b'Section 19 of the 1976 Act, together with section 144 (power to encourage visitors and provide conference and other facilities) and section 145 (provision of entertainments) of the 1972 Act (see Chapter 7) are the main powers by which local authorities encourage tourism and provide leisure facilities for the inhabitants of, and visitors to, their area. Section 19 of the 1976 Act was the subject of judicial scrutiny in a series of cases involving Credit Suisse bank in the 1990s. For further information, see Local Authority Companies and Partnerships (LACAP), Ch 8. The Victorians and Edwardians were very keen on their parks and gardens; hence, the number of statutes governing parks, allotments and smallholdings enacted during this period ran into double figures. Many of them place duties and powers on councils. For example, section 23 of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908 contains powers for a council of any borough, urban district or parish, if it is of the opinion that there is a demand for allotments, to provide sufficient numbers of allotments to be let to persons resident in the borough. Section 42 of this Act also deals with grazing rights to be attached to smallholdings or allotments and enables councils to acquire land for smallholdings or allotments and includes a power to acquire land for the purpose of letting to tenants of small holdings and allotments, grazing rights and other similar rights over land so acquired. Section 40 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1890 enables an urban authority to provide, maintain and remove in or near any street in a district, suitable erections for the use, convenience and shelter of drivers of hackney carriages, and such other persons as the urban authority may permit to use them. The urban authority may from time to time make regulations for prescribing the terms and conditions and the fees (if any) to be charged for the use of such places of shelter, and enact byelaws for regulating the conduct of persons using the same. Section 44 enables an urban authority, on such days as it thinks fit, to close to the public any park or pleasure ground and to grant the use of the same, either gratuitously or for payment, for any public charity or institution or for any agricultural, horticultural or other show or other public purpose, or use the same for any such show or purpose, and the admission to the said park or pleasure ground on the days when the same is closed to be either with or without payment as directed by the authority. There is a proviso that no such park or pleasure ground should be closed on any Sunday. This section also enables urban authorities to themselves provide and let for hire or licence, or to enable any person to let for hire, any pleasure boat on any lake or piece of water and fix rates of hire of boats and boat houses. Section 31 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907 enables a local authority to fence land adjoining any street which is causing inconvenience or annoyance to the public and to recover reasonable expenses from any owner or occupiers who are responsible for the condition of such fences. Section 76 of the 1907 Act contains further recreation powers with regards to parks or pleasure grounds under local authority management or control, including the power to enclose during time of frost any part of the park or ground for the purposes of protecting ice for skating and charging admission to the park so enclosed, but only on condition that at least three-quarters of the ice available for the purpose of skating is open to the public use free of charge. It also enables apparatus for games and recreations to be provided and to charge for the use thereof, and to authorise any person to place chairs or seats in any park or ground and to charge for, or authorise any person to charge for, the use of such chairs, and to provide reading rooms, 137'