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ADULTERATIONS

IN THE UNITED being punished by having their goods sent back to the shipping point.

STATES, AND HOW THEY ARE MET. HOW AMERICAN PLUMBING LAWS ARE CARRIED OUT.

(FROM OUR AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT.)

In all of the States, so far as I know, which pretend to legislate at all on this subject, the power to enforce the laws is placed in the hands of the boards of health. The United States Legislature, or the State Senates, make the laws; and it is the duty of the various health boards in the various cities to see that they are properly carried out.

The New York law went into effect three years ago to-day. The State Board of Health, as soon after this as possible, began to prosecute certain retail dealers in groceries for violating provisions in the Act; and this was merely the beginning of an active campaign against injurious and dishonest adulterations.

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In some of the States special legislation has been accomplished concerning the adulteration of milk. The Rhode Island law prohibits the sale, or the exchanging, of adulterated milk. All milk must contain 2 per cent. of milk fats, unless the dealer is willing to mark distinctly upon each can the words skimmed milk: such milk is only to be sold out of a can so marked. If milk be shown upon analysis to contain more than 88 per cent. of watery fluids, or to contain less than 12 per cent. of milk solids, it is to be considered adulterated. A first conviction under this law results in a fine of 20 dols., and, for every subsequent conviction, a fine of 20 dols. is imposed, with imprisonment for ten days. Acting under the New York law, experts made a thorough examination of the dairy products of that State, and the adjoining commonwealths of Connecticut and New Jersey. It was found that the poorest milk sold was taken from the healthiest cows-milk which contained only 2.5 per cent. of solids and 88.5 per cent. of watery fluids. Skimming was considered to be very generally followed, houses having been erected for that special purpose. These experts discovered that butter was commonly adulterated with oleomargarine, lard, and cotton-seed oil; and, although these are not necessarily harmful, they have been condemned as fraudulent, as their specific gravity is lower than that of pure butter. In 1881, 800,000 lbs. of 'lard cheese' were manufactured in New York and sold for genuine cheese, which it closely resembles.

To give a fair idea of how these laws are enforced, I will summarise here, very briefly, some of the examinations and prosecutions carried on by the New York Board of Health. Teas were found to be mixed with mineral substances, and were, therefore, condemned under the section of the State Law which prohibits their sale if coloured, or coated, or polished, or powdered, whereby damage is concealed, or made to appear better than they really are, or of greater value.' Such action in a commercial city of the importance of New York is of the vastest moment, and it arrests all unsound In Massachusetts the State Board of Health is imported goods, as soon as they reach this country, vigorously prosecuting milk adulterators. The wholebefore they are scattered through the southern and sale druggists have also suffered at the hands of this western States, where laws are less strict, and where, | Board for selling drugs with a lower standard than therefore, the harm done by such goods would go that fixed by the Pharmacopoeia.' Several firms were the more unchecked. Teas I speak of especially lately prosecuted in court, and escaped only by some here as they are shipped to America by English legal technicalities. Let us hope, however, that they dealers, and palmed off on our unsuspecting poor, were sufficiently scared not to attempt fraudulent who are captivated by the low price at which they processes a second time. The New Jersey Board is are sold. likewise engaged, and has its analysts busily at work testing samples of food, milk, and drugs. Probably the laws against the adulterations of liquors are those least regarded in the United States. The following substances are condemned:-Cocculus indicus, vitriol, grains of paradise, opium, alum, capsicum, copperas, laurel water, logwood, Brazil wood, cochineal, sugar of lead, and other substances 'not necessary ingredients in the manufacture thereof. The punishment is heavy, yet we rarely hear of its being carried out, and seldom read of prosecutions under this law. One or more of these injurious substances enter more or less into almost all of our liquors.

But have any practical results followed these examinations in New York? The continuation of the summary will, I think, answer this question satisfactorily.

Two thousand packages of Pingsuey teas were lately seized by the Custom House officials, and soon after this 270 additional packages were seized and reshipped to London. These were intended for shipment to the coal regions of Pennsylvania. During the first ten months after the passage of the New York law, the port of New York rejected about 90,000 lbs. of drugs, and to present date has rejected over 900,000 lbs. of adulterated drugs and medicines.

