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abandoned, and hundreds, if not thousands, of people living
under conditions of life that are a foul disgrace to
our civilization. But nobody dares touch it." The article
was largely made up of descriptive touches, of incidents
observed, and of persons interviewed by the Commissioner,
who said that he has "seen more ruinous and dilapidated
neighbourhoods in London," but never" anything in
London more hopelessly degraded and abandoned than life
in these wretched places." Reference was made to the
"furnished apartments," of a certain kind, alleged to be at
once numerous and costly, and to the Common Lodging
Houses, which have considerably increased in number within
the last few years, but are well managed and well kept under
police supervision. "This slum neighbourhood," it was
averred, "began to develope" when the Old Kensington
'Rookeries' (presumably meaning " Jennings's Buildings),"
were swept away; the people migrating here. This, however,
is but a very partial explanation of the origin of the state
of things described. It began with the clearances in the
district of St. Giles' (Bloomsbury), when the slums were
swept away to make room for New Oxford Street. This
was followed by other clearances in St. Giles's, in "Camden
Place," Notting Hill, where "Clanricarde Gardens" now
stands, arid in "Jennings's Buildings," High Street, Kensington,
which was demolished by Baron Grant. The houses,
in the district indicated, were built for a class of people
very different to those who now, for the most part, inhabit
them; and it is to be presumed that, not finding suitable
tenants, they gradually got to be occupied, to a greater or less
extent, with the undesirable classes of people referred to both
by the Commissioner and his clerical commentators. The
Commissioner asked " What is to be done ? Can you banish
these evils ? Can you put down such neighbourhoods ?"
And " he would not say." The Kensington Vestry, he added.
"ought to know best, and they seemed to think they could
not." If the writer of the article had little to say about