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that, in the public eye, this branch of Public Health may
no longer be associated with going to the workhouse.
I am directed by the Local Government Board to add some
information as to " the measures of Sanitary Improvement
which, in my opinion, require to be carried out in the parish."
In order that this may be attempted soine reference to the
conditions of the parish must first be made.
If a line be drawn from St. James's Palace diagonally
across the parish to the junction of Oxford Street and Wardour
Street, it will be seen that south of Regent's Quadrant the
line traverses a rich and fashionable district, while north of
Regent's Quadrant the line traverses a labyrinth of small
streets through which ordinary strangers would be unable to
find their way. This northern area is covered to a great
extent by old houses which have passed into the hands of
tenement-mongers and are let out as lodgings to the working
classes who are dependent upon the splendid shops and busy
warehouses of Regent Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly and St.
James's Street. In these old tenement houses the rents paid
by the working classes are high while the conditions under
which they live are bad. The houses are largely held by
tenement-mongers on short leases—a tenure which practically
shuts out both freeholder and leaseholder from re-building or
substantial improvement. The houses are cramped—often
with basement buildings covering their entire sites; routes
through the district are tortuous and the streets are narrow.
These houses, in fact, are old-fashioned gentlemen's dwelling
houses which have been degraded and cut up into slices, and
sub-let as lodgings for the working classes. Sanitary work, in
the way of reconstructing drainage, the provision of additional
water-closets, the repression of overcrowding, and the enforcement
of periodical cleansings, has now been pushed with increasing
severity for many years — as fast as public
opinion and new Public Health Acts have supported and given
power to the Vestry and its Sanitary Officers. In this
quarter the need for wholesale warehouses and workshops