“It is, however, to be understood that the above notice requiring the work to be executed within one month will be rigidly enforced; and if at the expiration of that time the work be not completed, the urban sanitary authority will themselves proceed to execute the necessary work to provide proper closet accommodation in such manner as they may deem most advisable, without pledging themselves to the adoption of the method above suggested.”
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Surveyor to the said Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses.
With regard to watercloset accommodation for factories, it appears to rest entirely with the town surveyor to draw the attention of the sanitary authority to any case where he considers this is deficient, as by the following clause:
“Where it appears to any local authority by the report of their surveyor that any house is used or intended to be used as a factory or building in which persons of both sexes are employed or intended to be employed at one time in any manufacture, trade, or business, the local authority may, if they think fit, by written notice require the owner or occupier of such house, within the time therein specified, to construct a sufficient number of waterclosets, earthclosets, or privies and ashpits for the separate use of each sex.
“Any person who neglects or refuses to comply with any such notice shall be liable for each default to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, and to a further penalty not exceeding forty shillings for every day during which the default is continued” (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 38).
In providing closet accommodation which is to be used in common by the occupants of a number of houses, it must be remembered that it should be of the most simple description. Any one acquainted with the working of waterclosets situated in courts and alleys will know how badly they are treated, and into what a fearful state of disrepair and filth they speedily fall, as the great difficulty the sanitary inspector always finds is to have them kept clean; “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s.” And although by clauses 40, 41, 46, &c., of the Public Health Act 1875 persons causing a nuisance can be punished, it is a difficult matter to detect the person in fault, unless of course it is a structural defect, when the owner can be summoned if it is allowed to remain uncured.
For this reason what are known as “Fowler’s closets,” or some modification of this principle, should be adopted in all such localities where earthclosets or some of the dry systems are not in force, as they are without any complicated valve apparatus or anything of the kind.
The last point to consider in this chapter is that of Houses without a proper supply of water.
“Where on the report of the surveyor of a local authority it appears that any house is without a proper supply of water, and that such a supply can be furnished at a cost not exceeding that authorised by any local Act, or where there is not any local Act, not exceeding twopence a week, or at such other cost as the Local Government Board may determine, the local authority shall give notice in writing to the owner, requiring him, within a time specified, to obtain such supply, and to do all such works as may be necessary for that purpose,[206] and in default of his doing so may carry out all necessary works themselves for obtaining such supply” (vide 38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. lxii.).
It is not very often that a house is found without any supply of water at all, for if that from the mains is not laid on it is generally found that the house is supplied from a well or from a stand-pipe in a court, or some similar source. If the water is derived from an impure well or other contaminated source, the following clause of the Public Health Act 1875 must be enforced in order to close the well or compel the discontinuance of the polluted supply, when a “proper” supply of water can be enforced in the manner I have described: