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6
Extraot from Monthly Report. I.
June, 1914.
OVERCROWDING.
During the month the Chief Sanitary Inspector was
in receipt of various complaints made by the London
County Council District Organiser of Children's Care
Work relating to alleged cases of overcrowding. The
addresses given were in each instance in parts of the
Borough inhabited by the poorest class, and upon a careful
investigation of each it was not surprising that the complaints
in some of the cases should be substantiated, but
these cases were in the main very trifling. Squalid surroundings
and intense poverty there were in abundance,
the former, it is impossible to deny, so largely dependent
upon the latter, especially where the earnings of the man
are so small and infrequent as to call for the employment
of the wife, thus making for neglect of children and
home and destructive of all proper amenities of life. In
some of the cases sanitary repairs were necessary and for
these notices were served upon the landlords; notices were
also served on overcrowded occupants requiring the abatement
of such overcrowding within one month.
The Public Health Committee carefully considered
the complaints and the conditions found, and, being of
opinion that the Council should be informed of the circumstances
upon which such complaints are sometimes
founded, ordered the printing of letters sent to the District
Organiser in regard to the complaints as follows :—