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4.
perfeCtiy true. Occupied as they are, such has been and must ever
be the case, because there is hardly a house in the district which is
in the occupation of the poorer inhabitants, but that is occupied by
more than one family ; and the consequence is, that every house so
occupied has to be continually watched by the Sanitary Officers of
the Board.
The remedy suggested by the Jewish Guardians is, to your Committee,
so startling, that your Committee think it better to quote from
their own letter, that it may appear as adtually made ; it is as follows:—
" The compulsory closing of pestilential dwellings here suggested will
" involve no cost to the ratepayers, and the method is therefore not
" open to the objection of expense that would be involved by condeming
" the houses under Torrens' (Amended) ACt. The houses, when closed,
" being unproductive of rent, would certainly be promptly pulled down
" by the owners and their sites covered by improved dwellings. In
" this manner whole areas might, little by little, be improved, and the
" buildings thereon removed, without the costly processes involved by
" the Artizans' Dwellings Act." This " little by little" process seems
to your Committee to read as a satire upon the present condition of
the Whitechapel District. For acres upon acres of houses have just
been demolished in the District, under the Artizans' and Labourers'
Dwellings Acts, and for railway purposes; many thousands of the
residents have been turned out of their dwellings; acres more of
houses are about to be pulled down under the Scheme known as Bell
Lane Scheme, which is about to be put in force by the Metropolitan
Board of Works ; and under a representation recently made by the
Medical Officer of Health, upon a requisition signed by several
inhabitants, complaining of certain houses described as the Pearl
Street Scheme, it is proposed that a further area shall be cleared.
It is self evident that under the Schemes promoted by the Metropolitan
Board of Works for the Improvement of the District and by the
absorption of property by Railway Companies, a vast number of
houses have been destroyed and it is estimated that about 12,000
inhabitants have been displaced whilst accommodation has at present
been provided for, only about one fourth part of the number of those
disturbed; and there is a still worse feature, which is that the new
and better buildings very rarely indeed become occupied by the class
of persons who have been disturbed. In addition to the destruction
of the houses of the poor which have been referred to, your
Committee would also call to the recollection of your Board the fact
that in the alteration of Baker's Row in which your Board expended
£"35,000 in improving that locality, and in the widening of Royal
Mint Street, where your board expended upwards of £"38,000, many
dwellings of the poorer classes were also disturbed.