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52
As against these comparatively few instances, a tabular
statement could be given of hundreds of houses that, during
the same period, have been levelled up to a fair and proper
sanitary standard—not only in the Inner, but also in the
Outer, Wards of the Borough. This has been accomplished
by systematic house - to - house inspection (as far
as the size of the Sanitary Staff would allow, followed
by the service of notices, under both the Housing
and Public Health Acts. Large amounts of money have
been spent by the different owners concerned ; in fact,
.iwners have been compelled to improve their own insanitary
properties—a most desirable condition of things, and one to
be preferred to owners being offered a premium for slum
property, as is apt to be the case where a Sanitary Authority
compulsorily purchases such property with a view to clearing
an area under the Housing Acts.
Even when model dwellings are erected, on the cleared
site, it does not follow that the displaced tenants will occupy
them. Experience teaches the reverse.
The owners under Part II. of the Housing Acts, 1890, are
freeholders, or, at least, lease-holders who have not less
than 21 years' interest; and they naturally desire to render
their condemned houses fit for human habitation, and not to
close them, thereby avoiding even a small amount of displacement
of tenants.
It must be remembered that the Housing Acts need only
be put into motion in exceptional cases. In the larger (by
far) majority of cases, it is found to be sufficient to proceed
under the Public Health Act, which also enables the Sanitary
Authority (if necessary) to apply for closing orders in
connection with houses unfit for human habitation by reason
of the existence therein of ordinary nuisances mentioned in
that Act—such ordinary nuisances as are met with in houseto-house
inspections. Taking the averages since I have
been Medical Officer of Health, there have been served
yearly, under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, 10,722
Notices, as compared with 32 Notices only, under the Housing
of the Working Classes Act of 1890—the former dealing
with averages of 9,485 structural, and 2,347 non-structural
defects (11,832 total), rendering the premises, more or less,
unfit for habitation, and the latter with an average of 32
houses, which were generally in such a dirty, damp,