As to the former, authority was given to certain public officers, on receipt of a certificate of two medical men, to complain of the existence of certain nuisances. The Justices before whom the case was heard might order the abatement of the nuisance; and if the order were not obeyed, the parties complaining might enter upon the necessary cleansing of such dwelling, and the cost of the same might be imposed on the owner or occupier.
In London, the power of complaint was vested in the officers of those petty local bodies which have already been described, and, in their default, in the Boards of Guardians.
Ludicrous, truly, was the idea that the countless thousands of nuisances existing in London could be remedied, or even temporarily abated, by so cumbrous, dilatory, and complicated a procedure as the complaint of an individual backed by the certificate (which would have to be paid for) of two doctors to the officer of a more or less hostile and self-interested local body, who might or might not bring the complaint before the Justices, whose decision, even if it were in favour of the complainant, could only effect a reform so far as the precise nuisance complained of was concerned, and that only temporarily, for were the nuisance renewed the whole procedure would have to be gone through again.
Yet this was the “better provision” propounded and enacted by Parliament in 1846 for the regeneration of the sanitary condition of the great masses of the people of London. Nor was it even intended to be permanently available, for the Act was only to be in force for two years.
The dreadful nemesis for such dense inappreciation by Parliament of its obligations to the community was, unfortunately, soon to fall heavily upon the unhappy people of the metropolis. Thousands of miles away in Hindoostan, Asiatic cholera of a deadly type had been playing havoc with the people of the country. Thence it was slowly but steadily moving westward; so much so that the desirability of making some preparations for defence against its invasion of England became apparent; and in 1847 a Royal Commission was appointed to “inquire whether any, and what, special means might be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis, with regard more especially to the better house, street, and land drainage, … the better supply of water for domestic use, &c., &c., &c.”
One important conclusion was at once forced upon the Commissioners, namely, that the great and vital task of making adequate provision for the sewerage of London could not be accomplished so long as it was entrusted to several bodies, each with a district of its own.
“Everything,” they said, “pointed to the necessity of operations being superintended by one competent body”; and they declared that it was expedient that a Commission for the entire drainage of the whole of the metropolis should be appointed with a special view to such measures, and with aid to carry them out.
This report was followed in the ensuing year (1848) by an Act of Parliament[30] abolishing the various Commissions of Sewers (except those of the City), and creating in their stead one executive body whose members were to be appointed by the Crown.
Wide powers were given to this central body: among them that no house was to be built or re-built without proper drains, and without proper sanitary conveniences, and that if houses built before the passing of the Act were not properly drained, the Commissioners might order the work to be done.
The Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers were duly appointed, and they divided the area over which they had jurisdiction into seven separate sub-districts, with a Commission for each.