properly disinfected. They may provide a suitable place and apparatus for the disinfection of clothes, bedding, etc., and may require such clothing or bedding to be brought for disinfection, or destroyed when necessary. They can provide ambulances, and may procure a justices' order for the removal to a hospital of any person suffering from infectious disease who has no proper lodging or accommodation (n), or who is on board any ship or vessel, or is in a canal boat (0). They may prevent the removal of a dead body from a hospital or mortuary except for burial, and require the burial of dead bodies remaining unburied in rooms occupied by living persons. And they may provide temporary shelter for persons who have been compelled to leave a house in order that it may be disinfected. The district council may cause dairies to be inspected with a view to the preventing of the spread of disease by means of milk. And they can enforce various sections of the statutes which forbid such acts as the exposing of infected persons in streets and public places ; the selling or exposure of infected clothing, rags, or other articles; the use of public conveyances by infected persons without notice, and the subsequent use of such vehicles without disinfection; the letting of houses or apartments which have been infected until they have been properly disinfected; the throwing of infectious rubbish into ashpits, etc. Many of these provisions are applied to ships by the Public Health (Ships) Acts, 1885 (p). Under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1886 (q), district councils have important powers for the registration, inspection, and regulation of dairies, cowsheds, and milkshops. District councils have power to provide hospital accommodation for sick persons in their district, and they may do so by entering into contracts for the use of a hospital (n) Warwick v. Graham, [1899] 2 Q. B. 191. (0) Canal Boats Act, 1877, s. 4. (p) 48 & 49 Vict. c. 35. or the reception of patients into a hospital, or by the building of a hospital; but in the case last mentioned they must not build or use the hospital so as to be a nuisance (r). District councils may also provide mortuaries; and cemeteries under the Public Health (Interments) Act, 1879 (s). Elsewhere in this work it has been stated, that both in urban and rural districts the councils act as surveyors of highways (1). Their powers and duties as such are only remotely connected with the sanitary condition of the people, and may be passed by with this mere mention. But urban councils have powers and duties connected with streets which bear more directly on the subject of this chapter. First among these is the power of making up, that is to say, sewering, levelling, paving, channelling and lighting such streets as are not highways repairable by the inhabitants at large. Such streets are of two kinds, (1) those which have never been dedicated to public use (u), and (2) those streets which have been dedicated to public use as highways since 1835, but have never become repairable by the highway authority by reason of non-compliance with the Highway Act, 1835 (5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 50), s. 23 (r). Under the Public Heath Act, 1875, s. 150, notice has to be given to the persons whose property abuts on the street, to do the necessary works; in their default, the council execute the works and recover the expenses from the owners in proportion to their respective frontages. An alternative procedure is pro (r) Metropolitan Asylum District v. Hill (1881), 6 App. Ca. 193. (8) 42 & 43 Vict. c. 31. (1) See ante, pp. 57, 58. (u) Taylor v. The Corporation of Oldham, per Jessel, M.R. (1876), 4 Ch. D. 395, 407. (x) Roberts V. Hunt (1850), 15 Q. B. 17; R. v. Wilson (1852), 18 Q. B. 348; R. v. Dukinfield (1863), 32 L. J. M. C. 230; Eyre v. New Forest Highway Board (1892), 56 J. P. 517; Rishton v. Haslingden Corporation, [1898] 1 Q. B. 294; Leigh Urban District Council v. King, [1901] 1 K. B. 747. vided by the Private Street Works Act, 1892 (y), the principal feature of which is, that while the owners do not have the option of themselves doing the work, they are enabled to raise before justices various objections to the works, which previously could only have been raised after the works were executed and proceedings had been taken to recover the expenses. Once the works have been done, the district council may declare the street to be a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large. An urban council have power to make new streets and widen old ones, and they can prevent the erection or bringing forward of buildings beyond the houses on either side (~). But perhaps their most important power is that which enables them to make and enforce by-laws with respect to new streets and buildings. These may relate to the level, width, construction, and