Samples of wheaten flour and bread were found to be adulterated with alum, which, when mixed with partially decomposed bread, makes it look whiter. Vinegars were found to be of an inferior grade, but free from harmful adulterations. Spices were largely mixed with other substances, though no poisonous adulterations have been discovered. Yellow candy is especially out of favour with the board, as is no more than natural when it is considered that chromate of lead is an important constituent. In medicines, quinine pills are found to be below the standard fixed by the law. Dealers in most of these articles are being tried to-day for breaking the law of the land; and importers are

The inspectors of meats point out the danger arising from decomposition, and the consequent presence of trichina and other parasites. Our housewives know, however, that thorough cooking is the remedy for this evil, and that meat subjected to a temperature of 160° may be eaten with perfect safety. It must be confessed that the system of meat inspection in our large cities is unsatisfactory, as it provides for the examination of the article only after its arrival at the market. The animal should be examined before the killing, as disease is often manifest before death. A great deal of expense would thus be saved, to say nothing of the advantage accruing to health.

It must always be remembered that adulterators are

to be prosecuted-not necessarily for selling a harmful article, for their goods are frequently, generally indeed, quite harmless-but for practising fraud. This is the line taken by our Boards of Health. Oleomargarine, for example, has been proved to be pure, and its manufacture goes unchecked; but when oleomargarine is sold for butter, a fraud ensues, and the public suffers. The American people, as a mass, hate dishonesty, and will support all legitimate efforts to suppress it.

PLUMBING LAWS.

The Boston plumbing law seems to be regarded as a dead letter, and to remedy this state of affairs, efforts are being made to transfer its enforcement from the Building Department to the Board of Health. Without meaning to cast any reflections upon the Building Department, this must be conceded as a wise movement, for the Bcard of Health is obviously the proper authority in such matters. My next letter, I doubt not, will convey to the readers of the SANITARY RECORD the practical results flowing from this transfer if it is accomplished, as I think it will be.

Baltimore has joined her sister cities in putting forth stringent plumbing laws. The Inspector of Plumbing appointed under the Act is a man who understands his business, and in whom the plumbers have confidence. These latter have fallen into the new order of things, and I have not heard of any arrests. In this enlightened age the great mass of plumbers are very willing to support all proper legislation, for they recognise that it brings with it its own reward in the shape of the increased confidence of the public. It is the plumbers, indeed, who are generally the first to move for plumbing regulations. The Baltimore law is deficient in one particular. Although registration at the Health Department is required, there are no provisions for examination of candidates. The Health Commissioner is acting as well as he can under such a limitation, and all candidates are pressed for assurance that they will comply with the laws.

Reports come from San Francisco that the plumbing regulations there enacted are being carried out to the full letter. Cases are being tried in Court for failure to register, and the Supreme Court has been appealed to in one instance by a man who used common galvanised pipes for soil-pipes, without traps or means of ventilation.

MR. JAMES B. PETTER, of Yeovil, has issued a new catalogue of the Nautilus Grates, containing some new designs and clearly showing how these grates may be fixed in any fireplace.

FISH FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. One of the results of the late Fisheries Exhibition has been the pushing of a new system of co-operation among working men, whereby they can, with the aid of their employers, obtain good wholesome fish for dinner at wholesale prices. The plan was introduced into Darwen some time ago, and has been lately tried at Messrs. Pilkington Bros. & Co.'s Park Place and Audley Range Mills at Blackburn. The hands were able to obtain skate, cod, fluke, and haddock at an average cost of 2 d. per lb., and halibut and turbot at 6d. It is supplied by Mr. R. Mills, of Grimsby. The trial proved so satisfactory that a second consignment of 4 cwt. has been obtained. There are about 450 workpeople employed at the mills. The misters permit them to use the mill for the purpose of distributing the fish, and help beside in other ways.

CHOLERA.-HOW TO PREVENT IT.*

By SIR ROBERT RAWLINSON.

I HAVE lived through the prevalence of cholera in England in the years 1832, 1849, 1853, 1865, and in the Crimea 1855. Having visited and officially inspected seats of cholera at home and abroad, having also read up the literature of cholera and considered some of the theories advanced as to the causes of the disease, I wish at the outset to say that I have no theory of my own, and I fail to recognise in any thecry sufficient fact to induce me to believe in speculations not based on established principles. Many of the reputed causes of cholera are ever present in crowded cities, towns, and villages--such as polluted subsoils, polluted water, putrid or semiputrid meat, stale fish, unripe fruit, and intoxicating drinks; there are also foul cesspools, filthy and overcrowded tenements, and unspeakably dirty peoplebut no cholera.

