A section in the Act aimed at the inefficiency and inaction of the local authorities, and made it obligatory (no longer optional) upon them to make inspection of their districts.
"It shall be the duty of the Nuisance Authority to make from time to time, either by itself or its officers, inspection of the district, with a view to ascertain what nuisances exist calling for abatement under the powers of the Nuisances Removal Acts, and to enforce the provisions of the said Acts in order to cause the abatement thereof."
An effort was also made to check the spread of infectious disease by giving the local authority considerable powers as regarded disinfection. It was enacted that the local authority might provide a proper place for the disinfection of clothing and bedding which might have been rendered liable to communicate disease to others; and the authority was empowered to maintain carriages for the conveyance to hospital of persons suffering under any infectious or contagious disease. A blow was struck at the iniquitous but common practice of letting a room where there had been dangerous infectious disorder, until it had been disinfected. And provision was made for the establishment of a hospital for the reception of the sick.
All these were most considerable reforms, and would have been most useful had they been given effect to and properly enforced.
The most important and wide-reaching provision of the Act was that directed against overcrowding.
The 35th Section enacted that regulations might be made by the Sanitary Authority (in other words, the Vestry or District Board) for fixing the number of persons who might occupy a house, or part of a house, let in lodgings, or occupied by members of more than one family. Houses so let were to be registered by the Vestry. The regulations could fix a certain number of cubic feet of air space which should be available for each person. By this means the number of persons who might live in a house, and in the rooms of the house, could be limited.
That was the plan--simple enough in appearance--which Parliament devised for contending with the great evil of overcrowding.
And then, as regarded the sanitation of the houses when registered, it enacted that regulations should contain provisions for their being put into and kept in a clean and wholesome state. And to secure this being done, regulations were made for their inspection.