sewerage of new streets, and to such matters as the structure of the walls, foundations, roofs and chimneys of new buildings, and the provision of proper air space and ventilation, means of drainage, sanitary conveniences, etc. By-laws may also be made for the closing of premises unfit for human habitation. Urban councils may also acquire or accept gifts of land for public parks or recreation grounds, and make regulations for their use; and they may, subject, however, in this case to private rights, establish and regulate markets and provide public slaughter-houses. Private slaughterhouses have to be registered, if they were in existence before the district became urban; those established afterwards have to be licensed every year. Reference has already been made to by-laws for certain purposes. It may be convenient to say, that they may be made for a great variety of other purposes, such as the cleansing of footways, and of closets, cesspools, ashpits, etc., (y) 55 & 56 Vict. c. 57. (z) See the Public Health (Buildings in Streets) Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict c. 52). the removal of house refuse, the prevention of nuisances from snow, filth, dust, ashes, and rubbish, the keeping of animals, the regulation of common and other lodginghouses, the conduct of offensive trades, the management of mortuaries, public pleasure grounds, and markets, the accommodation of persons engaged in hop-picking or fruit picking (a), public sanitary conveniences, the removal of offensive matter through the streets, etc. All such by-laws must be confirmed by the Local Government Board, but such confirmation of itself gives them no validity. They may be invalid, though duly confirmed, if they are uncertain, unreasonable, or repugnant to the general law. It will be observed that, while many of the powers and duties above mentioned belong to urban councils only, the Local Government Board has power to confer on a rural council all or any of such powers, by means of a simple order published in the prescribed manner. The foregoing outline, necessarily an imperfect one, of the powers and duties of district councils, has been thus far confined to such as arise under the Public Health Acts. There are, however, various other statutes under which these councils exercise functions which relate to the sanitary condition of the people. Prominent among these are the Acts relating to the Housing of the Working Classes, 1890 and 1900 (b). The first of these Acts is the principal Act, and it is divided into three parts. Under the first part, provision is made for the clearing of unhealthy areas. This is effected by means of an improvement scheme which has to be embodied in a provisional order and confirmed by Parliament. The second part relates to unhealthy dwelling-houses, and provides the machinery whereby they can be closed or demolished if they are unfit for human habitation. Under the third (a) Public Health Act, 1882. (b) 53 & 54 Vict. c. 70; 63 & 64 Vict. c. 59. part, district councils may provide lodging-houses for the working classes, and in the expression lodging-houses is included separate houses or cottages with or without gardens, which may not, however, exceed half-an-acre. These lodging-houses may be within or without the district of the council which provides them. Among other statutes affecting public health which are administered by district councils, may be enumerated the following:-The Knackers Acts, 1786 and 1844 (c), the Baths and Washhouses Acts, 1846 to 1882 (d), the Public Improvements Act, 1860 (e), the Agricultural Gangs Act, 1867 (ƒ), the Acts for the prevention of the adulteration of food, commonly called the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875, 1879 and 1899 (g), the Commons Acts, 1876 and 1899 (h), the Canal Boats Acts, 1877 and 1884 (), the Alkali Works Acts, 1881 and 1892 (k), the Margarine Act, 1887 (1), the Open Spaces Acts, 1887 and 1890 (m), the Allotments Acts, 1887 and 1890 (n), the Sale of Horseflesh Regulation Act, 1889 (o), the Museums and Gymnasiums Act, 1891 (p), the Shop Hours Acts, 1892, 1893, and 1895 (q), the Isolation Hospitals Acts, 1893 and 1901 (r), the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 (s). (c) 26 Geo. 3, c. 71; 7 & 8 Vict. c. 87. (d) 9 & 10 Vict. c. 74; 10 & 11 Vict. c. 61; 41 & 42 Vict. c. 14; 45 & 46 Vict. c. 30. (e) 23 & 24 Vict. c. 30. (g) 38 & 39 Vict. c. 63; 42 & 43 Vict. c. 30; 62 & 63 Vict. c. 51. (h) 39 & 40 Vict. c. 56; 62 & 63 Vict. c. 30. (i) 40 & 41 Vict. c. 60; 47 & 48 Vict. c. 75. (k) 44 & 45 Vict. c. 37; 55 & 56 Vict. c. 30. (7) 50 & 51 Vict. c. 29. (m) 50 & 51 Vict. c. 32; 53 & 54 Vict. c. 15. (n) 50 & 51 Vict. c. 48; 53 & 54 Vict. c. 65. (0) 52 & 53 Vict. c. 11. (p) 54 & 55 Vict. c. 22. (q) 55 & 56 Vict. c. 62; 56 & 57 Vict. c. 67; 58 & 59 Vict. c. 5. (r) 56 & 57 Vict. c. 68; 1 Edw. 7, c. 8. (8) 1 Edw. 7, c. 22. |