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UNDERGROUND ROOMS. 27
(London) Act, 1891, for 'any underground room let or
occupied separately as a dwelling before the passing of the
Act.' The deceased was a hard-working respectable woman.
She died from heart disease and bronchitis. The case was one of
a poor sick woman, refusing to go to the parochial infirmary,
shutting herself up alone in her room, and becoming neglected.
"Immediately upon the facts becoming known to the
Sanitary Department, the room was cleansed and disinfected.
"III. In dealing with underground rooms separately let or
occupied in St. James's, the late Public Health Committee
always had regard to the great pressure for accommodation in
St. James's, and to the enormous and increasing rents which the
working classes have to pay for lodgings. It has, therefore,
been its practice—in all cases where the basement rooms are
regarded as "fit for human habitation "—to exempt such rooms
from an exact compliance, in all respects, with the requirements
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. These requirements
apply unavoidably to rooms subsequently let as underground
dwellings. Power to make such exemptions is vested in the
Sanitary Authority, under subsection (3), Sec. 96, Public Health
(London) Act, 1891.
"IV. (a) With regard to the house, No. 10, Jermyn Street,
I am of opinion that, as the caretakers were in charge of the
whole house, and chose to live and sleep in the front basement
room, that room was not " let or occupied separately." [The
distinction which I submit here is not whether the room was
"let" or was "occupied "separately: but whether it was let
or occupied separately from any other part of the house or not.
Basement rooms let or occupied in conjunction with any other
part of the house do not come under Sec. 96 of the Act.
"(6) With regard to the back basement room at 9, Upper
John Street, I am of opinion that the room is fairly entitled
to the exemption hitherto allowed in St. James's by the Public
Health Committee."
In dealing with underground rooms in St. James's a purely
practical view of the matter has been taken. If the rooms
were "fit for human habitation " the dispensing power of the
Public Health Committee has been freely exercised in favour of
these old houses. If the condition of the rooms, or the conditions
of the case warranted the closure of the rooms, the rooms were
condemned. In no case has such condemnation of these
basement rooms been contested at law.