Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "England" to "English Finance" / Volume 9, Slice 4

by Various

It is forbidden to establish within an urban district without the consent of the council any offensive trade, business or manufacture. With regard to any offensive trade which has been established or may be consented to in any urban district, if it is verified by the medical officer or any two legally qualified medical practitioners, or by any ten inhabitants of the district, to be a nuisance or injurious to health, the urban district council are required to take proceedings before magistrates with a view to the abatement of the nuisance complained of.

Any medical officer or inspector of nuisances may inspect any meat, &c., exposed for sale or deposited in any place for the purpose of sale or of preparation for sale and intended for the food of man. This power of inspection is, in districts Unsound meat. where the Public Health Act 1890 has been adopted, extended to all articles intended for the food of man. If upon such inspection the meat, &c., appears to be diseased, unsound or unwholesome, it may be taken before a justice for the purpose of being condemned, and the person to whom the meat, &c., belongs or in whose possession it was found is liable to a penalty or, in the discretion of the justices, to imprisonment for three months without the option of a fine.

The Public Health Acts contain important provisions relating to infectious disease. Any person who knows he is suffering from an infectious disease must not carry on any trade or business unless he can do so without risk of spreading the disease. Infectious diseases. Local authorities may require premises to be cleansed and disinfected; they may order the destruction of bedding, clothing or other articles which have been exposed to infection; they may provide proper places for the disinfection of infected articles free of charge; they may provide ambulances, &c. In the case of a person found suffering from infectious disease who has not proper lodging or accommodation, or is lodging in a room occupied by more than one family, or is on board any ship or vessel, such person may by means of a justice’s order be removed to a hospital; a local authority may pay the expenses of a person in a hospital or, if necessary, provide nursing attendance; any person exposing himself or any other in his charge while suffering from infectious disease, or exposing infected bedding, clothing or the like, is made liable to a penalty. Owners and drivers of public conveyances must not knowingly convey any person suffering from infectious disease, and if any person suffering from such a disease is conveyed in any public vehicle the owner or driver as soon as it comes to his knowledge must give notice to the medical officer. It is also forbidden to let houses or rooms in which infected persons have been lodging, or to make false statements to persons negotiating for the hire of such rooms. An act was passed in the year 1890, called the Infectious Diseases Prevention Act. When adopted it enabled an urban or district council to obtain the inspection of dairies where these were suspected to be the cause of infectious disease, with a view to prohibiting the supply of milk from such dairies if the fact were established. The act of 1907 extended the provisions of the act of 1890. It enables a local authority to require dairymen to furnish a complete list of sources of supply if the medical officer certifies that any person is suffering from infectious disease which he has reason to suspect is attributable to milk supplied within his district. It also compels dairymen to notify infectious diseases existing among their servants. The act of 1890 also forbids the keeping for more than forty-eight hours of the body of a person who has died of infectious disease in a room used at the time as a dwelling-place, sleeping-place or workshop. It provides for the bodies of persons dying of infectious diseases in a hospital being removed only for burial, and gives power to justices in certain cases to order bodies to be buried. The diseases to which the act applies are smallpox, cholera, membranous croup, erysipelas, scarlatina or scarlet fever, typhus, typhoid, enteric, relapsing, continued or puerperal fever, and any other infectious disease to which the act has been applied by the local authority of the district in the prescribed manner. The most important provision, however, relating to infectious disease is that contained in the Infectious Disease Notification Act 1889. That was originally an adoptive act, but it is now extended to all districts in England and Wales. It requires the notification to the medical officer of health of the district of every case in which a person is suffering from one of the diseases above mentioned. The duty of notification is imposed upon the head of the family, and also upon the medical practitioner who may be in attendance on the patient. The medical attendant is entitled to receive in respect of each notification a fee of 2s. 6d. if the case occurs in his private practice, and of 1s. if the case occurs in his practice as medical officer of any public body or institution. These fees are paid by the urban or rural district council as the case may be. The provisions as to notification are applied to every ship, vessel, boat, tent, van, shed or similar structure used for human habitation in like manner as nearly as may be as if it were a building. Exception is made, however, in the case of a ship, vessel or boat belonging to a foreign government. It is not too much to say that this act has been one of the most effectual means of preventing the spread of infectious disease in modern times.

