The Short Title of this Act is “The Public Health Amendment Act, 1904.”

For the purposes of sections four to seven of “The Public Health Amendment Act, 1903,” the expressions “Hospital Board” and “Board” shall include and be deemed as from the passing of that Act to have included a “District Board” under “The Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act, 1885.”

Where any local authority itself undertakes the removal, collection, and disposal of house refuse or other rubbish or night-soil, the cleansing of privies, ashpits, or drains, or the supply of disinfectants for use in privies, such local authority may, in respect of all or any of such works, levy a uniform annual fee in lieu of such separate rate, as provided in section fifteen of “The Public Health Amendment Act, 1903,” but so that the total proceeds of such fee shall not exceed the proceeds of the rate.

Such fee shall be recoverable in the same manner as if it were a rate under “The Rating Act, 1894.”

Section four of “The Public Health Amendment Act, 1903,” is hereby amended by repealing subsection two and substituting in lieu thereof the following subsections:—

Subject to the provisions of section eight of this Act it shall be incumbent upon the local authority of every borough to provide a suitable building for the purposes of a public morgue; and if any such local authority shall fail so to do, then any ten ratepayers of such borough may apply to the Supreme Court for a mandamus to compel such local authority to comply with this provision, and shall be entitled to recover from such local authority all costs incurred in and about the obtainment of such mandamus.

The provisions of section forty-three of the principal Act shall extend and apply to every such morgue.

In cases where two or more boroughs adjoin each other, or are so nearly adjacent that the nearest boundary of any one of them is not more than two miles distant from the nearest boundary of any other, the obligation to provide a public morgue shall be only upon that one of such boroughs which has the largest population:

Provided that such borough shall be entitled to call upon each adjoining or adjacent borough which has not also provided a morgue to contribute a share of the cost in the same proportion that the population of the contributing borough bears to the population of the first-mentioned borough: And provided further that nothing herein contained shall be deemed to repeal the provisions of section forty-two of the principal Act, or to limit the powers of the Chief Health Officer in relation thereto.

When there is no public morgue situated within a distance of three miles from any public hospital, the dead-house of such hospital shall be deemed to be a public morgue, and the Superintendent or other person in charge of such hospital shall, at the request of any Justice of the Peace, or officer or constable of police, receive into such dead-house any dead body that may be brought thereto for the purpose of an inquest being held thereon; and for every dead body so received shall be paid the sum of one pound out of any money which may be appropriated by Parliament for such purpose; and if such Superintendent or person in charge shall refuse to receive such dead body for the purpose aforesaid he shall, on conviction thereof before any Justice of the Peace, forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding five pounds.

Notwithstanding anything in any other Act contained, no innkeeper shall be required to receive into his licensed premises any dead body that may be brought thereto if such licensed premises are situated within a distance of three miles from any public morgue, or from any hospital dead-house deemed to be a public morgue under the provisions of section nine of this Act.

The enactments specified in the Schedule hereto are hereby repealed to the extent therein mentioned.