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HABITATIONS AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR. 93
tional direct tax were levied on houses by reason of
their drainage; or if the assessor regulated his rate
according to the consumption of water for household
purposes. The working of the window-tax is on
this principle: it is accurately proportioned to the
healthiness of the tenement; and although it may
be very true that health is the greatest of treasures,
and that, on this ground, its means and appliances
are eligible for taxation, I cannot but regret that a
struggling population should be tempted by the
hope of some small saving, to make a sensible diminution
in their chances of life, by retrenching
within the narrowest measures their inlets of ventilation
and light.
In reference to the more important constructional
errors which I have described to you, as affecting
the courts and alleys of the City, it will be obvious,
from the remedies which I have suggested, that no
hope of alteration can be expected from landlords.
To throw together the adjoining houses of two different
courts, or to remove one house for the advantage
of certain others, or to destroy a whole
block of houses for the sake of its neighbourhood,
could evidently be undertaken, as a matter of private
enterprise, only where property of very considerable
extent, and close juxta-position, happened to
be in the hands of a single individual; and, as regards
the City of London, this is rarely or never
the case. The only manner, then, it occurs to me,