of fireplaces.

Common lodging-houses.

District councils are required to keep a register of the common
lodging-houses in their district. No person is allowed to keep a
common lodging-house unless he is registered, and a house may not be
registered until it has been inspected and approved for the purpose by
an officer of the council. Further, the council may refuse to register
a keeper unless they are satisfied of his character and of his fitness
for the position. The council are empowered to make by-laws for fixing
the number of lodgers and separating the sexes therein, promoting
cleanliness and ventilation, giving of notices and taking precautions
in case of any infectious disease, and generally for the well-ordering
of such houses. The keepers of common lodging-houses are required to
limewash their walls and ceilings in the months of April and October
in every year, and if paupers or vagrants are received to lodge, they
may be required to report as to the persons who have resorted thereto.
They must give notice of any infectious disease to the medical officer
of health and to the poor-law relieving officer, and they must give
free access for inspection. There is no definition of the expression
"common lodging-house" in the Public Health Acts, and at one time the
courts decided that shelters for the destitute kept by charitable
persons were not common lodging-houses. That idea is now exploded, and
the acts apply to charitable institutions which receive persons of the
class ordinarily received into common lodging-houses.

Houses let in lodgings.

By-laws may also be made relating to houses let in lodgings which are
not common lodging-houses. These by-laws are in practice limited to
those inhabited by the poorer classes, although the act imposes no
such restriction.

Nuisances.

The Public Health Acts 1875 to 1907 contain elaborate provisions for
dealing with nuisances. Those which are dealt with summarily are thus
enumerated:--(1) any premises in such a state as to be a nuisance or
injurious to health; (2) any pool, ditch, gutter, watercourse, privy,
urinal, cesspool, drain or ashpit so foul or in such a state as to be
injurious to health; (3) any animal so kept as to be a nuisance or
injurious to health; (4) any accumulation or deposit which is a
nuisance or injurious to health; (5) any house or part of a house so
overcrowde