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100
PUBLIC BATHS AND WASHHOUSES.
The baths and washhouses at the junction of Lancaster-road and Silchester-road, Nottinghill,
opened in April, 1888, are well supported: the washers in the twelve months ended 31st
March, 1902, were 70,776, practically the same number as in 1900; the bathers, 92,781 (including
2,997 persons—males 1,476, females 1,521—attending School Board Evening Continuation Classes,
and 1,890 other boys); a decrease of 1,041. For the majority of parishioners the site of the
establishment is not sufficiently central for baths, and is too remote for use by would-be washers.
The same objection would apply to any single site in the borough. Much good might be effected
by the provision, in convenient localities, of buildings, on a modest scale, to which the poor in
the central and southern districts of the borough might resort for the purpose of washing
clothing, &c.
CLEANSING OF PERSONS ACT.
This Act, passed in 1897, gives power to the sanitary authority to permit any person
infested with vermin to have the use of the apparatus which the authority may have provided
for cleansing the body and clothing, and authorises expenditure on buildings, appliances, and
attendants that may be required for the carrying out of the Act. Nominal effect was given to
the Act soon after it passed by an arrangement with the Guardians, whereby cleansing and
disinfecting apparatus at the able-bodied workhouse, Mary-place, in the Potteries, was made
available on payment of a small fee by the late Yestry—an arrangement still in force. But
little use has been made of the apparatus, owing possibly to ignorance of the arrangement on
the part of the poor intended to be benefited, and probably, to some extent, owing to the locality
and ownership of the apparatus. In the borough of St. Marylebone, a proper equipment having
been provided, thousands of cleansing operations are carried out in the course of the year; much
to the comfort of dirty and verminous persons, who, for the most part, come from an adjacent
Salvation Army shelter. The question of providing a place for the purposes of the Act is engaging
the attention of the Public Health Committee.
THE JAMES STREET AREA.
The James-street improvement, which it was hoped would have been completed long ago,
under the private Act obtained by the promoters, still hangs fire. The time allowed for compulsory
purchase of properties required for the improvement expired in August, 1899, and the time
allowed for the completion of the scheme in August, 1901. James-street is still in a woe-begone
condition: many of the houses have been pulled down, and few of the old inhabitants remain.
The need for a street improvement in the locality, to establish easy communication between
South Kensington and Kensington High-street, west of the church, was imperative, and happily
this part of the scheme has now been carried into effect.
UNDERGROUND ROOMS ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED.
In a number of instances rooms "underground" were found to be illegally occupied in
various parts of the borough. The illegal occupation was in each case discontinued on the
service of a written intimation or a statutory notice.
OVERCROWDING.
Overcrowding is occasionally brought about by the action of railway companies, school
boards, etc., who are not required to provide for the rehousing of persons displaced by the pulling
down of their houses, provided that fewer than twenty are compulsorily acquired at any one time.
This subject was brought to the attention of the sanitary authorities in 1900 bv the late Vestry of
St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark, a suggestion having been made that the School Board should
be compelled to provide housing accommodation for persons displaced by their action; the Vestry,
moreover, advocated an amendment of the Standing Order of the House of Commons, so that all
classes of "Promoters" should be required to make provision for rehousing, even where a smaller
number than twenty houses are taken. The said Vestry, however, had overlooked the fact that
Parliament dealt with the subject, in the Session of 1899, by bringing the School Board for London
under the Standing Order, as regards liability for rehousing persons displaced, a clause with this
object having been inserted in their Provisional Order Confirmation (London) Act, 1899; the clause,
moreover, being made retrospective in its operation ; it being provided therein that all houses or
lands occupied by persons of the labouring class, taken by the Board in the previous five years,
should be regarded as acquired under that Act. No houses have been so acquired in the borough
within that period, but the subject is of interest to the Borough Council in view of the demolitions
shortly expected—at Southam-street and Wornington-road more particularly—in connection with
the proposed widening of the Great Western Railway in that locality, to which reference has
already been made (see page 63).