■220 
Village Sanitanj Ecomnmj, 
in thirty years, althougL, under special circumstances, the period 
may, with the sanction of the Secretary of State, be extended to 
fifty years. Sewer authorities are enabled to take upon them- 
selves the duty of scavengering ; they can compel the provision 
-of a privy, water-closet, or earth-closet, to every house, and con- 
ditions are set forth by the observance of wliich earth-closets may 
\)Q constructed instead of water-closets, where privies and cess- 
pools are discontinued. Besides these public provisions a private 
act has been obtained, intituled the " Towns Drainage and 
'Sewage Utilization Companies Act " (30 and 31 Vic. cap. 173), 
enabling a private company to execute sanitary works for towns 
and districts unable, or unwilling, to carry them out by their 
local officers. 
Still, in spite of all these apparent facilities of action, such 
is the complication of the laws, that very little has been done 
'beyond the sewerage of cities and large towns. It is this fact, and 
the belief that laws which are permissive only must remain, for the 
most part, inoperative in small towns and villages, that have 
led to the appointment of the existing " Royal Sanitary 
Commission," " to inquire into and report upon the operation 
of sanitary laws of towns, villages, and rural districts, as far as 
those laws apply to sewerage, drainage, water-supply, the removal 
of refuse, the prevention of overcrowding, and other conditions 
conducive to public health." The attention of the Com- 
mission appears to have been devoted up to this time to an 
investigation of the operation and administration of existing 
sanitary laws, and the best mode of consolidating, improving, and 
enforcing them, by the establishment of some control over local 
authorities other than, or in addition to, that of the Secretary of 
State for the Home Department acting by the officials — medical 
and engineering — attached to the Privy Council and the Local 
Government Acts Office. 
PiRST: Condition of the Dwellings of the Labouring 
Class. 
It is unnecessary here to speak of any other description of 
dwellings in a village than those of the labouring poor, as it may 
be fairly assumed that in the houses of the more wealthy proper 
sanitary arrangements exist, or, if not existing, can be readily 
enforced, if, by their omission, the rest of the community suffer. 
It is certain that no subject connected with the agricultural 
interest has been more discussed than the proper provision of 
cottages for farm labourers. This is testified by the number 
■of essays and papers which have already appeared on the subject 
in previous numbers of this ' Journal.' It is equally manifest 
'that, although so much attention has been given to all the details 
