The Sanitary Act, 1866 (29 & 30 Vict., c. 90) and the Sewage Utilization Acts of 1865 and 1867 (28 & 29 Vict. c. 75, and 30 & 31 Vict. c. 113) : with an introduction to and summary of the Sanitary Act, together with notes and indexes to each of the Acts / by J.B. Hutchins.

  • Hutchins, J. B. (James B.)
Date:
[1867]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Sanitary Act, 1866 (29 & 30 Vict., c. 90) and the Sewage Utilization Acts of 1865 and 1867 (28 & 29 Vict. c. 75, and 30 & 31 Vict. c. 113) : with an introduction to and summary of the Sanitary Act, together with notes and indexes to each of the Acts / by J.B. Hutchins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    18/76 (page 10)
    now given to Nuisance Authorities to deal with any house, or part of a house which is so overcrowded as to be dangerous or prejudicial to health ; with any factory, workshop, or work- place in an uncleanly state, or so HI-ventilated that any gases, vapours, dust, or other impurities, generated in the course of the work carried on therein, are not, as far as possible, rendered harmless; with any fire-place or furnace which does not, as far as practicable, consume its own smoke, and with any chimney (not being a chimney of a private house) which largely emits black smoke. This provision of the Act will doubtless cause beneficial changes to be made in the modus operandi of many trades which are now carried on under con- ditions seriously hurtful to those engaged in them. Part III. The first two Sections (Sees. 35 and 36) in this division of the Act relate to Lodging Houses, or rather to houses which do not come legally within the definition of Common Lodg- ing Houses, but which are let out to several families in small separate and distinct holdings, so that the renter of each of these holdings is looked upon as a separate tenant; and consequently each room in a large house, let iu this way, is looked upon and treated as a separate house.* This portion of the Act has been framed, doubtlessly, with the view of preventing the scandalous overcrowding, which to a very great extent exists throughout the country —in towns of the class described in the foot-note below, and in rural parts of the huddling together of farm labourers, some- what after the same style as cattle are put into trucks for * As bearing upon this qiiestion I quote the following extract from the last Eeport of the Medical OiScer of the Privy Council:— As a particular class of cases, in which both evils [house-accommodation had in quantity and had in quality'] are combined to one monstrous form of nuisance, I ought expressly to mention certain of the so-called ' tenement houses ' of the poor; especially those large but ill-circumstanced houses, once perhaps wealthily inhabited, but now pauperized, and often without a span of court-yard either front or back; where in each house perhaps a dozen or more rooms are separately let to a dozen or more families—each family with but a room to itself, and perhaps lodgers ; and where in each house the entire large number of occupants (which even in England may be little short of a hundred) will necessarily have the use of but a single staircase, and of a privy, which perhaps is placed iu the cellar.