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89
interrupted by the large additional amount of work thrown upon the
department by "The Notification of Infectious Diseases Act," which
came into operation on the 31st October
ANN'S PLACE, BOUNDARY STREET.
Ann's Place is a court 11ft. wide, approached by a passage from
Boundary Street (under a house) 2ft. 7in. wide. The court is
surrounded and enclosed by houses of three floors, rising to a height of
30ft. The houses were condemned under Torrens' Act in 1876,
against which the owners appealed to the Court of Quarter Sessions,
On hearing the appeal, the Bench visited the premises, and it was
shown to the Magistrates, in addition to general dilapidations and
want of ventilation, that several of the houses were traversed with a
large disused sewer, full of sewage, and that others of the houses were
built on the edge of another section of the sewer, into which they were
evidently settling. Nevertheless, with all the abominations fully
displayed to their view, the Bench decided that the appellant should
have an opportunity of effecting alterations so as to make the premises
fit for habitation; and it was also decided that the Vestry should bear
its own costs in the matter. Following upon that, the owner removed
the disused sewer from under the houses, new piers were built into the
walls to prevent them falling. The grosser sanitary defects were
cured and the houses were again filled with poor people. The premises
were shown to Sir Chas. Dilke, President of the Local Government
Board, when he visited Shoreditch in 1883, and the facts were reported
to the Sub-Committee of the Housing of the Working Classes
Committee of the London County Council, on visiting insanitary areas
in Shoreditch in October of last year. Following upon that in
November of last year, a summons was taken out at Worship Street
Police Court, on behalf of one of the tenants, by a correspondent of the
Daily Telegraph, when I reported the Vestry's action to the magistrate,
an I showed in evidence that no expenditure of money could render the
houses fit for habitation. The magistrate, on my request, having
visited the place, made an order for the closure of No. 9: this was
done, and the owners, to avoid further summonses, closed the remainder
of the houses, and they remain closed at the present time.