When cholera rages as an epidemic it is in a sense arbitrary in only covering acres capable of being defined, and not spreading broadcast over continents. It, however, strikes crowded seaports, and travels along lines of greatest human intercourse; low sites seem to favour it, but elevation does not exclude it, as both yellow fever and cholera have prevailed occasionally at elevations up to 4,000 feet. Stratification is not answerable for cholera, as, if there are human beings living in sufficient numbers on granite, cholera may rage with as great virulence as on the tertiaries. The first and prime element in a cholera epidemic is necessarily human life, which to generate the disease in its greatest intensity must be massed on swampy or low undrained sites, having been long occupied, unceasingly fouled, and densely crowded. Seaports, and the banks of rivers, may thus be said to breed cholera, but sewer and drain these sites, remove foul privies and cesspools, regulate the tenements, and at short intervals cleanse, ventilate, and limewash the slums, and cholera, if introduced, will not spread. Since the year 1848, the date of the first Public Health Act, very many millions sterling have been expended on main-sewering nd house-draining, on establishing waterworks, and on streets improvements. I have had something to do with the movement, and must plead guilty to some of this expenditure. I have no reason to repudiate this class of works, but I do wish to exalt something much simpler and cheaper-namely, systematic and thorough scavenging, as, unless this is established and attended to, the sanitary engineers will to a considerable extent have worked in vain. The engineers must so sewer as to enable the entire abolition of cesspools and deposits to take place; to bring in an abundant and pure supply of water to be at constant service, and be taken by service-pipe and tap within the walls of every occupied house and single-room tenement. This, and this only deserves the name of a modern domestic water supply. There must also be closet accommodation and drains to remove soil and waste water. Do all this to the greatest perfection, and then establish and maintain unceasing scavenging, as on the full and proper execution of surface scavenging will depend the crowning results of modern sanitary measures. There must be no blackmail levying by dust-carts, nor sulking neglect if their tribute is not freely paid. There must be a water-van brigade, every water-van being specially Reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette, July 3, 1884.

1

THE

SANITARY RECORD.

JULY 15, 1884.

The Editor will be glad to receive, with a view to publication, announcements of meetings, reports of proceedings, and abstracts or originals of papers read before the members of any sanitary or kindred association.

THE NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS

DISEASES.

fitted to flush sewers and drains as required. The absolute and sole control of the waterworks should be in the hands of the municipality, so that water at prime cost may be used without stint for all sanitary purposes, as by hose and jet to cleanse courts, yards, and passages, pavements and footwalks-equal to that effected now and then by a thunder-shower-this will be the ultimate aim of scavenging. All that water can remove must be washed away; all matter_liable_ to become putrid must be consumed by fire. There must be no longer huge heaps of refuse stored and sorted to enable portions to be sold as manure, every pound sterling obtained for such manure having cost two pounds sterling or upwards to bring it to any available market. In Liverpool, Dublin, and some other seaport towns this refuse either is or will be disposed of by hopper-barges into the sea: there can be no true economy in retaining refuse liable to become offensive in the midst of populations waiting for a market. If these preceding remarks do not indicate in some degree what may be done to prevent a spread of cholera the writer will have missed his mark and have written foolishly. In anticipation of cholera on the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, temporary shed hospitals-roomy and airy-may be erected in open field spaces; water-tanks on wheels-street water-vans, in fact-to take fresh water, may be provided; heaps of foul refuse may be covered over with quicklime, if near human dwellings, as to stir up such refuse to remove it under a blazing sun will only be like poking up a slumbering set of inflam-imply an immediate reduction of the death-rate from mable combustibles. Cleanse and wash crowded courts and alleys; cleanse, ventilate, and lime-wash (by force if necessary) all crowded tenements, establish house-to-house inspection, insist on instant removal of the sick to hospitals, compel burial of the dead at short intervals, and disinfect clothing and bedding. If there are no means for public washing and disinfecting let such be established, as portable disinfecting apparatus is an easy thing to purchase. This work should be done carefully and gratuitously for the poor, when they will aid the local authorities. Let the poor be spoken to by ministers of religion of all denominations, let the measures taken to cleanse and disinfect be explained by popular speakers, so that local rioting and hospital wrecking may be avoided. Teach by precept and example, and prejudice, if not removed, will be greatly weakened.

