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public or of the neighbours, then a demolition order must be
pronounced, even although there is no intention to use it as a
dwelling-house. This appears to us to be the correct interpretation
of the Act, which in Sec. 18 (1), and in the former of the two
alternatives to which Sec. 18 (2) relates, speaks exclusively of
dwelling-houses. It would, in our judgment, be absurd to compel
the owner of, say, a store, to render it ‘fit for human habitation’
on pain of having it demolished. This would be the effect of so
interpreting the Act as to force an owner whose property had once
been used as a dwelling-house to continue so to use it, or have it
demolished by order of a public authority.”
Underground Booms.—35 rooms were found to be illegally occupied
and their use given up, 3 of these not complying with the requirements
of the Housing and Town Planning Act.
In connection with the Westminster Improvement Scheme, the
County Council closed and demolished a block of 40 flats, known as
St. Stephen's Mansions, in Smith's Square. The vacant ground round
this square is gradually being occupied by good class buildings. Six
tenement houses in Alfred Street, Vincent Square, and eight in Arthur
Street, Knightsbridge, have been pulled down, and the sites will not be
used for dwellings.
The Peabody Trustees have erected eleven blocks of buildings at the
corner of Francis Street and Vauxhall Bridge Eoad. They contain
199 tenements, a superintendent's and two porters' lodges.
Of one-roomed tenements there are 58 at 2s. 11d. and four at 3s. 1d.
of two-roomed, 38 at 5s.; of three-roomed, 60 at 6s. 6d.; of fourroomed,
35 at 7s. 3d.; two at 7s. 6d.; and two at 7s. 9d.; a weekly rentroll
of £52 5s. 9d. Coals are supplied to the occupants of the
tenements, all the year round, at 1s. 2d. a cwt., and each set of rooms
is supplied with a gas-stove, a self-filling boiler and ample cupboard
room. In the basement the tenants are able to obtain a bath aud hot
water free of charge; there is also the laundry, provided with coppers,
wringers, washing basins and patent clothes-driers; sheds which are
let out at a charge of 1d. a week have been erected for the storage
of bicycles and perambulators.
There was a very considerable demand for the rooms, and the
Superintendent states that in his 28 years experience of managing
model dwellings he never remembered such a tremendous rush. If the
buildings had been six times as large he would have had no difficulty
in letting the rooms.
A number of the tenants in some of the older blocks belonging to
the Peabody Trust in Westminster were given a preference in order
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