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33
and instantly extinguish a fire. This provision, taken with
the fact that all the floors, staircases, and ceilings are
fireproof, and that unintermittent supervision of the fire
hydrants and Hotel will be maintained on the premises,
seems to make the building as safe as possible against fire.
12. Electric light is used throughout the hotel. Bells
are superseded by chamber-telephones, with a regular
exchange in the hotel. On pressing a button in one's
apartment, one is put into direct speaking communication
with any other person in the hotel.
This sketch will show how enormously costly and complicated
are the sanitary appliances of a great building like
the Carlton Hotel. It is obvious that such a building may
often require to be treated differently from a small threestorey
house in which the imposition of sanitary work of
such a costly quality would be a serious hardship.
UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS.
As to conditions in the district of St. James which are
dangerous to the public health, they continue to exist on
the north-east side of Regent Street. These conditions
are due to the tortuosity of the streets in that district,
to the survival of worn-out and short-leased old buildings
now traded in as tenement-houses, and to the influx of
Polish Jews and other workmen. These foreign workmen
have never seen a water-closet before being shipped
to St. James's, and their ideas as to sanitation are
utterly rudimentary. The landlords who take these people
in as tenants have the greatest difficulty in reducing them
to order, and in protecting the closets and drains from
being stopped up. Sometimes the landlord is worried by
a malicious tenant, or a reprimanded servant, who purposely
stops up a closet, and then makes a formal complaint
to the Sanitary Department. But the only practical
course is to saddle the landlord with full responsibility
for the neglect or misconduct of the tenants whom he
harbours, at large rents, for his own profit; and, while
this district remains occupied with old houses built upon