HC Deb 12 September 1893 vol 17 cc947-8
MR. BENN (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that a very large proportion of the cases of small-pox admitted of late into the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board have been of the vagrant or casual class; and whether his attention has been directed to the Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark as to a Salvation Army shelter in that district; if so, whether, in view of the serious risk to the public health and the heavy cost to the ratepayers consequent on such a state of affairs, he will take steps to give the Sanitary Authorities such a power to inspect charitable refuges as is already possessed by the Metropolitan Police in the case of common lodging-houses?

THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Sir W. FOSTER,) Derby, Ilkeston

I believe that it is the case that a large proportion of the persons suffering from small-pox admitted into the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board have been of the vagrant or casual class, and I am aware of a Report which was made by the Medical Officer of Health of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, as to the Salvation Army shelter at Blackfriars Road. The provisions of the Public Health (London) Act with reference to overcrowding and the sanitary condition of premises apply to these shelters in like manner as to any other house used as a dwelling. The Act gives the right to members of the Sanitary Authority and any officer authorised by them of entering, at any time between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., any premises for the purpose of examining as to the existence thereon of any nuisance liable to be dealt with summarily under the Act referred to. In the event of a refusal to admit, an order may be made by a Magistrate requiring the admission, and where a house is alleged to be over-crowded so as to be a nuisance, an order of a Magistrate may authorise the entry at any hour of the day or night specified in the order. I cannot at present give any undertaking to propose legislation on the subject.