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56
or renewal of the water service where found defective, and
the underpinning with a proper damp course of those walls
where such is found necessary, with thorough cleansing and
lime whitening, will render these houses fit for habitation.
The various repairs were, more or less perfectly, carried
out, but as will be shown, have had no marked influence on
the high mortality, nor upon the sanitary state of the court.
The history of Devonshire Place clearly shows that the evil
lies deeper than can be touched by paving, cleansing, and
whitewashing.
A house-to-house inspectioa of Devonshire Place this
year shows that 25 of the 26 houses are inhabited by 93
families, the number of rooms occupied being 131, which
works out very little more than a room per family. In fact,
Devonshire Place is essentially a locality in which the rule
is that each room is occupied by a single family. The
average death rate for the past five years has been 38 per
thousand, the average zymotic rate, 8.93 per thousand, and
the average rate from consumptive or tubercular maladies
6'71 per thousand, as compared with the following average
figures for the whole district for the corresponding period :—
Death rate, 21.1 ; zymotic rate, 2.61; tubercular rate, 2.15.
I therefore deem it my duty to report under the
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, the small area
shown in the accompanying plan comprising 26 houses in
Devonshire Place, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
Devonshire Street, and Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, Salisbury Street, as
an unhealthy area and one which it is necessary to demolish
and reconstruct and rearrange.
I further submit that the area is too small to be dealt
with under Part I. of the Housing of the W orking Classes
Act. Section 39 of the said Act (b) states " Where it appears
to the local authority that the closeness, narrowness, and
bad arrangement or bad condition of any buildings, or the
want of light, air ventilation, or any other sanitary defect in
any buildings, is dangerous or prejudicial to the health of
the inhabitants either of the said buildings or of the neighbouring
buildings, and that the demolition or the recon-