PUBLIC HEALTH. (Hansard, 20 May 1856)

MR. COWPER

, in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Public Health Act, said that seven years' experience had proved that there were certain deficiencies under the existing law which required to be supplied, some Amendments to be made, and some ambiguities to be removed. At present local Boards of Health had no power to remove accumulations of filth and refuse from the back yards of houses, but in the Bill which he asked leave to introduce that omission would be supplied. A most important duty of the local boards was to establish such a system of drainage and sewerage as would remove the sewage to a distance from the towns; but difficulties had been experienced in making arrangements for its final disposition. Great advantages had been derived in some districts from the application 466 of the sewage to grass lands, and it was desirable to allow it to be similarly used whenever practicable, but it had been found that local boards had no power to construct reservoirs for the sewage beyond the limits of their own jurisdiction. He proposed to supply that defect by a clause enabling local boards, under certain restrictions, to secure an outfall for their sewage even beyond their own boundaries. There were other points in the existing Act which required amendment, and which the Bill proposed to rectify, and also doubts which it would clear up. He also proposed to alter the existing law, which prescribed the same machinery to towns possessing municipal corporations as to towns not enjoying that privilege. The Bill contained the practical portion of a Bill which had been introduced by the right hon. Baronet (Sir B. Hall), and which had been referred to a Select Committee. He believed it would meet almost every objection that had been raised to the existing Health of Towns Act, except the main objection of the expense it entailed, and of that he would only observe, that if the good it had done was compared with the money it had cost, the Act, even upon the lowest ground of economy, had been a most beneficial one, by preventing disease, and consequent pressure upon the poor rates.