The district council are empowered to provide hospitals or temporary places for the reception of the sick. They may build them, contract for the use of them, agree for the reception of the sick inhabitants of their district into an existing Hospitals. hospital, or combine with any other district council in providing a common hospital. As has already been mentioned when dealing with county councils, if a district council make default in providing hospital accommodation, the county council may put in operation the Isolation Hospitals Act. The power given to provide hospitals must be exercised so as not to create a nuisance, and much litigation has taken place in respect of the providing of hospitals for smallpox. Up to the present time, however, the courts have refused to accept as a principle that a smallpox hospital is necessarily a source of danger to the neighbourhood, and for the most part applications for injunction on that ground have failed.

Where any part of the country appears to be threatened with or is affected by any formidable epidemic, endemic or infectious disease, the Local Government Board may make regulations for the speedy interment of the dead, house-to-house Epidemics. visitation, the provision of medical aid and accommodation, the promotion of cleansing, ventilation and disinfection, and the guarding against the spread of disease. Such regulations are made and enforced by the district councils. The provisions of the Public Health Acts relating to infectious disease are for the most part extended to ships by an act of the year 1885.

District councils may, and if required by the Local Government Board, must provide mortuaries, and they may make by-laws with respect to the management and charges for the use of the same. Where the body of a person who has died of an Mortuaries. infectious disease is retained in a room where persons live or sleep, or the retention of any dead body may endanger health, any justice on the certificate of a medical practitioner may order the removal of a body to a mortuary and direct the body to be buried within a time limited by the friends of the deceased or in their default by the relieving officer. A district council may also provide and maintain a proper place (otherwise than at a workhouse or at a mortuary) for the reception of dead bodies during the time required to conduct any post mortem examination ordered by a coroner.

Under an act of 1879 the district council have power to provide and maintain a cemetery either within or without their district, and they may purchase or accept a donation of land for that purpose. The provisions of the Cemeteries Cemeteries. Clauses Act 1847 apply to a cemetery thus provided. These cannot all be referred to here, but it may be noted that no part of the cemetery need be consecrated, but that if any part is, such part is to be defined by suitable marks, and a chapel in connexion with the Established Church must be erected in it. A chaplain must also be appointed to officiate at burials in the consecrated portion. The power to provide a cemetery under the act under consideration must not be confounded with that of providing a burial ground under the Burial Acts. These acts will be mentioned later in connexion with the powers of parish councils, for in general they are adopted for a parish, part of a parish or combination of parishes, and are administered by a burial board, except where that body has been superseded by a parish council or joint committee. It may be mentioned, however, that under the Local Government Act 1894, where a burial board district is wholly in an urban district, the urban council may resolve that the powers, duties and liabilities of the burial board shall be transferred to the council, and thereupon the burial board may cease to exist. And it is provided by the same act that the Burial Acts shall not hereafter be adopted in any urban parish without the approval of the urban council. The distinction between a burial ground provided under the Burial Acts and a cemetery provided under the act of 1879 is important in many ways, of which one only need be mentioned here—the expenses under the Burial Acts are paid out of the poor rate, while the expenses under the act of 1879 are paid in an urban district out of the general district rate, the incidence of which differs materially from that of the poor rate, as will be seen hereafter.

