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10
towards the reports and recommendations of their
officers. In the early part of this year the Pall Mall
Gazette, in commenting upon one of my reports, in
which I recommended proceedings to be taken under
the "Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act," reflected
unjustly upon the Vestry, in implying that " nothing
more was ever heard of the reports or their recommendations,"
thus suggesting the only inference that this
Board did not adopt or enforce them; the intention of
the remark was no doubt of the best, but I can positively
state, in the several instances in which I have advised
the adoption of proceedings under the above named Act,
to enforce repairs or alterations in dwellings unfit for
habitation, this Board has invariably adopted my
reports, referred them to their Surveyor, and carried
out the provisions of the Act, by enforcing his recommendations.
It would be difficult to trace out the origin of
the infatuation which seems to pervade the minds
of all people who do not know the East of London,
that it is the matrix and birth-place of everything
typical of penury, disease, and general human
discomfort; that it has its share of all these mortal
infirmities is true enough, but the delusion that it is
afflicted with anything like the disproportionate quantities
ascribed to it, should be dispelled by a better
acquaintance with the facts. There are as good houses,
with as comfortable and happy, even as luxurious
interiors, with as well educated and refined occupants,
as good roads and streets, as satisfactory sanitary
conditions, and as low rates of mortality as in the
supposed more favoured districts of London.
The following is a comparison of the death rates of
three West End Districts, during the past year, with
that of our own:—