But if a few of the Vestries made real efforts to utilise the Act, others of them either made only a pretence of doing so, or refused altogether.
The reports of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles’ (1866–7) present a typical picture of the attitude and conduct of these bodies.
“A most important amendment of the sanitary laws was made by the ‘Sanitary Act,’ of which Section 35 gives precisely the powers which, not last year only, but every year since the constitution of the Board, the Medical Officer has demanded for the efficient discharge of his functions in respect of houses inhabited by the poorer classes. That section has given to the local authority the power of making bye-laws for the regulation of sub-let houses, and of enforcing the observance of its rules by penalties.
“In St. Giles’ District, it is this class of houses almost exclusively which need the supervision of the sanitary authorities, and which become without that supervision nests of filth and disease.
“Accordingly, soon after the passing of the Sanitary Act, bye-laws were adopted by the Board, and sanctioned by the Secretary of State for the regulation of sub-let houses….
“The Board proceeded to inform owners of all sub-let houses that such houses must be registered in conformity with the Regulation. The intention of the Board was to apply with all proper discrimination, but quite universally and impartially, the powers vested in them in regard to sub-let houses…. The systematic application of these powers by the Board would have done for sub-let houses what the systematic application of the police of their powers under other Acts had done for common lodging-houses. Cleanliness and decency would have been universally secured, and would have been maintained with a minimum of inspection by a fine for every gross violation of the regulations.
“But against a system that should work thus directly and efficiently to the sanitary good of the district, the interests of numbers of house-owners and agents were at once arrayed, and these speedily organised an influential deputation to the Board.
“The opposite interests, those of the families dwelling in the close and miserable rooms of these sub-let houses, found no organised expression.
“The Board resolved to recall the notices which had been issued for a systematic registration, and to apply their powers, in the first instance, only to selected instances of flagrant and continuous sanitary neglect.”
And yet overcrowding in tenement-houses in St. Giles’ was dreadful.