View report page

28
Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southward.
The test to be applied is whether in the case of a dwelling-house used also as a
factory the overcrowding is injurious to the health of those employed therein. I
think that the notice in substance conveys that the nuisance complained of is the
overcrowding of a dwelling house, No. 115a Blackfriars Road. The order follows the
Summons. I think it would be exceedingly regrettable if puerile objections of this
sort were to be allowed to take effect. I also think that the magistrate would have
been at liberty to amend by adding the words "dwelling-house.''
There is no substance in the objection. Looking to the whole circumstances, the
Court thinks that the justice of the case will be met by discharging the rule, and (on
the assumption) that the Shelter in question is a philanthropic institution, not carried
on for gain, each side will have to pay its own costs.
Mr. Justice Wright concurred.
In conclusion, it is to be hoped that the action of your Vestry will soon be the
means of bringing Salvation Army and other common night shelters of a similar
nature within the control of the Common Lodging Houses' Act.
Night Shelters, and What we Pay for Them.*
Night shelters may be defined as places provided for poor persons to pass the
night under a roof, either free of cost or upon payment of a small fee.
In this brief article we propose to deal only with such places belonging to the
Salvation Army, and to take our illustration from the Blackfriars Shelter, situated in
the Metropolitan Parish of St. George the Martyr, and in the Union of St. Saviour
Southwark.
The position of this particular Shelter has been defined after a series of legal proceedings.
The High Court decided that it did not come under the Common Lodging
Houses Act, nor within the Public Health Act as regards disinfection. The Shelter,
therefore, is less under the control of the Sanitary Authority than an ordinary dwellinghouse,
inasmuch as disinfection can be enforced in the latter. As to overcrowding,
the Sanitary Authority has a right of entry only between six in the morning and nine
at night, that is to say, when the place is empty. In a word, the Shelter is practically,
outside sanitary control. This fact has been emphasised by its having been the startingpoint
of two outbreaks of small-pox, and by a recent police-court prosecution, when
1,031 inmates were proved to have been in a space which the magistrate said would be
overcrowded by 551. The Blackfriars Shelter offers sitting-room for one penny per night,
and rough sleeping accommodation for twopence or threepence. Nominally, its doors
are open free of charge to the absolutely destitute, but in practice everyone has to pay.
The Shelter is founded with money subscribed by the outside public. That it
makes a handsome profit out of the pence of the poor has never been seriously disputed.
At first sight its work appears to relieve the poor-law and to lessen the burden
upon the poverty-stricken district of St. Saviour. Further inquiry, however, will show
that this so-called philanthropic enterprise entails a heavy indirect tax upon the ratepayers,
first, of the district in which it lies, and secondly, of the metropolis generally.
To put the matter briefly, so far as St. Saviour's is concerned the Shelter attracts
thither a flock of outside vagrants, an importation which concerns all who contribute
to the rates.
It will be well to state here how a pauper becomes entitled to poor-law maintenance.
The Union to which he is chargeable is known as his place of settlement.
It may be "original," that it to say, determined by the accident of birth, or " acquired "
in any of the following ways:—
* Paper read in the Public Health Section, Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association,
Carlisle, July, 1896, by Drs. Waldo and Walsh.