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117
Houses inspected on complaint. In the past few years a great
mass of correspondence has followed upon receipt of letters drawing
attention to the conditions under which the writers live. On receipt of
such a letter a Sanitary Inspector investigates and reports, and usually
a letter is sent to the County Council Housing Department drawing
attention to the case. The County Council authorities go into the
circumstances of the case, but it is clear that for one reason or another
many are disappointed.
One cannot hope to tabulate more than a mere tithe of the letters
we receive, but it is necessary that this should be done so that the facts
may be fully appreciated and continued efforts may be made to help
people. Herewith I give a list of thirty cases—only thirty—taken
from the top of the file; the circumstances under which they are living
make one wonder what is going to happen to the rising generation.
The letters sometimes speak of ill-health, and small wonder. Notice the
cases in which the cubic capacity of the room is given—the one room
in which children are being brought up.
Are we not a trifle eccentric or at any rate illogical? On the one
hand we hold flag days, hospital fetes, hospital Sundays, collections and
what not, to find the wherewithal to help our splendid hospitals. We
pay Medical Officers, Sanitary Inspectors and Health Visitors to keep
people healthy. On the other hand, we keep people bunched together
in houses, sometimes overcrowded; sometimes we come across a family
living in one room. Look how the table brings out the fact that young
children are being brought up in one room, sometimes with a cubic
capacity allowance for which a factory owner or lodging house keeper
would be rapped over the knuckles if his workpeople were similarly
treated. Sometimes the family doctor encloses a letter advising better
accommodation for the family in question; more rarely reference is
made to the fact that a child is tuberculous or threatened with tubercle.
We read that the wife is expecting another baby. How, pray, can her
confinement be carried out with surgical precautions under such
conditions ?
And so we have enquiries about a Maternal Mortality Question!!
It is all very sad and it makes one feel that it would be better to be
born a racehorse or a greyhound; I am certain their accommodation is
relatively much better than that of some people.