1872.] The Public Health Act, 1872. 455 
gives no explicit direction as to how the sanitary authorities 
are to conserve the health of the nation. In this respect 
it differs from the original Bill as first brought into Parlia- 
ment. That, as will be remembered, contained a multitude 
of very minute, and in many respects arbitrary, clauses 
relative to the pollution of rivers. These clauses, which 
embodied the recommendations of the Royal Commission on 
the Pollution of Rivers, were abandoned by the Government 
as being altogether impracticable, and it is understood that 
the Government is about to make an end to the investigations 
of the Royal Commission, which have proved of so little 
utility to the state. 
We will endeavour briefly to describe the provisions of 
the Public Health Act, which has just become the law of 
the land. 
First, it does not apply to Scotland, nor to Ireland, nor 
to London. It applies exclusively to England outside the 
Metropolis. 
All England, with the exception of the capital, is divided 
into sanitary districts, and these sanitary districts are of 
two kinds, viz., urban and rural. ‘This Act constitutes local 
sanitary authorities in each of these districts, bearing the 
official title, ‘‘ Urban Sanitary Authorities,” or ‘‘ Rural 
Sanitary Authorities.” The Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses 
of a borough, or the Improvement Commissioners of a 
district, or the Local Board of a district, are constituted the 
urban sanitary authorities. In like manner the guardians 
of arural union are constituted the rural sanitary authorities 
in rural sanitary districts. 
It will thus be seen that this Act creates no new official 
body. It takes existing official bodies—the town councils 
of towns, and the poor law guardians of country places, and 
erects them into urban or rural sanitary authorities. The 
department of the central government of the country which 
is to preside over and regulate the aé¢tion of the local 
sanitary authorities is the Local Government Board. Having 
fixed the sanitary authorities in the different districts, the 
Act proceeds to clothe them with authority, and to destroy 
that which was previously in existence, and which clashes 
with them. To these sanitary authorities revert all powers 
and duties exercised under the Local Government Acts, the 
Sewage Utilisation Acts, the Nuisances Removal Acts, the 
Common Lodging Houses Aéts, the Artizans’ and Labourers’ 
Dwellings Act, the Diseases Prevention Act, and the Bake- 
house Regulation Act. 
The fourth section of the Artizans’ and Labourers’ 
