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142
as a slop-sink. Provision should be required to be made
for the proper storage of food in respect to each tenement. However
small this may be, it should be against an external wall
through which the small cupboard compartment should be lighted
and ventilated. It should also be made an offence for a landlord
to let 2 small rooms to a family who must necessarily overcrowd
them ; and the landlord should be required to maintain his property
in a sanitary state under a penalty. At present he has no obligation
to do anything until insanitary conditions are belatedly discovered
by the Sanitary Inspector and a notice is served upon him.
The question arises whether poor-class tenements should not be
annually licensed under strict and well-defined conditions as to the
licensing and continuation of the license.
Observing as I frequently do the dirty occupants of many
of these dirty tenements, and noting the filthy and insanitary conditions
for which they themselves are responsible, and the misuse
and wanton destruction at their hands of the sanitary provisions
which the landlord makes, one often feels much sympathy for the
landlord. Practically all our demands arc made upon the landlord,
but the insanitary tenant is treated as an innocent victim. Additional
powers in bye-laws relating to tenement houses are needed
whereby tenants themselves are made more responsible for cleanliness
and proper maintenance of sanitary provisions. No legislation
and no inspection will serve to maintain a proper standard of
sanitary practice, but the exercise of the legal powers suggested
would aid towards the one and only solution—education.
Compared with previous years, the provision of new workingclass
dwellings by local authorities (in the absence of private enterprise)
has shown during the past two years a marked increase both
in urban and rural districts, and from the Census returns it appears
that there has been a notable diminution since 1901 in the proportion
of the population living in 1-room and in 2-room tenements,
and a corresponding increase of those living in tenements
of 3 and 4 rooms.