HC Deb 02 August 1866 vol 184 cc1904-5
CAPTAIN VIVIAN

said, he rose to call the attention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to a case mentioned in the Police Report of The Times of that morning, from which it appears that Mr. J. M. Wills, a surgeon temporarily appointed to look after the health of the parishioners of St. Botolph Without, Aldgate, applied to the Magistrate at the Thames Police Court for an order to destroy infected clothes and other things which had been left in a lodging-house at the East End of London, in which three cases of Asiastic cholera, of which two had proved fatal, had occurred. The Privy Council had directed— That the vestry or board shall in dwellings where cholera or diarrhœa exists cause proper disinfectants to be used in sufficient quantities for the purpose of disinfecting the discharges from the sick and the bedding, clothing, and other things thereby infected, and cause every article of clothing, bedding, or furniture which they shall find incapable of being speedily disinfected to be forthwith destroyed, the vestry or board within a reasonable time replacing all such articles or paying a reasonable value to the owner. Mr. Wills stated that he had seen the solicitor and clerk of the Whitechapel Board of Works, who did not know how to act, and the magistrate in answering his application said— The Privy Council had given directions to vestries and district boards to do certain things, and they had no power to enforce those orders. He was utterly powerless, although he was desirous of doing all the practical good in his power. He thought this was a very proper case, in which an immediate application should be made to the Secretary of State. Mr. Wills added, that "the Board of Works now shrunk from the responsibility of enforcing the orders of the Privy Council." Now, what he wished to know was, Whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman has been drawn to the case; and, if so, whether he has given any directions by which the Board of Works will be authorized to carry into effect the orders of the Privy Council?

MR. WALPOLE,

in reply, said, his attention had not been called to the case to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred. He did not know that the Secretary of State had power to issue any orders such as he had mentioned. The Public Health Bill, which stood first on the Paper for that evening, gave much greater power than existed under the present law to destroy infected articles. He should, he might add, make inquiry into the subject, and would take care to do everything in his power to enable the law as it stood to be enforced.