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for the fact that there are no back to back houses, no crowded
courts and the like ; but good wide roads and houses built to the
standards of modern bye-laws.
In my previous Reports I have stated that in Leyton we have
practically no slums, and by this I mean no areas so constructed
as to be necessarily slums. But we have a certain number of that
class of lazy, dirty and dissolute people who reproduce in the houses
they occupy the conditions found in slum areas. And it is the
social improvement of this class of tenant and of the interior of
their homes that is the phase of the housing question which more
particularly confronts us in Leyton. Some of these people,
in addition to being slovenly, dirty, and indolent, go out of their
way to be destructive also; as the dilapidated walls of their
rooms, damaged woodwork and broken w.c. pans, in their houses
show.
This class of person tends to flock together into certain areas,
which gain thereby an unenviable reputation ; such localities may,
through the conduct of the dwellers therein, be denominated slums.
BOUNDARIES.
Leyton is bounded, on the north, by the Urban District of
Walthamstow, on the south by Stratford (County Borough of West
Ham), on the east by the Urban District of Wanstead, and on the
west by the London Borough of Hackney.
GEOLOGY.
The soil is composed of valley gravel, except in the neighbourhood
of the River Lee, and the Marshes of Hackney and Leyton,
where it is alluvial in character.