It may be stated that ships in seaport towns should not be used as temporary cholera hospitals, nor old buildings of any sort, such as several storied disused warehouses; but put up large and airy temporary shed hospitals, having abundant ridge ventilation, guard the patients from direct draughts of air, clothe in bed warmly, and diet simply, water or milk being boiled. As a final warning, I say, for the present, leave cesspools alone that is, don't disturb them with the idea of lessening the evil, but as far as possible cut them off from house connections and 'disinfect them.

Paris and the various Continental cities, with their countless cesspools, will be wise to let their 'sleeping dogs'-the dormant cesspools-alone at present, as disturbance will only add fuel to active fire. Their reliance must be on removal to temporary hospitals in the country, and surface cleansing, fumigating, lime-washing, and ventilation. In India the scavenger and the police officer are the right hand of the medical officer. The scavengers cleanse and burn all burnable refuse, the police officer guards the supplies of water.

IT has come to be almost a commonplace of sanitary literature to read that the question of the notification of infectious disease has entered upon a new phase— the said new phase usually being a declaration by some one or another person or committee supposed to speak with authority, that notification is, or is not, desirable and necessary for the protection of the public health. It is true that the crude notions that were at one time extant about notification and its uses are getting gradually discredited; and it has come now to be generally admitted that the mere sending in of a number of half-crown certificates to the local sanitary authority does not necessarily

zymotic diseases. Notification is, in fact, only one precaution out of a large number of others, both dependent and independent of it, that need to be taken if infectious outbreaks are to be crushed in their infancy. Sanitarians of the more superficial order demand the compulsory notification of zymotic diseases as though it were an unfailing panacea for and preventative of epidemics. But the mere piling up of statistics is of no avail against the onward march of disease; and it is hardly worth while to ask for information unless it can be put to some useful purpose. As a complement to notification, powers of forcible entry by the sanitary officials and wider powers of removal to hospital are apparently needed if the fullest use is to be made of the information thus gained; and it is not difficult to foresee that this would involve very strained relations between the health officer and the medical attendant, as well as between the sanitary authority and the householder.

We have set out these considerations, certainly not from any antagonism to the principle of compulsory notification, of which, ever since the establishment of this journal, we have been consistent advocates, but because it has appeared to us that in the recent discussions on the subject notification has been regarded too much from the theoretical rather than from the practical view-point. Even in Sir Lyon Playfair's excellent remarks at the inauguration of the juries of the International Health Exhibition, 'disease registration' was spoken of in terms that seemed to invest with a wholly undue importance the weekly sheets of infectious sickness. It is precisely in proportion to the action which is taken upon these indications of disease that the success or failure of such a system rests. Death-rates are the only tests at present available of the efficacy of sanitary action, and probably our readers will need no caution that rigid conclusions cannot properly be drawn from deathrates.

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Pending the Committee of Inquiry or Royal Commission that has been called for as to the working of the notification of infectious diseases in those towns where it is compulsory under local Acts, it has appeared to us useful to attempt as far as possible the testing of the principle in question by the statistical method-a method admittedly imperfect, but still the only one at present open to us. With this view, we have entered into correspondence with the health officers of the thirty-eight towns in which notification is compulsory, and have invited their cooperation in sending us each month a tabulated statement of the notified cases and deaths from certain specified diseases which have been registered in their boroughs. Of the results of this appeal we shall speak further on; but meanwhile it may be convenient to give the names of the thirtyeight towns which were more or less in the mouth of every speaker at the two separate discussions which took place on the subject last month in the Conference Room of the International Health Exhibition. The towns are :

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ever yet obtained a complete set of facts unless he had at his back the enforcement of a penalty for non-compliance; and the SANITARY RECORD is not yet in these relations with medical officers of health, It will be seen from the list given above that a number of the towns have only recently obtained powers for compulsory notification; and there is reason to believe that in some, at least, of these, the system has not yet got into working order. In others, again, particularly in watering-places, a mistaken notion prevails that the facts known to the sanitary department should be kept as secret as possible, with the view of preventing any panic.' We cannot now stop to argue against this excessively narrowminded view of the objects and purposes of notification; we only mention it as a factor in the imperfecIt is tion of the information vouchsafed to us. satisfactory to be able to announce, however, that practically all the health officers who are trusted by their local authorities, and are untrammelled by useless fetters forged by sanitary committees, have responded cordially to our request, several of them speaking in warm terms of the usefulness of our proposed tables. As it is thought better to start with the figures for the beginning of a new 1879 half year, rather than with those for the fag end of the first half, we shall not this month treat statistically the figures with which we have been 1882 favoured, but shall content ourselves with the 1879 merest outline of the general outcome of the 1878 1880 returns.

