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crowding associated with the single-room system, especially in
some, perhaps the worst portions of the Metropolis "selected for
minute investigation" (page 6) which appear to be regarded as
typical of the poor districts generally. Details, however, as to the
size of the rooms and the age of the inmates are not furnished,
so that we are not in a position to guage the degree of the overcrowding,
or, in other words, to ascertain to what extent the
provision of cubic space is below that sanctioned by the Local
Government Board in Regulations for Houses let in Lodgings.
It is abundantly proved that poverty, not unfrequently the result
of intemperance, is the common cause of overcrowding. It is said
that, in one large and densely populated district, 88 per cent, of
the poor pay more than a fifth part, and 46 per cent, from one-fourth
to one-half of their income, by way of rent, and that the average
price of one, two, and three unfurnished rooms, respectively, is
3s. 10¾d., 6s., and 7s. 5¼d. weekly; and yet, by implication, as I
have said, the blame for overcrowding is laid upon the Sanitary
Authorities. Overcrowding cannot be abated speedily. Notices
and summonses, with all the attendant delays, to be referred to
later on, when treating of other nuisances, stand in the way, and
it is by no means easy to put the law into action. But, granting it
were otherwise, and that we could abate overcrowding at will, one
may ask should overcrowded rooms be emptied en bloc? Coming
down to the individual case, the question that naturally arises is—
Can the family that overcrowds a single room afford to pay a
higher rent? If not, where are they to go when turned out of
then poor home, for they must go together—all or none?
Where can they get a second room for the money available for
rent? If no place is open to them, what is gained by turning them
into the streets? Practically there is no place where they can go,
unless it be the Workhouse, and these would not hold a tithe of
the number displaced if wholesale eviction were possible. The Commissioners
recognise the difficulties of the case, and, practically
acquit the Sanitary Authorities of serious blame by their references
to the practical universality of overcrowding in the densely
populated districts, to the necessity the poor are under of living near