In other parishes and districts the number registered and inspected was but a fraction of the houses which ought to have been registered. In Bow (in Poplar) where none were registered, the Medical Officer of Health wrote in 1891: "I should say 4,000 houses require registration." In St. Mary, Newington: "At least 80 per cent. of the houses are occupied by members of more than one family." But as yet none were registered. And this same Medical Officer of Health pointed out how in his parish--"The indisposition that has hitherto been shown on the part of the Vestry to put into force the bye-laws for houses let in lodgings has led to great license in house-farming and house-crowding." Where really put into operation the regulations had an excellent effect. Thus the District Board of St. Giles' said: "The advantage of these regulations has been very great." And in Paddington the Medical Officer of Health stated: "The work done ... has had an excellent effect." Of some streets where houses were registered (1897-8)--"The whitewashing and cleansing has without doubt had a good effect. The streets have been freer from infectious diseases than they have been for several years past." The advantages of the regulations in the administration of the health laws were time after time pointed out and insisted upon by many Medical Officers of Health. The Medical Officer of Health for Westminster, where nearly 1,000 houses were registered, wrote (1899):-- "The great advantage in legal procedure lies in the fact that a breach of them is a finable offence with a further daily penalty after written notice, and is not a nuisance subject to abatement within a certain time. "If the conditions imposed by the bye-laws are carried out, no doubt one of the best methods for preventing overcrowding is thus achieved." The advantage of this quicker procedure was manifest, for, under the other Public Health or Sanitary Acts, the whole process of dealing with, or getting a nuisance abated, took "a long time--a very long time," but the advantages did not appeal to people who did not want to use them. Thus there was a most grievous neglect of duty on the part of the great majority of the Vestries and District Boards, with the inevitable result of the most disastrous consequences to the working and poorer classes all over London. It must have appeared strange, in view of this glaring and scandalous neglect of duty by the Vestries in enforcing the regulations, that the London County Council as the Central Authority did not use the powers which they were supposed to possess of acting in the default of the local authorities, or of making representation to the Local Government Board of the neglect of those authorities.