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left to look after themselves and get accommodation anywhere?
It must be remembered that the Housing of the
Working Classes Act need only be put into motion in
exceptional cases, e.g., where the houses are unfit for habitation,
owing to any, or all, of the following reasons:—(i) Want
of proper site; (2) general dilapidation, and want of repair
(from age, or otherwise); (3) defective construction of the
houses, either as built originally, or as developed since; (4)
the existence of serious sanitary nuisances, arising from
defective drains, &c.; (5) the fact that short-termed leaseholders
or owners are sometimes financially unable, or unwilling,
to spend sufficient money on their properties; (6)
the close proximity of obstructive buildings. In the larger
(by far) majority of cases, it is found sufficient to proceed
under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which also
enables a Local Authority (if necessary) to apply for closing
orders in connection with houses unfit for human habitation
by reason of the existence therein of ordinary nuisances
mentioned in that Act, without having resort to the more
stringent Part II. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act,
1890—an important fact to be remembered when the full results
obtained are taken into account. Thus, taking the averages
since I have been Medical Officer, there have been served
yearly under the Public Health (London) Act, 6,829 Notices,as
compared with 37 Notices only under Part II. of the Housing of
the Working Classes 1890 Act-the former dealing with 8,562
structural and 1,548 non-structural defects (total, 10,no),
rendering the premises more or less unfit for habitation, and
the latter with 49 houses, which were generally in such a
dirty, damp, dilapidated and insanitary state as to be quite
unfit for human habitation in their then conditions. Of the
total 196 houses condemned under the Housing Act, 43 only
have since been demolished, the resc having being either
closed temporarily, prior to rebuilding, or at once put into
proper order and condition, and so made fit for human