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Hartlepool Heywood In the Diary for 1884 of the SANITARY and MEDICAL RECORDS, an elaborate table was given showing the various systems of notification in force in each of these towns; and this table has served as the text for many of the recent references to the question. The Diary has been for some time out of print; and it would take up too much space to reprint the table in these columns. But it may be stated generally in all the thirty-eight towns but two, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, the occupier is bound to give notice to the sanitary authority in case no medical man is in attendance. In six towns he is exempted from notification if there is a medical man in attendance, but in thirty he has to notify in any event. At only one town-Greenock-is the doctor exempted from notifying cases. Notification by the medical attendant has to be made to the medical officer of health in twenty-three towns, and to the sanitary authority in eleven towns. The three towns that have adopted the method of the medical attendant handing a certificate of the nature of the disease to the occupier, who is responsible for its transmission to the sanitary authority, are Bradford, Norwich, and Nottingham. At Aberdeen and Edinburgh the medical attendant has the entire responsibility for giving the needful notification. The whole of the twelve more recent Acts (those passed in the sessions of 1882 and 1883) have been passed on the model adopted by the Select Committee of 1882, presided over by Mr. SclaterBooth.

It was of course too much to hope that the officials of every one of these thirty-eight places would respond to our invitation to forward us particulars of their infectious sickness. No compiler

As a rule, measles is not included amongst the diseases to be notified. Judging, however, from the death returns, there appears to be more of it about than might be expected. Accrington had 4 deaths last month, Bolton 4, Burnley 7, Dundee 17, Oldham 24, Salford 6, and Warrington 10. At Edinburgh cases of measles are notified to the Medical Officer of Health, and here 131 cases were so reported during the month of June, though only two deaths were registered. At Reading also measles is notified, sixteen cases being recognised last month.

Whooping-cough again is usually not included in notification returns, but it is notified at Aberdeen, where 108 cases (with three deaths) were reported last month; 36 deaths from this disease also occurred at Edinburgh.

The effects of the recent hot weather in the mortality from diarrhea had apparently not yet manifested themselves, for at none of the towns were the deaths unusually numerous.

Of the more serious zymotic diseases, scarlatina appears to be unduly prevalent, especially in Lancashire. At Aberdeen 19 cases were notified in June; at Bolton, 45 cases; at Bradford, Yorks, there were 31 cases and 3 deaths; at Burnley, 12 cases and 2 deaths; at Derby, 22 cases; at Dundee, 15 cases; at Edinburgh, 86 cases and 2 deaths; at Huddersfield, I cases; at Newcastle, 44 cases in a fortnight; at Oldham, 17 cases and 5 deaths; at Preston, 23 cases and 3 deaths; at Reading, 16 cases; and at Salford, 68 cases and 4 deaths.

Diphtheria was chiefly prevalent at Aberdeen, where 8 cases occurred with 5 deaths; Dundee, 5 cases and 2 deaths; and Edinburgh, 19 cases and 3 deaths.

Enteric fever was disproportionately present at Bradford, 6 cases and 4 deaths; Burnley, 4 cases and 2 deaths; Dundee, 10 cases and 2 deaths; Edinburgh, 46 cases and 4 deaths; Oldham, 8

cases; Preston, 8 cases; Salford, 15 cases and 6 deaths.

Typhus fever appears in the returns of Aberdeen, 2 cases; Bradford, I case and I death; Burnley, i case; Dundee, I death; Edinburgh, 4 cases; Jarrow, 2 cases and I death; and Salford, 2 cases and i death.

THE LEGAL ASPECT OF CREMATION. A FEW months ago the advocates of introducing the practice of cremation into this country had their hopes raised by the ruling of Mr. Justice Stephen, in the case of Dr. Price, that cremation, as a mode of sepulture, is not itself illegal, but that in order to make it a crime it must be conducted in such a manner as to offend against public decency or against some of the positive requirements of the law. The decision was followed by the introduction into the House of Commons of a Bill for regulating the practice and preventing its abuse; but many members of Parliament chose to regard it as a Bill for legalising a practice which they disliked (forgetting that it was already decided to be legal), and the Bill was defeated. Many persons, both supporters and opponents of the practice, considered that the rejection of the Bill left cremation without any legal regulations or restrictions; but the law courts have recently shown that this is not so.

