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upon the resources of the parents for food and clothing puts it too often
beyond their power to pay the requisite rent for increased accommodation.
There are many of the houses in this district that have not the smallest
open space at the rear, and which have windows only in the front, and
where, in some instances, the door of the house and the window of the
lower room are close to a public privy. There are others in which there is a
back yard, but it is so small that the dust-bin, privy and water-butt occupy
its whole space, and are close to the window of the back room in which a
family usually lives. There are others again where there is not a back yard,
and where the privy is in close proximity to the front rooms of one or two of
the houses in the court, which renders these rooms so offensive as to be
injurious to the health of the occupants. In my opinion houses so situated
ought not to be used for habitation, they should be taken down and the ground
on which they stood might be used for building better privy accommodation
and other domestic conveniences for the remaining inhabitants. No house is fit
for habitation unless there is ample space for all domestic conveniences and
provided with an ample supply of water. In spite of all the vigilance of the
inspectors, underground rooms, not having the requirements of the Building
Act as regards height, size of windows, and extent of area, are continually
being occupied as sleeping and sitting rooms; whenever such rooms are found
to be inhabited notices are served upon the landlords to remove the occupants.
The amended Metropolis Local Management Act, 25 and 26 Vict., c. 102,
section 62, requires every District Surveyor to report to the Metropolitan
Board, and to every Vestry and District Board in the district in which such
surveyor may act, in the months of June and December in each year and at
all other times when he shall be required to do so by any such Vestry or
District Board, all underground rooms or cellars occupied as dwellings within the
meaning of the 103rd section of the 18 and 19 Vict., c. 120, that are not
built or constructed in conformity with the rules contained in the said section.
A list of all such inhabited underground cellars furnished to the Board
twice every year would facilitate the labors of your sanitary officers in bringing
such cases more frequently under the notice of your Board.
Of the total deaths from epidemic diseases 66 have occurred from
scarlet fever and diphtheria. This is an unusually large proportion
of deaths from these causes, and the mortality from them has principally
occurred among the rate-payers, and not, as is the case in epidemics of fever,
among the poor, for the Medical Officers of the Union have only recorded 31
cases of these diseases among the out-door poor of the district. Some families
have lost two or three of their number from scarlet fever during the