The explanation of the inaction and hostility of the local authorities lay in the fact that the various measures prescribed by the Act interfered with private interests, and especially with interests which were largely represented on the Boards of Guardians. Among the members of those boards there was often "an antagonistic power" at work which prevented proper attention being paid to the sanitary condition of the localities of the poor. In many instances, owners of small houses and cottage property, to which class of dwellings the provisions of the Act more particularly applied, were themselves members of such boards, and when this was not the case, they exerted an influence not the less powerful because it was indirect. This interest often conspired to impede efficient sanitary measures.[38] Local interests also operated, the apprehension being that if active and really efficient measures were adopted the trade of the neighbourhood would suffer. In one instance--an instructive one--where the epidemic had extensively prevailed among the poor, its existence was denied, and house-visitation resisted, till, after considerable delay and loss of life, a number of shopkeepers were attacked by the disease, and _then_, all opposition ceased. The evidence of the unfitness of the local authorities charged with the administration of the Act for the duties imposed upon them was overwhelming. The unfortunate position was accentuated and intensified by the fact that the General Board of Health had no power either of compelling the local authorities to do their duty or of itself acting in default of their neglect; and the absence of this first essential of effective administration hampered and crippled its action. The Board summed up its experience of this great visitation of 1848-9:-- "The evidence shows that where combined sanitary arrangements have been carried into effect the outbreak of the pestilence has been sometimes averted; that where not prevented, its course has been gradually arrested. "That where material improvements have been made in the condition of the dwellings of the labouring classes, there has been an entire exemption from the disease, and where minor improvements were made, the attacks have been less severe and less extensive. "That with reference to the measure of prevention, the immunity from the disease has been in proportion to the extent to which those measures have been carried into effect systematically and promptly." By the end of the year the epidemic was practically over. And then the usual thing took place. It is described a few months later by Dr. Grainger, who wrote:--