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479 that institutions of this class must under the law be licensed as common lodging-houses and as such subject to inspection, it being obvious that if improperly kept from a sanitary point of view the circumstance that no payment was taken from the inmates would make no difference to the probability of the spread of disease. The only point raised by the appellant, who had been convicted by Mr. Cluer of the offence alleged, consisted in the absence of all payment. It was held once upon a Rt time in the case of Salvation Army shelters, where a small sum was charged but where no profit was made by the army, that these were not common lodging-houses ; this, 1V, however, had been overruled long before Mr. Gilbert B appealed by a court over which Lord Russell of Killowen b( presided. The couit therefore had to decide whether there p( was any distinction to be made between a night refuge or h, lodging house where the lodgers paid a trifle, as in the case C of the Salvation Army refuges, and one in which there ti was no charge made of any kind, and in which, as f( was quite fairly argued, the lodgers might be looked p: upon as the guests of tho.e maintaining the institu- c; tion. Lord Aiverstone delivered the judgment of the p court upholding the conviction. He was unable to draw the e: distinction which he was invited to, between the charitable g. house where a small payment was exacted and that in which C there was none at all, and he pointed out that the decision p involved no interference whatever with any charitable work i, carried out under proper sanitary conditions. In dismissing c the appeal he granted an application for costs on behalf of d the London County Council who. as Mr. Avory, K.C., d put it, were, in fact, the ratepayers of London and none should question the justice of this. It ia unreasonable of i charitable persons dealing with difficult social and sanitary I problems to maintain that because their own work is beyond reproach they, and with them others who may be less scrupulous, should be beyond the reach of all r criticism. Certainly they have no right to expect to have their errors of judgment paid for by the ratepayers. Accident or -Disease ? ( T The Workmen’s Compensation Acts, as lawyers have good E reason gratefully to remember, while providing for the pay- ment of compensation to workmen incapacitated by "acci- ( dent" omitted to define the manner in which this word was j to be interpreted. Such mishaps as rupture when lifting heavy weights and infection with anthrax have been declared at various times to be "accidents," and the tendency has no doubt been to extend the meaning of the word beyond the sense in which it is used in everyday life. At Bloomsbury county court recently a man claimed as for an accident compensation for his loss of employment when , affected by caisson disease, the defendants being the con- tractors for the new tube railway from Cbaring Cross to Hampstead. Judge Bacon, after hearing argument and the authorities upon the subject, refused to hold that caisson disease was an accident but presumably the Court of Appeal and possibly the House of Lords will be asked to review his decision. It would be interesting to ascertain the legal expenses that might have been saved by a fuller definition in the original Bill upon this point alone. The question is of some interest to medical men who are the most important witnesses in compensation cases of this kind and who naturally find it useful to know when treating a case whether they will some day have to depose to symptoms and treat- ment in a court of law. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE -A work on Criminal Responsibility will shortly be issued from the Oxford Uni- versity Press. The author is Dr. Charles A. Mercier and the book is intended to complement that by Sir FitzJames Stephen. Dr. Mercier points out that the question of criminal responsibility should be considered anew by a psychologist-Sir FitzJames Stephen was handicapped by insufficient knowledge of the work of the mind in health and disease-and that in 20 years our knowledge of insanity has advanced.-A book is to be published in the autumn by t’ie De La Mere Press entitled A First German Course for Science Students," and written by Professor H. G. Fiedler and Dr. F. E. Sandbach. The book assumes no previous knowledge of German and consists of German passages, the vocabulary of which is strictly scientific. It is printed in the English characters and illustrated and contains a brief outline of grammar and a vocabulary. Public Health and Poor Law. LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD. REPORTS OF INSPECTORS OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD. On the General Sanitary Circzcmstances and Administration Special Reference to Infectious Diseases oj the County Borough of Hanley, by Dr. S. MONCKTON COPEMAN.1-The orough of Hanley (population 63,889) in the Staffordshire ottery district present:, several interesting problems in public ealth administration. On the question of housing Dr. opeman shows that although there is sufficient accommoda- .on for the working classes who are able and willing to pay or it, much difficulty arises with regard to a considerable roportion of the poorest class, largely Irish, who apparently annot afford to pay a higher rent than 2s. 6d. a week. ’eople of the latter class inhabit a set of areas which are xtremely insai,itary in their condition but with which it is vidently not easy to deal under the Housing of the Working classes Acts. Proposals for municipal dwellings for the very poor have been made but it would probably be found mpossible to supply such dwellings without entailing a ,onsiderable burden on the local rates. Another special lifficulty in Hanley results from the frequent subsi- lences of the surface of the ground on which the town s built, due to sinking of old mine workings. In some nstances water mains have been broken from this cause and bacteriological evidence has been obtained that objectionable pollution of the water supplied to certain areas of the borough has resulted from the fractures. For similar ’easons sewers often need renovation or repair. In the course of five years it has been necessary to open up sewers for repairs of one or another kind as often as 704 times and on several occasions the sewers in question have had to be relaid wholly or to be abandoned in consequence of the extent of the settlement. Gas mains are also frequently affected by these subsidences. The steepness of gradients in certain of the sewers has rendered them liable to damage from excessive pressure in time of rain. A complete "separate system," dealing with storm water by separate sewers, is now contemplated. Large new works of sewage disposal by means of tanks and continuous filters are being constructed. House drainage is often defective, the pipes until a few years ago having been jointed merely with clay. Another serious defect in the borough consists in the accumulations of house refuse which are allowed to take place in the numerous large middens. Where moveable ashbins have been provided their contents- are emptied not more often than once a week. Frequently in the process of emptying receptacles for house refuse it is necessary to carry the refuse through the living rooms of the house, while it is a common practice to dump the collected material in heaps either in the street or alongside the foot- paths to await the arrival of the scavenger’s cart. "This method," Dr. Copeman observes, " would be sufficiently objectionable were the process carried on early in the morning. But it not unfrequently happens, as I was informed, that the cart may make its rounds in the busiest hours of the day or at a time when children are playing about in the streets between school hours." Various methods of disposal of excrement exist-Rochdale pails, Duckett’s and Fowler’s slop-water closets, cesspit privies, and water-closets with or without flushing cisterns. The supply of water to closets which possess flushing apparatus is often cut off by the water company for non- payment of rates and in consequence a great many flushing cisterns have fallen into disuse. Dr. Copeman draws attention to the advantage of the Hanley public abattoir and considers that it would be a most desirable reform to enlarge it and to abolish the private slaughter- houses which still exist in the borough. For some years the general death-rate in Hanley has remained at a higher- figure than the average for the 76 greater towns included in the Registrar-General’s weekly returns and the same has been true for the infantile mortality. To a large extent this higher death-rate has been due to continued 1 London : Wyman and Sons, Fetter-lane. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. Dublin : E. Ponsonby. No. 217. Price 1s. 6d.
