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nication into the open street beyond. The words "No Thoroughfare" are significant
of incalculable mischief.
4. Construction of Houses.—Under the enactments now in force relating to the
construction of new houses, sufficient provision is made for the salubrity of future
habitations. The chief difficulty in sanitary administration is how to deal with the old
ones. In a great many, palliative measures, such as vigilant attention to drainage,
repairs, water supply, lime washing, and piercing new windows in back rooms or staircases,
fitting ventilators, &c., may do much to obviate the mischief of original defective
construction. In one of my earliest weekly reports, I suggested the expediency of
giving some general notice to the landlords of small tenements, inviting them to put
these tenements into habitable condition. I then expressed my belief that there were
many owners of house property who would at once recognize the duty that devolved
upon them, and be ready to act with the Vestry in improving the health of the Parish.
Subsequent experience has not, I am happy to say, induced me to abandon that belief.
It must be admitted that the powers put into the hands of the Vestry of enforcing
improvements in house property are of a stringent, and even arbitrary character. I
feel, very sensibly, the responsibility of advising the Vestry to exercise those powers
in any but urgent cases; but the preservation of the health of the inhabitants is a
paramount duty. The question, of putting houses into a condition fit for habitation,
has two bearings. It is, first, a question between the landlords and the tenants, whose
health is sacrificed by neglect. It is, in the next place, a question between the landlords
and the rate-payers. If the landlords neglect to make the necessary outlay in
improving their property, the expense of maintaining that property in its unhealthy
condition is thrown upon the rate-payers; for these have to bear the burden of supporting
the sick and destitute.
But there is, I am sorry to say, another class of houses originally constructed
in such perverse defiance of all the rules of common sense or decency, that no palliative
measures can be of much avail. As an instance of this, I think it useful to draw your
attention to Parsons' Squai"e, and Bowl Court. The houses in Parsons' Square are
built back to back in a confined situation, so as to preclude the possibility of ventilation
; the rooms are small, with one storey over the ground floor; without water, and
with privies, devoid of traps, under the staircase! The wretched occupants have to
fetch water from a stand-pipe in the Court; the labour and difficulty of getting this
in sufficient quantity is a bar to cleanliness. The property is vested, I understand, in
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who, I am glad to hear, have laid a proposition
before the Vestry to pull it down, and to erect better houses, and effect other