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For this and other reasons the Committee advise that
a small committee be formed in each court, from the inhabitants,
so as to interest them in preserving the decency, healthfulness,
and general better condition of the courts, and that
these committees be asked to look after the trees in each court.
Each committee should elect one of its members to be headman,
who should act as an organ of communication between the
dwellers in the court and the Vestry. The Committee noticed
the much improved condition of Bishop's Court, owing to the
personal supervision of the sub-lessee, under the pressure
brought to bear upon him by the Sanitary Committee.
But the Committee believe that even these improvements
would still leave the courts in a very over-crowded condition.
They do not mean that over-crowding exists in the legal sense of
the word. This is effectually prevented by the officers of the
Vestry. They feel also that a greatly improved state of things
may be looked for under the new Sanitary Regulations. Nor are
they blind to the difficulties of dealing with this question in
Central London, with dwelling space limited, and continually becoming
more so, while the demand for accommodation increases.
But they find the evils which the Boyal Commission pointed out
still in lull force, and until the law is altered they fear inevitably
so.
They find families condemned to live in close crowded areas, in
rooms too small, where moral and physical health must alike be
difficult to maintain. Pale, weakly and stunted children, debility
unfitting men for work, driving them to drink, and often bringing
them on the rates, are the sure results. The Vestry, it may bo.
can do little directly to remedy this state of things; but it is
bound to watch over the interests of these people, who, although
they have no voice in the election of Vestrymen, yet share by
their rents in the payment of rates, and the Committee think that
a local body like the Vestry might do much by pressing on the
Metropolitan Board of Works, on both Houses of Parliament,
and on Her Majesty's Government, the melancholy fact that the
Report of the Boyal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes has had no practical result. One great difficulty in the
way of improved accommodation is the high rent which the wageearning
classes have to pay for even insufficient dwelling room.
Sometimes the landlord of a tenement house holds of a lease.
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