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housing. 73
was dismissed with the costs against the Council. That was the first case under the by-laws
which had been given against the Council. The Magistrate granted a case for appeal, but
shortly after the hearing of the summons, the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Bill of last year
became law and the appeal was not proceeded with. Section 1(5 of that Act appears to meet
the difficulty created by Arlidge v. Islington Borough Council.
The Section referred to authorises the making of by-laws in relation to " houses intended
for the working classes " which are let in tenements, imposing on the " owner " of such house,
as defined by the Public Health Act, the duty of execution of anv works which can be required
by by-law in addition to or substitution for any person (e.g., the " landlord ") at present
responsible for such work, and, what is more important, expressly provides that the "owner"
shall have the power of entry to carry out such works. The usefulness of the Section will
depend on the interpretation given to the words " intended for the working classes." It
should be mentioned that there is no definition of "working classes" in the Housing Acts,
except for one special purpose. So far as can be ascertained the Legislature has not enacted
such definition anywhere, unless the imperfect description of "working classes" given in
Section 18 of the Settled Lands Act, 1890, can be used.
Overcrowding.—The actual cases of legal overcrowding reported during the year
numbered 432, as compared with 300 in 1908, 344 in 1907 and 412 in 1906, showing a relapse
from the improvement recorded last year. Of the 432 cases, in 202 (46.7 per cent.) the degree
of overcrowding—i.e., deficiency in cubic space prescribed by by-law—was slight and the
cases were reserved for observation. None of the cases of overcrowding in the Clarendon
Street Area were allowed to remain unabated. The full analvsis of cases is given below.
OvKliCKOWDING, 1909.
Registration.
Annual
Cleansing.
Other
Visits.
Totals.
Tenements overcrowded 13 267 152 432
Rooms overcrowded 13 288 170 471
Occupants, total 51 1,206 792 2,049
Under 10 years 16 471 389 876
Ten and upwards 35 735 403 1,173
Overcrowding abated (rooms)—
By re-arrangement 3 22 7 32
By voluntarv removal 2 46 5 53
Under notice 1 54 90 145
Cases held over 7 145 50 202
The figures for the whole vear do not give a true criterion of the state of the tenement
houses on the Register of Houses let in Lodgings, at any particular time. The best criterion
is afforded by the returns obtained at the annual cleansing, which, as already explained,
involves the visiting of every house on the Register. In the course of that work 267 cases
of overcrowding were discovered in 4,563 tenements and 1,254 houses. The occupants of the
overcrowded tenements numbered 1,206 living in 288 rooms, the total numbers of rooms
and inhabitants being 7,536 rooms and 15,195 persons. The percentages recorded for
tenements and inhabitants last year and in 1908 are given below.
Overcrowding At Annual Cleansing.
Percentages.
1909. 1908.
Tenements 5.8 4.1
Persons over 10 7.9 5.8