View report page

4
Your Board recently had this question under discussion. After much consideration
a representation was made to the Local Government Board for
permission to amend the exemption clause of the 94th Section of the Act.
The necessity of a change was so apparent that the approval of the Local
Government Board was at once given to your proposal, so that houses are
now liable to registration where the lodger rental does not exceed seven
shillings and sixpence per week for unfurnished apartments, and fifteen
shillings per week where the apartments are let furnished. The latter
case concerns the District to a very limited extent.
The effect of this modification will be that many more additions will be
made to the Register, and probably in time the services of an Inspector
may be required to permit such dwellings to receive sufficient visitation.
Such houses, liable as they undoubtedly are, to all the evils produced by
overcrowding, should be inspected, if possible, weekly. During the year
under consideration, I have become aware in the hundreds of houses I have
myself inspected, of instances where part of a two or three-roomed
tenement has been sub-let to others by the tenant. Only persistent
regular inspection can cope with such a practice.
I am somewhat concerned for the Public Health Work in the future of our
own section of the new Municipality which will commence its official life in
November of the present year 1900. I do not desire to disparage the good
work which is being performed by the other Districts to which we are to be
united, but in many ways Whitechapel differs from the others. It employs
a much larger staff of Inspectors in comparison with its population than
does any of the others, and yet I feel sure no one will think that too many
are engaged in the work which is required, having consideration for the
class of dwellings and the inhabitants who live in them. With other good
movements in the District, I am not now directly concerned, but we may
well be proud of our Destructor Works, and the Electric Lighting
Installation; of our well constructed Baths and Washouses; of our Free
Library and Museum; of the Art Gallery, now approaching completion;
of the methods for the collection and disposal of refuse from the streets and
from the houses, as well as of our Public Mortuary and Coroner's Court; our
open spaces, too, are worthy of note. In the partnership now so soon to
take place, Whitechapel will, at least, contribute most valuable assets.
Probably no part of old London has, during the past twenty years, been
able to show more general improvements. In exchanging new buildings
for old worn out dwellings, as well as in comprehensive schemes of improved
drainage, a great advance has taken place. I invite attention to the
Report which I prepared by your direction for the London County Council,
and also to the Tables which I appended to that Report. The latter I have
extended so as to include the past twenty years.
These statements are placed at the end of this Report.
What have all these changes done for the general good of the District ?
How do we know, that apart from improved appearance, the result has
justified the expenditure ?
Let me merely draw attention to the comparative death-rate as a
sufficient reply. In the year 1879 the Whitechapel District death-rate was
stated to be 26.0 per 1,000. At the present time it is 19.3 per 1,000.
This in itself is of course most satisfactory, but it becomes still more so
when the difference between our death-rate and that for the entire
Metropolis is compared for the two periods. These figures I may set out
as follows;—
1879. 1899.
London (including Whitechapel) 23.3 19.7 per 1,000
The Whitechapel District 26.0 19.3 „