During the last spring assizes two women, named Stephenson, were convicted before Mr. Justice Hawkins at Leeds, on a charge of preventing a coroner's inquest by burning the body on which it was to have been held. Their case came the other day under the consideration of the Court for Criminal Appeal, and that court unanimously held the conviction to be right. The judges ruled that 'it is an indictable misdemeanour at common law to prevent a coroner from holding an inquest where the coroner has jurisdiction to hold it; and that, if he has information given to him upon which he might reasonably determine to hold an inquest, even though that information were not well-founded, it was sufficient to give him jurisdiction. The object of holding an inquest is to ascertain what was the cause of death, and how the deceased came by his death; and if persons, having possession of a dead body upon which there are reasonable grounds for the coroner to hold an inquest, were to be at liberty to destroy it, and so prevent the inquest, the consequences would be most formidable, and it would undoubtedly tend to give impunity to murder by destroying those traces by which alone the murder could be detected.' Upon the above grounds the conviction was upheld, and it may now be taken as settled that it is illegal to burn or otherwise make away with a corpse, in cases where an inquest ought to be held or has been ordered. In other cases, if the burning is conducted in such a manner as not to cause a nuisance or offend against public decency, there is no rule of law to prevent this mode of disposing of a corpse being adopted. Those who choose to adopt it must, however, take upon themselves the risk of doing so. As the practice is not regulated by statute, but merely by the unwritten rules of the common law, it is difficult to know beforehand what may or may not be done. A great deal of popular prejudice on the subject undoubtedly exists; and those who conducted a cremation might not improbably find themselves in the position of having to answer a charge of misdemeanour. Whether they

would be convicted would depend not only on the circumstances of the case, but on the temper of the jury, which upon such a question might happen to be extremely unreasonable. Whichever way the verdict were given it would probably not be disturbed, and at present a man who, with the best possible motives, conducted a cremation, might find himself branded with a conviction as a criminal.

The result of the legal decisions which have been given, and which commend themselves to common sense, coupled with the illogical refusal of the House of Commons to touch the question at all, is that cremation is not prohibited by our law, but in this country it is not safe for anyone to attempt to carry it out.

DISUSED BURIAL GROUNDS AS BUILDING SITES.

A DECISION which was given recently before Mr. Hannay, one of the Metropolitan police magistrates, seems likely to unsettle the law as to what is a proper site for building. The decision was given on the hearing of certain summonses which were taken out against a builder named Chambers, in order to prevent his erecting buildings on a plot of ground which was formerly known as the Peel Grove burial ground. The ground was laid out many years ago by its then owner as a burial ground under the name of the North East London Cemetery, but appears never to have been consecrated. It was, however, very extensively used, and during the eleven years previous to the year 1855, when it was closed by an order in Council, it was estimated that 20,000 persons were buried there; the graves were crowded, and many of the coffins were within four feet of the surface. After it was closed for burial, the owner removed the headstones and levelled the ground; rubbish was subsequently shot there, and recently the defendant, who had become the freeholder, commenced to build in spite of the prohibition of the Metropolitan Board.

If the ground had been consecrated, it is settled law that nothing short of an Act of Parliament could have authorised its conversion to secular purposes. A railway company might, under Parliamentary powers, have taken possession of it, and obliterated all traces of its ever having been a cemetery, as has been done in the case of many London burial grounds, or the ground might have been turned by the parish into a public garden: but it would have been impossible to build upon it. As, however, there was no evidence of its consecration, the Board were obliged to rely on their ordinary powers. They relied upon a by-law, made in pursuance of the Metropolitan Buildings Act, 1878, which provides that No house, building, or other erection, shall be erected upon any site, or portion of any site, which shall have been filled up or covered with any material impregnated or mixed with any fæcal, animal, or vegetable matter, or which shall have been filled up with dust, slop, or other refuse, or in, or upon which, any such matter or refuse shall have been deposited, unless and until such matter or refuse shall have been properly removed by excavation or otherwise from such site.' The Act provides by section 14 that the term foundation shall mean the space immediately beneath the footings of the wall;' and the by-law requires the foundations of the walls of every house or building to be 'formed of a bed of good concrete, not less than nine inches thick, and

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