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Your Inspectors are now making a house to house visitation; they will
visit in rotation every house in the district, and wherever the provisions of the
Acts of Parliament are not observed, a notice will be left, informing the landlord
of what is required to put his premises in a proper sanitary state. It
therefore behoves all landlords, who hold property in the poor localities, to do
at once all that the Act requires for the comfort and health of their tenants;
as, by promptly carrying into effect the provisions of the Sanitary Acts, they
will not only save a great amount of labour to your Board and officers, but
will avoid the expense which is necessarily incurred by legal proceedings. If
landlords or their agents, whenever they collect the rents, would thoroughly
inspect their property, complaints would be prevented, and the sanitary condition
of the district improved.
Some of the property in this district is in such a deplorable condition
owing to its bad original construction, (houses having been built back to back,
without a foot of spare ground to place either a privy or water butt) that it
cannot be improved, and for the sake of the public health ought to be taken
down.
However painful it may be to put owners of property to great expense in
making those structural alterations in their courts and houses, and laying on
a proper supply of water, yet. the interests of the rate-payers at large must be
looked to, for the burden of supporting the sick falls upon them, and many of
them suffer privations to meet the demands of the tax-gatherer. While
therefore, on the one hand, we must not proceed in a reckless manner so to
burden property as to render it entirely unproducive, yet, on the other, we
cannot allow the labouring man, whose health is the only property he can call
his own, to live in unwholesome places, to the destruction of that capital,
by which alone he is enabled to support himself and his family.
The Legislature has recently passed two very important Acts, having for
their object the improvement of the habitations of the poor. One of these Acts
bears date 1851, and is entitled "An Act to encourage the establishment of
lodging-houses for the labouring classes." The other is entitled "An Act for
facilitating the erection of dwelling houses for the labouring classes," and is
dated 1855. The former of these Acts may be put in operation by any parish
in England, having a population according to the last census of not less than
ten thousand : the latter Act enables any number of persons, not less than
six, to form themselves into a company for the purpose of providing dwellings
for the labouring classes, to which the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies
shall grant a Certificate of Incorporation; and which company shall have
power to accept grants and leases of lands, and purchase and hold lands, to
erect thereon dwellings for the labouring classes, and to let such dwellings to
lodgers by the week or month, &c.
The preambles of these two Acts are nearly similar, and to the following
effect:—" Whereas it is desirable for the health, comfort, and welfare of the
inhabitants of towns and populous districts, to encourage and facilitate the
establishment therein of well ordered lodging-houses for the labouring classes;
Be it enacted," &c.