The Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea, in one of his reports, well enforced their importance.
“When it is remembered that the whole of the labouring population occupies but part of the house in which their families live; that in many houses three or four families live together; and not infrequently each family occupies only a single room; and when it is considered that whenever necessary all such houses may be registered, it will at once be seen how important is this regulation.”[141]
These sections nevertheless remained absolutely a dead letter in nearly every one of the metropolitan districts, and even the newly constituted Local Government Board did not exercise its power of declaring them to be in force in any district.
From a return compiled in 1874 it appears that:—
(a) In only seven parishes or districts[142] were regulations made and enforced; how imperfectly even in these is illustrated by Lambeth where, in 1873, 47 houses only had been registered—there being 29,000 in the parish, one half of which were probably let in lodgings.
(b) In six districts regulations were made but no attempt made to enforce them.
(c) And in twenty-five parishes or districts no regulations whatever had been made.
In Hackney and Chelsea alone was any widespread use made of the regulation.
The explanation usually put forward of the determination on the part of the Vestries not to enforce the sanitary laws as regarded houses was their regard for the financial interests of the ratepayers. But the real ground of their aversion was that action would put house-owners to expense. “Vested rights in filth and dirt” were strongly represented on the Vestries and District Boards.