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"Yes; in one house there are eight families. (Q.) How
"many rooms do they generally occupy? (A.) One room."—
Each family?
17,735. Each family.—Has Mrs. Bates ever come and lodged
that complaint at the Vestry Hall, in her very great anxiety
that the poor should be relieved from this oppressive state of
things?—I should say, No; and in my opinion she would have
done a very wise thing if she had done so at once.
17,736. Mrs. Bates is employed by the school board to attend
to the school attendance of the children; you have two sanitary
inspectors besides this church sexton and coroner's officer and exjeweller.
Do you not think that it would be more their duty than
a school board visitor's to look after this sort of thing?—So it is;
but what an immense aid the school board visitors would be
to the sanitary authorities if in the course of their ordinary peregrinations
when they came across nuisances of any kind, and
especially overcrowding, they called the attention of the sanitary
authorities to such cases as you describe! What great public
good they would do, and what valuable aid they would give to
the sanitary authorities if they would come and give us a little
information about it!
17,737. Would you mind following the questions for a little
time, and then we will have your lecture or remarks on Mrs.
Bates afterwards. You admit that this state of things is very
deplorable, and that it constitutes a nuisance?—Where it exists
undoubtedly it is a nuisance.
17,738. You say that you do not often have complaints; do
you think that the extraordinarily large proportion of these
small property owners on the various committees has anything
to do with that?—No.
17,739. Do you think it is very likely that people would generally
present a complaint about a certain class of property to the
men who own that property, or to their friends who own other
property of similar character?—I should say that the occupier
who has a grievance should at first go to his landlord, who has
the power to remove that grievance; and if the landlord does
not remove it, he should at once come to the authority who could
and would remove it.
17,740. May I ask whether, from your general knowledge of
the habits of small property owners such men, for instance, as
Mr. Boss and Mr. Ball, and Mr. Hill, they would, as a rule,
collect their own rents?—I should be inclined to think that they
would; Mr. Ball does. Mr. Ross, I believe, collects rents for
a good many people besides himself, and, therefore, I should say
that he would collect his own.