In an urban district the urban council have always had all the powers and duties of a surveyor of highways under the Highway Acts. But before 1894 a rural district council had no power or duty in respect of highways except in a few Highways. cases where, by virtue of a provision in the Highway Act 1878, the rural sanitary authority of a district coincident in area with a highway district were empowered to exercise all the powers of a a highway board. Except in these cases the highway authority in a parish was the surveyor of highways, elected annually by the inhabitants in vestry, or in a highway district consisting of a number of parishes united by order of quarter sessions, the highway board composed of waywardens representing the several parishes. By the Local Government Act 1894, there were transferred to the district council of every rural district all the powers, duties and liabilities of every highway authority, surveyor or highway board within their district, and the former highway authorities ceased to exist. The highway authority in every district, rural as well as urban, is therefore the district council. Of the chief duties of a district council with regard to highways, the first and most obvious is the duty to repair. This duty was formerly enforceable by indictment of the inhabitants of the parish, but it is not quite clear whether this procedure is applicable, now that the liability to repair is transferred to a council representing a wider area. Under the Highway Acts it is enforceable by summary proceedings before justices and by orders of the county council, but in either case, if the liability to repair is disputed, that question has to be decided on indictment preferred against the highway authority alleged to be in default. In a rural district any parish council may complain to the county council that the district council have made default in keeping any highway in repair, and the county council may thereupon transfer to themselves and execute the powers of the district council at the cost of the latter body, or they may make an order requiring the district council to perform their duty, or they may appoint some person to do so at the cost of the district council. It is important to observe, however, that an action does not lie against a district council in respect of the failure to repair a highway even at the suit of a person who has thereby been injured. The reason assigned for this doctrine is that the council as highway surveyor stand in the same position as the inhabitants of the parish, against whom such an action would not lie. The district council are, however, liable for any injury caused through negligence on the part of their officers or servants in carrying out the work of repair.

But while rural as well as urban district councils have the powers and duties of surveyors of highways, the provisions of the Public Health Acts relating to streets apply only in urban districts, except in so far as the Local Government Streets. Board may by order have conferred urban powers upon a rural district council. These provisions have now to be referred to. It may be convenient to state that the expression “street” is here used in a sense much wider than its ordinary meaning. It is defined by the act to include any highway and any public bridge (not being a county bridge), and any road, lane, footway, square, court, alley or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not. For certain purposes streets as thus defined are divided into two classes, viz. those which are and those which are not highways repairable by the inhabitants at large. But it has to be borne in mind that it is not every highway that is repairable by the inhabitants at large. Before the year 1836 as soon as a way was dedicated to public use and the public had by user signified their acceptance of it, it became without more notice repairable by the parish. Therefore every highway—whether carriage-way, driftway, bridleway or footway—which can be shown to have been in use before 1836, is presumably repairable by the inhabitants at large, the only exceptions being such highways as are repairable by private persons or corporate bodies ratione clausurae, ratione tenurae, or by prescription. But in the year 1836, when the Highway Act 1835 came into operation, the law was altered. It was possible, just as formerly, to dedicate a way to the use of the public, and it thereupon became a highway to all intents and purposes. But mere dedication did not make the way repairable by the public. That result was not to follow unless certain stringent requirements were fulfilled. When it is shown, therefore, that a highway has been dedicated after 1836, it is not repairable by the inhabitants at large unless it can be shown that these provisions have been complied with, or that it has been declared to be repairable under provisions of the Public Health Acts presently to be mentioned. (There was also power given to justices, by the Highway Act 1862, to declare a private road or occupation road in a highway district to be a public highway repairable by the parish; but this power does not appear to have been acted upon to any extent.)

All streets being highways repairable by the inhabitants at large within an urban district, are vested in and under the control of the urban council. After much litigation it has now been established that this provision does not give the council an absolute property in the soil of the street, but merely such a qualified property in the surfaces as enables them to exercise control. The urban council are required from time to time to cause all such streets to be made up and repaired as occasion may require, and they are empowered to raise, lower or alter the soil of the street, and to place and keep in repair fences and posts for the safety of foot-passengers. The other class of streets consists of those which are not highways repairable by the inhabitants at large. Under the Public Health Act 1875 such streets may be dealt with in manner following:—If any such street or part thereof is not sewered, levelled, paved, metalled, flagged, channelled, made good or lighted to the satisfaction of the council, the council may cause it to be made up at the expense of the owners of premises fronting the street in proportion to their several frontages. When all or any of the works aforesaid have been executed in the street, and the council are of opinion that the street ought to become a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large, they may by notice to be fixed up in the street declare it to be a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large, and the declaration will be effective unless, within one month after the notice has been put up, the majority of the owners in the street object thereto. An alternative procedure has been provided by the Private Street Works Act, which may be adopted by any urban council. One important point of difference is that under the latter act the council may resolve that the expenses shall be apportioned among the owners not merely according to frontage, but according to the greater or less degree of benefit to be derived by any premises from the works.