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on each floor, but in some cases there are but three rooms in the
house, one on each floor. These premises are in nearly all instances
occupied by members of more than one family, this being so even in
many cases where the ground floor is used as a shop. In the better
class streets the whole house is rented by one tenant, who sublets
unfurnished one or more of the rooms, while in the poorer class of
street it is usually found that the rooms are let separately to each
tenant, there being no one person resident who has any control over
the house generally, unless the landlord arranges with one of the tenants
to act as caretaker and to see that those parts of the house used in
common are kept in a proper and cleanly condition. In addition to
the above-mentioned housing accommodation considerable provision
has been made for the inhabitants of the district by the erection of
blocks of model dwellings, especially in the neighbourhood of Whitecross
Street. These dwellings, it is stated by Dr. Yarrow, the Medical
Officer of Health of St. Luke, in his Annual Report for 1896, are
inhabited by as much as one-fifth of the total resident population.
Many of these blocks of dwellings were visited during the inquiry, and
were found to be well arranged in respect to the means of light and
ventilation of the living rooms, and the provision made for washhouses
and water-closets, and they were clean and in good repair. In
all instances the blocks are in charge of a resident superintendent.
There are no houses in the district built back to back with the
exception of a small block known as Baltic Place and Baltic Court.
There are a few narrow courts and alleys, some of which are
approached by an archway from the adjoining street, and in some of
which the houses having no backyards are provided with water-closets
and washhouses for common use in the space in front of the houses.
For the most part, however, the houses in such cases being but two
storeys high, and having but one room on each floor, the evils arising
from absence of open space at the rear of the premises is somewhat
diminished. The majority of premises have small yards. Some of
these houses appear to be of considerable age, and show signs of decay.
During the inquiry I visited 432 houses, and in these defective
conditions of sufficient import to require the attention of the officers of
the Authority were noted as follows:—Defective or insufficient paving
of yards in 63 instances; defective or dirty condition of water-closets
in 88 instances; dilapidated dustbins or absence of proper covers in
66 instances; and undue accumulations of house refuse in 13 instances.
Domestic cisterns were found to be insufficiently covered or in a dirty
state in 34 cases, and animals kept so as to be a nuisance were met
with on nine occasions. Dampness of walls was noticed in 23 cases;
but in a large number of the older houses matchboarding of walls
exists, and it is possible that in some of these after wet weather
dampness would also be present. Inlets to drains, which, in the large
majority of cases, are placed outside the dwellings, were found to be in