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if the reply is in the affirmative, and it is improbable that overcrowding
could occur with one family, measurements of the house
are not taken.
An instance may be given to show to what extent houses in
certain neighbourhoods are sublet, and that overcrowding is not
limited to streets in which the houses are supposed to be occupied
or are intended for occupation by the working-classes. A house was
found when measured to be overcrowded; it was a large house and
sublet into one and two-roomed tenements. The rent paid for the
house was £85 a year with rates. The total rents received from the
lettings amounted to £4 17s. a week, and two of the lettings were
overcrowded. The overcrowding had occurred since July 1937, and
notices have been served upon the landlord.
In the Annual Report for 1936, census figures were given
which pointed to the fact that the incidence of overcrowding had
decreased considerably between 1921 and 1931, and that this improvement
had continued between 1931 and 1936. The inspection
which is now being undertaken so far points in the same direction.
Owing to an oversight in the forms which were supplied for
the purpose of Survey A and Survey B, it was impossible
to distinguish the different lettings in the house; space had not been
inserted to show on which floors the rooms were situated. The
rooms had been measured, but the forms were almost useless and
these houses had to be re-visited in order to obtain the necessary
particulars. Of the 430 lettings overcrowded in Survey B, 246 had
become uncrowded; and of the 9,960 lettings measured up to the
end of December 1937, 29 were found to be overcrowded, and
occupied before the appointed day, 1st July 1937. On 31st
December 1937 there were to our knowledge 213 lettings overcrowded.
The following tables give the number of houses and tenements
and the numbers overcrowded. The column which gives the
numbers of tenements which are overcrowded is probably the most
important. The highest percentage of overcrowded tenements
occurs amongst the two-roomed ones. In the one-roomed tenements
the percentage was 3.8, in the two-roomed, 6.1 and in the threeroomed,
2.8. The percentage overcrowded in the whole of the
tenements inspected was 2.1 compared with 2.5 under Survey B.