No house can be erected, or, if it has been pulled down to or below the ground-floor, rebuilt, nor occupied, until a covered drain or drains shall have been constructed in such manner as, upon the report of the surveyor, shall appear to be necessary and sufficient. If the sea, or a sewer of the local authority, or a sewer which they are entitled to use, be within one hundred feet of any part of the site of the house to be built or rebuilt, the drains to be constructed must lead from and communicate with such one of those means of drainage as the local authority may direct; if, however, no such means of drainage be within that distance, then the drains must be made to communicate with and be emptied into such covered cesspool or other place, not being under any house, and not being within such distance of any house, as the local authority may direct.

If at any time, upon the report of the surveyor, it appear to the local authority that any house, whether built before or after the Act is applied to the district in which it is situate, is without any drain, or without such drain or drains communicating with the sea or sewer as may be sufficient, the owner or occupier is bound to drain under the conditions aforesaid, and to the satisfaction of the local authority. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 49.)

Houses cannot be erected or rebuilt when pulled down to or below the ground-floor, without a sufficient water-closet or privy, and an ashpit, furnished with proper doors and coverings; and if at any time, upon the report of the surveyor, it appear to the local authority that any house, whether built before or after the time when the Act is applied to the district in which it is situate, is without a sufficient water-closet or privy and an ashpit, the owner or occupier is bound forthwith, and within reasonable time, to provide the same, and in such manner as will be satisfactory to the local authority. Where, however, a water-closet or privy is used in common by the inmates of two or more houses, or if in the opinion of the local authority a water-closet or privy may be so used, the local authority need not require them to be provided for each house separately from the other. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 51.)

For the purposes of the Public Health Act, 1848, the word "house" includes schools, factories, and other buildings, in which more than twenty persons are employed at one time. (Sect. 2.)

Any enactment of any Act of Parliament in force in any place requiring the construction of a water-closet, shall, with the

approval of the local authority, be satisfied by the construction of an earth-closet, or other place for the deodorisation of fæcal matter, made and used in accordance with any regulation from time to time issued by the local authority.

The local authority may themselves construct, or require to be constructed, earth-closets or other such places as aforesaid, in all cases where, under any enactment in force, they might construct water-closets or privies, or require the same to be constructed, with this restriction, that no person shall be required to construct an earth-closet or other place as aforesaid, in any house instead of a water-closet, if he prefer to comply with the provisions of the enactment requiring the construction of a water-closet, and if a supply of water for other purposes is furnished to such house; and that no person shall be put to greater expense in constructing an earth-closet or other such place than he would be in constructing a water-closet or privy. (Sanitary Amendment Act 1868,

sect. 7.)

If at any time it appear to the local authority, upon the report of the surveyor, that any house is used, or intended to be used, as a factory or building, in which persons of both sexes and above twenty in number are employed, or intended to be employed, at any time, in any manufacture, trade, or business, the local authority may, by notice in writing to the owner or occupier, require, within a time to be specified by the notice, to be constructed a sufficient number of water-closets or privies for the separate use of each sex. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 52.) The local sanitary authority may, if they think fit, provide and maintain, in proper and convenient situations, water-closets, privies, and other similar conveniences for public accommodation, and defray the necessary expenses out of the district rates. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 57.)

If, upon the certificate of the medical officer of health, it appear to the local authority that any house, or part of it, is in such a filthy or unwholesome condition that the health of any person is endangered thereby, or that the whitewashing, cleansing, or purifying of any house, or any part of it, would tend to check infectious or contagious disease, the local authority are to give notice in writing to the owner or occupier to whitewash, cleanse, or purify the house, or part of it, as the case may require. Failing compliance, the owner or occupier is liable to penalty, and the local authority may themselves undertake, or cause to

be undertaken, the whitewashing, etc., at the expense of the owner or occupier. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 60.)

In a district containing 10,000 or more persons, and where the Local Government Acts are in force, if the officer of health find that any premises therein are in a condition or state dangerous to health so as to be unfit for human habitation, he shall report thereon to the local sanitary authority. (Artizans and Labourers' Dwellings Act 1868, sect. 5.)

(5.) Paving, Lighting, and Improving Streets.-All present and future streets, being, or which at any time become, highways within any district, shall rest in and be under the management and control of the local sanitary authority, who shall from time to time cause all such streets to be levelled, paved, flagged, channelled, altered, and repaired, as when occasion may require. In case any present or future street, or any part thereof, not being a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large, be not sewered, levelled, paved, flagged, and channelled, to the satisfaction of the local authority, they may, by notice in writing to the respective owners or occupiers of the premises fronting, adjoining, or abutting upon such parts thereof as may require to be sewered, levelled, etc., require them to sewer, level, etc., such street, or part thereof, within a time to be specified in the notice. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 68.)

