A few extra duties were cast upon them. Among them the duty of enforcing within their borough the bye-laws and regulations with respect to dairies and milk, slaughter-houses, and offensive businesses; and in some respects their powers were enlarged, the principal addition being the power to adopt and use the provisions of Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, within their borough. All preparations for the change were completed by the autumn of 1899; the new Municipal Councils were elected on the 4th of November, the forty-three Vestries and District Boards ceased to exist, and London entered upon a new stage of her career. Here, at the close of 1900, the Vestries and the District Boards of London came to their decreed end, and disappeared from the scene of London civic life. That end was not regretted by the general public, whose opinion may be gauged from the fact that the name "Vestry" had become almost synonymous with incapacity, mismanagement, neglect, sometimes even of graver transgressions, though in later years the Vestries did something towards removing from themselves that reproach. They certainly had done much useful work, and even at the outset of their existence were a great improvement upon their predecessors. They had found their parishes and districts forty-five years previously in the state described in the first and second chapters of this work--a chaos of filth, a slough of insanitation and deadly disease, and the great mass of the people living in misery indescribable--and the task before them was one which might have daunted the stoutest heart. In many ways they did their work well; local sewerage and house drainage were effectually carried out; the refuse of the great city was regularly removed; the paving, and lighting, and cleansing of the streets were greatly improved. But in many parts of London, and by many Vestries and District Boards, the larger, graver problems with which they were confronted were scarcely dealt with at all. Powers entrusted to them by Parliament were not used, vitally important duties imposed upon them by Parliament were ignored or neglected. Had this been pure incapacity it would have been deplorable, but upon many of the Vestries were men who either were themselves interested in continuing existing evils and abuses, or whose friends were, and so laws which should have removed or mitigated the evils were not administered. And the result was the non-prevention of diseases which led to deaths, and the continuance of miseries (consequent on disease) which might have been warded off, and the sowing of the seeds of evils of which we are still reaping the crop. As years went by the pressure of public opinion upon them became more insistent, and their administration improved, but even to the end many of them grievously failed to fulfil the responsibilities of their position.