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181
particulars each of the several rooms failed to conform to the
requirements of the Act," I observed that "the list furnished by
the District Surveyor was not exhaustive." In one street named,
only two rooms in two houses, built since 1855, were reported,
there being in that street alone "scores of houses in which the
conditions as to the level and the drainage of the area were the
same as in the houses mentioned."These houses, I added, had
been "erected under the supervision of the District Surveyor, a
remark applicable to all of the houses in the Parish built since
1885." It was not alleged that any of the rooms referred to in
the District Surveyor's report were unfit for human habitation,
although some of them, undoubtedly, were "occupied as dwellings
contrary to law." A copy of my report was forwarded to the
County Council, together with a communication intimating that
your Vestry were taking—
"The necessary action to cause remediable defects in connection with
the (specified) underground rooms to be removed," but that it was
thought " undesirable to take proceedings to close rooms on account of
technical defects, which cannot be removed, in the case of rooms which
are otherwise fit for human habitation. The effect of forbidding the
occupation of such rooms would be to raise the rent of the other rooms in
the several houses, and if the same course were adopted in regard to all
underground rooms, the accommodation available for the poorer classes,
who occupy such rooms, would be materially curtailed. The Vestry, it is
hardly necessasy to observe, could not act partially in the matter, and
should they take proceedings upon technical grounds, it would be their
duty to deal with many other cases than those mentioned in the District
Surveyor's List, which is far from being exhaustive. The Vestry," it was
said, "are fully alive to the importance of the subject, and in evidence of
their desire to do whatever may be necessary in the interests of public
health " were " now taking proceedings to close a considerable number of
underground rooms not comprised in the lists of the District Surveyors,
upon the ground that they are unfit for human habitation."
The County Qouncil, in a further communication (27th May) from
the Building Act Committee, stated, "that although they attached
considerable importance to the views entertained by the Vestry,
they felt that no discretion was conferred upon them by the
statute in dealing with cases in which it was found that the law