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84
of rooms each opening from a passage or staircase used in common
by all the tenants and their visitors, and not directly connected
with the appurtenant offices. The letting is done on one of two
principles. In one case there is a resident tenant who rents the
whole house and lets off the various rooms and may or may not
exercise some care or control of the parts of the house used in
common. In the other, the landlord is not resident, and collects
the rents individually from each separate tenant. Thus in many
cases there is no proper supervision and the passages, staircases,
w.c., washhouse, yard and areas, are neglected, dirty, often
dilapidated, and have a most dreary if not actually beggarly aspect.
I know of few more depressing and distressing experiences than a
house-to-house inspection of our worst type of tenement house.
The general result of these various defects is very serious. The families
have to live in a room which fulfils almost every domestic function. In it the
food is stored, prepared and cooked, the meals are eaten, and the " washing
up" of the cooking and feeding utensils is done; and besides serving as a
kitchen, scullery, larder, dining-room, sitting-room and bedroom, it may also
have to serve as a sickroom or for a confinement. I judge it to be unnecessarv
to labour the point that it is idle to expect that a healthy population will be
reared under such conditions as these or that the social improvement that is
desired will be obtained.
It must not be supposed that such conditions as these are uncommon or that
they are confined to districts that are obviously slums: the majority of the
working-class people in St. Pancras and other parts of London have to endure
them. There are many streets which present quite a good appearance to the
passer-by, where the internal accommodation is no better. If the front of the
houses and the window furniture arc well kept, the general appearance of the
street is not such as will impress public opinion with the seriousness of the
evils which it conceals.
It is, however, in the districts where the lowest class live that the tenementhouse
evils are seen at their worst. In these quarters the houses are frequently
worn out, the woodwork and plastering decayed, the window frames out of
order, the roof leaking and sometimes the brickwork itself sunken and
defective. The fabric too is often thoroughly infested with bugs. These
conditions are the combined result of the overcrowding, the dirty and
destructive habits of the tenants living under hopeless conditions, and the
usual complete absence of any adequate system of supervision and control.
When we come to consider the question of remedies, the most discouraging
feature of the tenement house problem is its vast size. In St. Pancras alone
it involves nearly all the working-class accommodation in the Borough, and a
serious attempt to deal with it would necessitate the re-building or radical
alteration of the majority of the existing houses. Nevertheless, I regard
some such programme as urgently necessary. I realise that a comprehensive
consideration of the problem in London as a whole will take account of the
need for and the possibilities of spreading the working population over large
outlying areas where they can be adequately housed on approved modern lines,