New volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica > Volume 30, K-MOR

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ENGLAND AND WALES) 317
died of infectious disease in a room used at the time as a dwelling-
place, sleeping-place, or workshop. It provides for the bodies of
persons dying of infectious diseases in a hospital being removed
only for burial, and gives power to justices in certain cases to order
bodies to be buried. The diseases to which the Act applies are
smallpox, cholera, membranous croup, erysipelas, scarlatina or
scarlet fever, typhus, typhoid, enteric, relapsing, continued or
puerperal fever, and any other infectious disease to which the Act
lias been applied by the local authority of the district in the pre¬
scribed manner. The most important provision, however, relating
to infectious disease is that contained in the Infectious Disease
Notification Act, 1889. That was originally an adoptive Act, but
it is now extended to all districts in England and Wales. It
requires the notification to the medical officer of health of the
district of every case in which a person is suffering from one of the
diseases above mentioned. The duty of notification is imposed upon
the head of the family, and also upon the medical practitioner who
may be in attendance on the patient. The medical attendant is
entitled to receive in respect of each notification a fee of 2s. fid. if
the case occurs in his private practice, and of Is. if the case occurs
in his practice as medical officer of any public body or institution.
These fees are paid by the urban or rural district council as the case
may be. The provisions as to notification are applied to every
ship, vessel, boat, tent, van, shed, or similar structure used for
human habitation in like manner as nearly as may be as if it were
a building. Exception is made, however, in the case of a ship,
vessel, or boat belonging to a foreign government. It is not too
much to say that this Act has been one of the most effectual means
of preventing the spread of infectious disease in modern times.
The district council are empowered to provide hospitals or tem-
porary places for the reception of the sick. They may build them,
. . contract for the use of them, agree for the reception of
p * the sick inhabitants of their district into an existing
hospital, or combine with any other district council in providing
a common hospital. As has already been mentioned when
dealing with county councils, if a district council make default
in providing hospital accommodation, the county council may
put in operation the Isolation Hospitals Act. The power given
to provide hospitals must be exercised so as not to create a
nuisance, and much litigation has taken place in respect of the
providing of hospitals for smallpox. Up to the present time,
however, the courts have refused to accept as a principle that a
smallpox hospital is necessarily a source of danger to the neighbour¬
hood, and for the most part applications for injunction on that
ground have failed.
Epi¬
demics.
Where any part of the country appears to be threatened with or
is affected by any formidable epidemic, endemic, or infectious
disease, the Local Government Board may make regula¬
tions for the speedy interment of the dead, house-
to-house visitation, the provision of medical aid and
accommodation, the promotion of cleansing, ventilation, and dis¬
infection, and the guarding against the spread of disease. Such
regulations are made and enforced by the district councils. The
provisions of the Public Health Acts relating to infectious disease
are for the most part extended to ships by an Act of the year 1885.
District councils may and, if required by the Local Government
Board, are required to provide mortuaries, and they may make
Mor- bye-laws with respect to the management and charges
tuaries ^or ^ie use °1 the same. Where the body of a person
who has died of an infectious disease is retained in a
room where persons live or sleep, or the retention of any dead body
may endanger health, any justice on the certificate of a medical
practitioner may order the removal of the body to a mortuary and
direct the body to be buried within a time limited by the friends of
the deceased or in their default by the relieving officer. A district
council may also provide and maintain a proper place (otherwise
than at a workhouse or at a mortuary) for the reception of dead
bodies during the time required to conduct any post mortem
examination ordered by a coroner.
Under an Act of 1879 the district council have power to provide
and maintain a cemetery either within or without their district,
Cemeteries. au<^ they may purchase or accept a donation of land
* for that purpose. The provisions of the Cemeteries
Uauses Act, 1847, apply to a cemetery thus provided. These can¬
not all be referred to here, but it may be noted that no part of the
cemetery need be consecrated, but that if any part is, such part
m to be defined by suitable marks, and a chapel in connexion with
the Established Church must be erected in it. A chaplain must
also be appointed to officiate at burials in the consecrated portion,
the power to provide a cemetery under the Act under consideration
must not be confounded with that of providing a burial ground under
the Burial Acts. These Acts will be mentioned later in connexion
with the powers of parish councils, for in general they are adopted
or a parish, part of a parish, or combination of parishes, and are
administered by a burial board, except where that body has been
superseded by a parish council or joint committee. It may be
mentioned, however, that under the Local Government Act, 1894,
where a burial board district is wholly in an urban district, the
urban council may resolve that the powers, duties, and liabilities
of the burial board shall be transferred to the council, and there¬
upon the burial board may cease to exist. And it is provided by
the same Act that the Burial Acts shall not hereafter be adopted
in any urban parish without the approval of the urban council.
