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Results of inspection—I inspected 499 houses and 154 separate tenements in blocks of dwellings.
In 291 of the houses defects were found to exist. In the report of the sanitary committee of the Jewish
Board of Guardians for 1893, it is stated that the committee's inspector visited 733 houses in Whitechapel,
of which the number found " defective and below standard of sanitary authority "was 486.
The Inspector of the Jewish Board of Guardians thus found 66 per cent. of the houses visited by
him defective, while the corresponding percentage obtained as the result of my inspection is 58 per cent.
With regard to the nature of the defects found, the items of most common recurrence are dirty conditions
of rooms and staircases and various forms of dilapidation. In some instances there was evidence that
rooms had been reduced to their existing unwholesome condition within a few months of the execution
of works of cleansing and repair, and abundant confirmation was obtained of the statement made in the
report of the sanitary committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians that " it very frequently happens
that after a house has been put in order its condition is upon subsequent inspection discovered, even
before the year is closed, to be again defective." The statement quoted is adduced as evidence of the
fact that " the manner in which the owners of property have the necessary repairs carried out, still
leaves much to be desired." This is no doubt in some instances true, but there can be no question that
the habits of the tenants are also largely responsible.
As instances of the condition into which houses in Whitechapel tend to fall unless kept under
constant supervision, I may refer to the following—
Providence-place.—Five two-roomed houses each with a yard in which the water-closet is
situated. The bedroom is approached by a staircase opening directly out of the living room.
No. 1. Ground floor ceiling defective, paper falling off on staircase, upper room very dirty,
trap in yard defective, pan of water-closet foul.
No. 2. Dirty yard, paving defective, water-closet seat broken.
No. 3. Ground floor room dirty, floor boards defective, yard very dirty.
No. 4. Dirty yard, bedroom (according to statement of tenants) overcrowded at night.
No. 5. Dirty ground floor room ; staircase badly broken, one stair quite gone ; upper room
dirty; water-closet dilapidated, seat broken; ground floor room used as a slipper maker's
workshop, protected persons employed, but no " notice " exhibited, much overcrowded; bedroom
overcrowded at night.
Vine-yard, Little Pearl-street—Nos. 2,3 and 4 are three-storey houses without through ventilation.
Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8 are being rebuilt, and are unoccupied. No. 9 is a double house without through
ventilation, and is situated at the rear of a house in Little Pearl-street.
There are two troughs, which serve to receive excreta, in a very filthy condition, no water is laid
on to them, and the tenants do not flush them by hand.
No. 2. Plaster falling off the walls, rooms very dirty.
No. 4. Damp ground floor room, plaster defective, dirty staircase, dirty first floor room.
No. 9. Door off hinges, plaster defective on stairs, rooms very dirty, damp wall in first
floor room and a large hole in the floor, attic floor broken, roof defective—two women sleep
here, the cubic capacity of the room is only 416 feet. This house I afterwards learned
was under notice from the Whitechapel Board at the time of my visit.
Defects in connection with water-closets I found of common occurrence. I noted 12 instances
of choked water-closets, 9 instances of broken water-closet pans, 6 of total absence of fittings for
supply of water, 65 in which the flushing apparatus was out of order, 29 foul pans, 17 instances
in which the flush of water was inadequate, and 4 instances of broken water-closet seats. In
many cases when defects of this kind exist the tenants do not take any steps to secure a remedy, for
example, I found three closets full of excreta in a court yard surrounded by eleven houses; inquiry
elicited the fact that these closets had been choked for several days; no complaint so far as I could
learn had been made by the tenants, and but for the chance visit of the inspector and myself the condition
of things might apparently have remained unremedied for an indefinite period.
Other defects noted were dampness of walls of rooms, 25 instances ; defective yard-paving, 53;
defective roofs, 23; defective traps in yards or cellars, 52; defective sink wastes, 12; defective rain
water pipes or eaves guttering, 25; and 5 stopped yard drains. There were 39 instances of overcrowding*
exclusive of 8 overcrowded rooms in blocks of dwellings, and of overcrowded workshops to be further
alluded to. In determining whether or no a room was overcrowded reliance was necessarily placed upon
the statement of the tenant, and it may be assumed that the true extent of overcrowding has been
underestimated.
Some of the most extreme instances of overcrowding were met with in the case of Russians or
Russian Poles who had not long been in this country; thus at No. 3, New-court, Hanbury-street, a
man, his wife and seven children were found occupying a single room of 800 cubic feet capacity; again
two rooms in Plough-street-buildings were, it was admitted, occupied by a man and wife and their family
consisting of a grown-up son, and his wife, and three children, two grown-up daughters and a second son.
Extreme overcrowding was not, however, confined to foreign immigrants; for example, at No. 5, Green'splace,
an English family of ten persons (man, wife and eight children, aged from 6 to 23, of both sexes),
occupied two small rooms, and at No. 1, Lardner's-buildings (man, wife and eight children, aged from
5 to 20, of both sexes), were similarly accommodated.
In two instances basements were found to be separately inhabited as dwellings in contravention
of the law, in one of these cases, a basement in Plough-street-buildings, the caretaker had been previously
cautioned by the officers of the sanitary authority as to the illegality of such occupation.
In the course of my inspection I visited 73 workshops ; in 26 of these, although protected
* The District Board's by-laws relating to houses let in lodgings require—
300 cubic feet per person in rooms used exclusively as sleeping rooms.
400 ,. „ „ not used exclusively as sleeping rooms.
Two children under ten are reckoned as one adult.