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52 HOUSES PERMANENTLY UNFIT FOR HABITATION.
efforts of the Corporation must be directed. There
are many parts of the City, where great and immediate
advantage would arise from an expenditure
of money applied solely to the purpose of destruction;
parts, where the purchase of an entire court,
or series of courts, for the sole object of pulling
down houses, and leaving open spaces in their
stead, would be the cheapest as well as the most
effective manner of dealing with their sanitary difficulties.
And I have earnestly to suggest for your
consideration, that proceedings of this nature will
require to be pursued to a very great extent, and
at a large annual expense, within the City, before
the cleanliness and habitability of its poorer localities
will stand in their legitimate proportion to the
modern stateliness of thoroughfare and grandeur
of public buildings, which attest the magnificence
of the Corporation.
I would, therefore, beg to recommend that a
survey be made of the worst districts, which I have
specified, with a view to the immediate purchase
and destruction of some considerable portion of
the Court property lying in them; and, still more,
I would urge that this is an exertion, which for
some years must proceed systematically, in order
to thin the density of a population which now
breeds pestilence and augments mortality by its
overcrowding and excess.
I am aware that considerable difficulties lie in
the way of accomplishing an object of this sort