386 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
philanthropic efforts of the Rev. J. Odgers, who was then residing 
in the town, reported fully on the sanitary condition of Plymouth, 
on data obtained through very careful inquiry ; and it showed that 
in Plymouth, on the average, a larger number of persons occupied 
each separate dwelling-house than even in London, or the other 
great centres of population. The first Local Act for this borough 
was passed in 1770, but it only provided for lighting and watching 
the town, and for regulating the carmen and porters; and the later 
Acts of 1772 and 1774 were confined, but with various amend- 
ments, to the same objects. In 1824 the Plymouth Improvement 
Act, which was only superseded by national legislation, was passed, 
and its scope was far wider and more beneficial. It was an Act 
"for better paving, lighting, cleaning, watching, and improving 
the town and borough, and for regulating the police thereof, and 
for removing and preventing nuisances and annoyances therein;" 
and in the main its machinery was effective, and greatly in advance 
of the period when it was passed. The powers conferred by this 
Act were vested in certain commissioners appointed by the Statute, 
and other commissioners to be associated with them by election. 
These commissioners had full power to pave and re-pave the 
streets, to make drains, to repair private drains which communi- 
cated with the public sewers at the owners' expense, and to make 
and cleanse private drains, if requisite, after notice ; to provide for 
lighting the streets, to cleanse the streets, to order the removal of 
offensive buildings, matter, or refuse ; to require that steam-engines 
should consume their own smoke ; to prevent public nuisances 
specified in the Act ; to prevent cattle from straying in the streets ; 
to provide for watering the town and effecting public improve- 
ments ; and for the purposes of the Acts to levy rates and exercise 
the powers it conferred. But although the Act was comprehensive, 
and the commissioners included the ablest and most influential of 
the inhabitants, the work was not fully effected; and, from the 
inquiry made by the Association in 1847, it was evident that, to 
give effect to discretionary power vested in individuals, there must 
exist a wise and intelligent sympathy with the object to be accom- 
plished, which should justify action on the part of the authorities, 
and make the people tolerant of its exercises. The report showed 
that at that time there was a population of 38,600 ; that 28 
streets, having 3,300 inhabitants, had no drains, and 53 streets, 
with 9,996 inhabitants, were very imperfectly drained; and there 
