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66
as dirty rooms under the Nuisance Section, compared with 156
and 148, in the two previous years.
26a. Windows opening into Conservatories. Cases are
frequently met with in which the living-room, in comparatively
recently built houses, is insufficiently lighted and ventilated
owing to its not opening directly into the open air but into
another structure commonly used as a scullery. Such condition
is very much opposed to health, both the darkness and
want of complete ventilation tending to deterioration of health,
and an increase of consumption and infectious diseases. The
London Building Act endeavoured to prevent this insanitary
state of things by requiring that every habitable room should
have a window opening directly into the exterior air, or into a
conservatory, with a total area of at least one-tenth of the
floor area, and of which one-half should be made to open.
Abuse of this provision has occurred by a lax interpretation of
the word "conservatory." No definition of this word is given
in the Act, but what is popularly understood by it is
"green-house or place for keeping exotic plants," and this is
one meaning given in Chambers's dictionary. The others are
(1) Storehouse; (2) School of music. I think it is obvious that
the Act intended it to mean a green-house for plants, but it has
been interpreted by builders, and apparently to some extent by
District Surveyors, as meaning any structure in which glass
takes a large share, and as a result it has become common to
erect a structure, with one side aud a roof chiefly of glass, outside
one of the back rooms on the ground floor, and use it for
a scullery. It appears to me that this is a distinct breach, both
of the letter and of the spirit, of the London Building Act,
1894. The 2nd sub-section of section 70, dealing with this
matter, states that any person who knowingly suffers any room,
constructed after the commencement of this Act, not in