MIGRATION OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 69 



their districts to be inspected with a view to ascertain 

 whether any dwelling-house therein is in a state so 

 dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human 

 habitation, and in the case of any dwelling-house which 

 appears to them to be in such a state, forthwith to take 

 proceedings for closing it. They are also empowered, 

 when necessary, to take steps to secure the demolition of 

 the houses. In the event of default by the rural sanitary 

 authorities, the county councils are authorised to take 

 the matter in hand, and to institute, at the cost of the 

 authority, the necessary proceedings for the closing and 

 demolition of insanitary dwellings. 



Any person aggrieved, or any two inhabitant house- 

 holders, may give information of a nuisance to the sanitary 

 authority ; or an aggrieved person, or any inhabitant, 

 may go direct to a magistrate. If the local authority 

 should make default, any person may complain to the 

 Local Government Board, which Board may either set 

 in motion a local officer of police, or make an order com- 

 pelling the local authority to act, or finally, may act for 

 them, and send in the bill to them. 



Further, any four householders, by making a written 

 complaint, may put in action the law against houses unfit 

 for habitation ; apparently also any person may give 

 " information " to the local authority of any such house. 



And in every new letting of a dwelling-house to any of 

 the working classes there is implied a condition that at 

 the beginning of the hire the house is, in all respects, 

 reasonably fit for human habitation. 



It is difficult to believe, even if all the " fearful ex- 

 amples," which from time to time are exhibited to public 

 view in the press, were accurately described, that the 

 risk of an insanitary or dilapidated dwelling is so much 

 greater in the country than in the towns as to afford any 

 reason for an agricultural labourer, however sensitive on 

 the subject of drains, to migrate. Two blacks, notoriously, 

 do not make a white ; but, bearing in mind what is well 



