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one, as the Registrar-General's statistics taken at the Census,
1891, show that there was at that date in Lambeth a total
of 63,454 tenements, of which 10,837 were one roomed and
11,485 two-roomed. Further, of the 10,837 one-roomed tenements,
3,120 had three or more occupants per room, and 543
had over four occupants per room; and of the 11,485 tworoomed
tenements 5,828 had five or more occupants per
tenement, and 653 over six occupants per tenement, whilst of
the total number of tenements with less than five rooms, viz.,
40,472, it was found that 7,747 had more than an average of
two occupants per room. Taking the word "overcrowding"
as meaning (roughly) more than two persons per room, it is
seen that at the time of the 1891 Census, 28 per cent, of the
one-roomed, 50 per cent, of the two-roomed, and 19 per cent,
of the total tenements with less than five rooms, were overcrowded
; and there is every reason for believing that these
numbers have much increased since that time, allowing for
steady increase of population year by year, or an almost
equally steady decrease of house accommodation, at least in
the Inner Districts of Lambeth.
What I have endeavoured to do in Lambeth has been to
deal with houses, singly or in the form of courts or streets,
and condemn them under Part II. of the Housing of the
Working Classes Act as unfit for habitation, such condemnation
leading to the houses in question being ordered to be
either put into proper order and condition to the satisfaction
of the Vestry, or closed, and afterwards demolished, by the
owners. Fortunately, the owners, who under this particular
Act are generally freeholders, or, at least, leaseholders, who
have not less than 21 years' interest, adopt, as a rule, the
former alternative, with the result that houses are put into
sanitary condition, and the inmates are not permanently
disturbed. Surely it is better for the houses in which people
live to be made habitable and sanitary than for such houses
to be closed and pulled down, and the tenants turned out and