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34
41.—This house is occupied by thirty-six people
living in nine rooms. In one room there is a family of
six, and in another a family of seven. The banister
rails broken, the treads of the stairs worn and dangerous
when going up or down, especially for children
; the closet dirty, and frequently stopped up; the
cistern which supplies the closet is also used for
drinking purposes. This house is in an old and
dilapidated condition, and, like the former, quite
unfit for the purposes it is used.
These two houses may be taken as a type of the
condition of the houses in Bedfordbury. I feel satisfied
from the general condition of the houses in
Bedfordbury that no amount of patching up can
ever make them habitable places for the poor, therefore
they should be pulled down and replaced by
healthy homes.
I now come to the adjacent courts of Bedfordbury,
the first of which is
Shelton Court.—This Court, on the east side of Bedfordbury,
consists of eight houses of fifty-six rooms.
Six houses contain eight rooms each, and two houses
four rooms each. On September 7th I ascertained
there were 122 people living in these eight houses.
Rents—the rooms let from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per week.
The rooms generally in these houses are very small;
passages narrow, about 2 feet 8 inches; staircases
also narrow, about 2 feet 2 inches. In consequence
of these small dimensions the place Soon becomes