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from Mr. Percy A. Harris, L.C.C., referred to them by the
Council at its meeting on 15th June, 1911, which letter
alleged serious overcrowding in the families whose children
attend Wolverley Street L.C.C. School, and suggesting that
the condition of these children was attributable to such
overcrowding.
Your Committee have, in the ordinary course of their
duty, ordered notices to be served in those cases where
there was justification for such action.
Your Committee find that no complaints of overcrowding
or other insanitary conditions have at any time
been made by the authorities at this school until Saturday,
10th June, 1911, when a letter was received from the
Headmaster alleging overcrowding at one house in Mape
Street, which coplaint affected one family.
On Tuesday, 13th June, 1911, a further letter was
received from the Headmaster, complaining of overcrowding
at two houses in Wolverley Street, affecting eight families.
In each case the premises were visited immediately
upon receipt of complaints, and the following particulars
obtained.
The usual features of squalid poverty and the low
standard of life inseparable from nearly all these overcrowding
cases were strongly in evidence. Every family
was poor or very poor, and, except in one case, were all in
arrears with their rent, whilst the incomes were of a most
precarious and uncertain nature, and as a whole totally
inadequate to furnish the barest common necessities of
healthy life.
Family A.—Man, wife, and nine children under
twelve years of age; are dragging out an existence on
an income of about 20s. per week. The woman works