, and that in most cases the plans sent in have not accorded with the arrangements finally adopted." Various, indeed, were matters connected with the public health which unexpectedly came cropping up; sometimes matters thought to have been disposed of but only partly so, sometimes, wholly new origins and ramifications of insanitation. Thus in 1886 the Medical Officer of Health for the south part of Poplar District drew special attention to a grievance long previously complained of and for many years endured. "A greater scandal cannot well be shown in matters vital to health than that in spite of abundant evidence of the magnitude of the evil, thousands and tens of thousands of families living in houses, the rates of which are payable by the landlords, may at any moment, without a particle of fault of their own, be suddenly denied one of the first necessaries of life--water--through the neglect and wilfulness of others." The main remedy open to the water companies to recover rates from defaulting non-resident owners of tenement-houses was the simple expedient of discontinuing the supply of water. This course was open to a double objection--first, tenants who had paid their rent were deprived of that for which they had constructively paid; and secondly, a tenement-house deprived of water might speedily become a focus of disease. "That disease and death are directly traceable to this want," wrote the Medical Officer of Health, "no one acquainted with sanitary work in London can doubt. Take this instance. Water cut off, drains stopped, opening up of ground and drains, removal of filth accumulations, horrid stench, diphtheria, death. "In Hanbury Place--having six houses--there was no water supply for twenty-six days, and families numbering each seven, nine, two of six, and others had to exist in May, 1885, with choked drains, yard flooded with sewage, and no water--and all because of non-payment of rates by the landlord." In 1887 Parliament happily dealt with this evil, and by an Act passed in that year--