TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 207 
a general measure of public health legislation. This Act was got up in a hurry to’ 
meet the cholera epidemic of 1865-66. The Act was permissive and nearly useless. ’ 
It laid down useful principles, and must be looked upon as the backbone of future 
sanitary legislation. All these Acts were useless until the Public Health Act of 
1872 was passed, which made action under the sanitary Acts compulsory on local 
authorities. This Act broke down almost completely. Now a similar Act has 
been passed for Ireland, but is vastly superior to its English prototype. After the 
foregoing statement it is scarcely necessary to prove that sanitary law requires 
codification and amendment. Mr. Michael, an English, and Mr. Furlong, an Irish 
barrister, agree in condemning the present state of sanitary law. 
The Royal Sanitary Commission of 1867, in its Report, states that “ the present 
fragmentary and confused sanitary legislation should be consolidated, and the 
administration of sanitary law should be made uniform, universal, and emperative 
throughout the kingdom.” The amendments of sanitary law which should be 
introduced into any complete code are :— 
1. General laws with regard to the construction of dwellings.—Houses at pre-: 
sent may, in the majority of places, be built in any way the owner pleases, and the 
law concerning houses unfit for human habitation does not come into force unless* 
the owner of the houses purposes that they shall be inhabited. 
' 2. Amendment of the laws respecting food and drink. 
3. General laws regarding markets and slaughter-houses. 
4, Laws with regard to the keeping of animals to be used as food or in the 
production of food, such as would be specially applicable to dairy-yards, which are 
a great evil in most large towns. I believe, with regard to other matters, there 
is now law enough to remedy defects; and if the above additions were made, the 
present law slightly amended, and the whole codified, scarcely any thing more 
would be required. 
IL. Convenient areas of administration, with easily workable subdistricts. 
The areas which suggest themselves in the first instance as suitable sanitary dis- 
tricts are those which are in use for other purposes, and this principle was at once 
tl in all sanitary legislation. 1t is impossible to go into all the various 
kinds of subdivision of the different parts of the kingdom; but it is sufficient to 
state that for each important purpose a separate kind of division has been adopted, : 
especially in England, less, however, in Scotland, and still less in Ireland. Two 
classes of existing local districts were selected, namely, urban districts and rural 
districts. In England the districts consist of the Metropolis-Boroughs, Improve- 
ment-Act Districts, Local-Government Districts, and Poor-Law Unions, each with its 
local governing body as its sanitary authority. In Scotland the districts are Towns 
under Town Councils, places under Police Commissioners, and parishes with paro- 
chial boards. In Ireland the districts are the city of Dublin, towns corporate, 
towns with populations over 6000 having town commissioners under General Acts, 
all towns under Local Acts and Poor-Law Unions, each with its local governing 
body as its sanitary authority. 
The difficulties which arise from want of uniformity are :— 
1. Conflict in the jurisdiction of the authorities. 
2. A want of uniformity in their areas and population, most of them being too 
small for separate administration. 
8. General irregularity in their form, many being long and narrow, and therefore 
unmanageable, and often laid out without any reference to the natural drainage of 
the country. How can all this be remedied? It seems to me that, by taking a 
sufficient number of these divisions, uniting them into an administrative district for 
all local de Seed and constituting the local authorities from the representatives of 
these, the difficulty would be got over. 
If the English and Scotch systems of poor-law medical relief were assimilated to 
that of Ireland, the principle of the Irish Public Health Bill could be immediately 
made applicable to those countries, and thus one great difficulty solved. 
III. Uniform authorities without clashing of jurisdiction. 
The views I have stated regarding districts must, if accepted, decide to a great’ 
extent all other questions, especially those with reference to authorities. In a few 
instances large towns, say of over 30,000 inhabitants, should constitute separate - 