The distinction between a burial ground provided under the Burial
Acts and a cemetery provided under the Act of 1879 is important
in many ways, of which one only need be mentioned here—the
expenses under the Burial Acts are paid out of the poor rate, while
the expenses under the Act of 1879 are paid in an urban district
out of the general district rate, the incidence of which differs materi¬
ally from that of the poor rate, as will be seen hereafter.
In an urban district the urban council have always had all the
powers and duties of a surveyor of highways under the Highway
Acts. But before 1894 a rural district council had no „. .
power or duty in respect of highways except in a few ^ ways’
cases where, by virtue of a provision in the Highway Act, 1878,
the rural sanitary authority of a district coincident in area with
a highway district were empowered to exercise all the powers of a
highway board. Except in these cases the highway authority in
a parish was. the surveyor of highways, elected annually by the
inhabitants in vestry, or in a highway district consisting of a
number of parishes united by order of quarter sessions, the high¬
way board composed of waywardens representing the several
parishes. By the Local Government Act, 1894, there were trans¬
ferred to the district council of every rural district all the powers,
duties, and liabilities of every highway authority, surveyor, or
highway board within their district, and the former highway
authorities ceased to exist. The highway authority in every dis¬
trict, rural as well as urban, is therefore the district council. 01'
the chief duties of a district council with regard to highways, the
first and most obvious is the duty to repair. This duty was formerly
enforceable by indictment of the inhabitants of the parish, but it
is not quite clear whether this procedure is applicable, now that the
liability to repair is transferred to a council representing a wider
area. Under the Highway Acts it is enforceable by summary pro¬
ceedings before justices and by orders of the county council, but in
either case, if the liability to repair is disputed, that question has
to be decided on indictment preferred against the highway autho¬
rity alleged to be in default. In a rural district any parish council
may complain to the county council that the district council have
made default in keeping any highway in repair, and the county
council may thereupon transfer to themselves and execute the
powers of the district council at the cost of the latter body, or they
may make an order requiring the district council to perform their
duty, or they may appoint some person to do so at the cost of the
district council. It is important to observe, however, that an
action does not lie against a district council in respect of the failure
to repair a highway even at the suit of a person who has thereby
been injured. The reason assigned for this doctrine is that the
council as highway surveyor stand in the same position as the
inhabitants of the parish, against whom such an action would not
lie. The district council are, howevex1, liable for any injuiy caused
through negligence on the paid of their officers or servants in carry¬
ing out the work of repair.
But while rural as well as urban district councils have the powers
and duties of surveyors of highways, the provisions of the Public
Health Acts relating to streets apply only in urban streets
districts, except in so far as the Local Government
Boai'd may by order have conferred urban powers upon a imral
distinct council. These provisions have now to be referred to. It
may be convenient to state that the expression “street” is here
used in a sense much wider than its ordinary meaning. It is
defined by the Act to include any highway and any public bridge
(not being a county bridge), and any road, lane, footway, square,
court, alley, or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not. For
certain purposes streets as thus defined ax*e divided into two classes,
viz., those which ai’e and those which ai'e not highways repairable
by the inhabitants at large. But it has to be borne in mind that
it is not evexy highway that is repairable by the inhabitants at
lai’ge. Before the year 1836 as soon as a way was dedicated to
public use and the public had by user signified their acceptance of
it, it became without more notice repairable by the parish. There¬
fore evexy highway—whether carriage-way, driftway, bridleway, ox-
footway—which can be shown to have been in use before 1836, is
presumably repairable by the inhabitants at lax-ge, the only excep¬
tions being such highways as are repairable by private persons or
corpoi’ate bodies ratione clausurce, ratione tenurce, or by prescription.
But in the year 1836, when the Highway Act, 1835, came into
operation, the law was altered. It was possible, just as formerly,
to dedicate a way to the use of the public, and it thereupon became
a highway to all intents and purposes. But mex-e dedication did
not make the way repairable by the public. That result was not
to follow unless certain stringent requix-ements were fulfilled.
When it is shown, therefore, that a highway has been dedicated
after 1836, it is not repairable by the inhabitants at large unless