The local authority may purchase any premises for the purposes of widening, opening, enlarging, or otherwise improving any street. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 73.);

(6.) Public Pleasure-grounds.-The local authority may provide, maintain, lay out, plant, and improve premises for the purpose of being used as public walks or pleasure-grounds, and support or contribute towards any premises provided by any person for that purpose. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 74.)

(7.) Water-supply.-The local sanitary authority may provide their district with such a supply of water as may be proper and sufficient for the purposes of the Public Health Act, and for private use to the extent required by the Act. For any or all of those purposes they may contract with any person, or purchase, take upon lease, hire, construct, lay down, maintain such waterworks, and do and execute all such works as may be necessary and proper. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 75.)

The waterworks here referred to may either be streams, springs, wells, pumps, reservoirs, cisterns, tanks, aqueducts, cuts,

sluices, mains, pipes, culverts, engines, and all machinery, lands, buildings, and things, for supplying water, also the stock in trade of any waterworks company.

Any pollutions of the water-supply, whether derived from streams, springs, wells, etc., is prohibited and punishable by law if the nuisance be not forthwith abated. (Public Health Act 1848, sects. 78, 79, 80.)

(8.) Regulation of Buildings.—Every local sanitary authority may make bye-laws with respect to the following matters; that is to say

(a) With respect to the level, width, and construction of new streets, and the provision for the sewerage of such streets.

(6) With respect to the structure of walls of new buildings, for securing stability and the prevention of fires.

(c) With respect to the sufficiency of the space about buildings, to secure a free circulation of air, and with respect to the ventilation of buildings.

(d) With respect to the drainage of buildings, to water-closets, privies, ashpits, cesspools, in connection with buildings, and to the closing of buildings unfit for human habitation, and to prohibition of their use for human habitation. (Local Government Act 1858, sect. 34.)

(9.) Offensive Trades.-The business of a blood-boiler, boneboiler, fellmonger, slaughterer of cattle, horses, or animals of any description, soap-boiler, tallow-melter, tripe-boiler, or other noxious or offensive business, trade, or manufacture, is not to be newly established in any building or place after the Public Health Act is applied to the district, without consent of the local sanitary authority. The local sanitary authority are also empowered to make bye-laws with respect to any such business newly established as they may think necessary and proper, in order to prevent or diminish any noxious or injurious effects of such businesses. (Public Health Act 1848, sect. 64.)

(10.) Prevention of Smoke.-(See ante, page 345.)

(11.) Bye-laws.-Under the Local Government Acts, local sanitary authorities have power to make bye-laws, but they are of no effect unless they are authorised by the Acts and are confirmed by the Local Government Board. When they are so confirmed they have the same force within their limits, and with respect to the persons upon whom they lawfully operate, as an Act of Parliament has upon the subjects at large.

Most of the matters concerning which local sanitary authorities are empowered to make bye-laws have already been enumerated, and need not be again repeated; but as the health officer will have to advise concerning the framing of the great majority of them, the following synopsis of subjects to which they apply may be given :—

(a) The general transaction and management of the business of the sanitary authority.

(b) The duties, etc., of the several officers and servants of the sanitary authority.

(c) The prevention of noxious or injurious effects of businesses newly established in the district. (See ante, page 358.)

(d) The decent and economical interment of any corpse which may have been received into any rooms or premises provided by the local sanitary authority for the reception of corpses previously

to interment.

(e) Imposing the duty of cleansing footway and pavements adjoining any premises, privies, ashpits, and cesspools, and the removal of refuse from any premises. (See ante, page 354.)

(f) For the prevention of nuisances arising from snow, filth. dust, etc. (See ante, page 354.)

(g) With respect to the construction of new streets, houses, etc. (See ante, page 358.)

(h) For regulating the licensing and inspection of slaughterhouses and knackers' yards; preventing cruelty to animals therein; for keeping them in a cleanly and proper state; for removing filth from them, and requiring them to be supplied with a sufficient supply of water.

(2) For regulating the number of lodgers, and for promoting cleanliness and ventilation in lodging-houses, and the inspection of such houses. (See ante, p. 351, and Chapter XIV.)

(5) For the regulation of hackney carriages, etc.

(k) For licensing and regulating horses, ponies, etc., standing for hire, and fixing the rates of hire for pleasure-boats, etc.

(For the preservation and regulation of all burial-grounds within their limits when the local board is also the burial board of the district.

(m) For the removal to any hospital to which the local sanitary authority is entitled to remove patients, and for keeping in such hospital so long as may be necessary, any persons brought within their district by any ship or boat who are infected with a