I have been at some pains to demonstrate the dangers and inconveniences which are inseparable from houses built, as are the majority of town houses, upon an area which is wholly insufficient when considered in relation to their cubic contents.

Feeling, as I do, that the question of space round the dwelling is of the greatest importance—so important that every other sanitary regulation sinks into insignificance when compared with it—I have endeavoured to show how detached houses may, to their great advantage, be independent of the public sewers, and equally independent, if their owner choose, of public water supplies; and this I have done in the hope that in country places, and places which are developing, the precious boon of living in a detached house may be recognised.

While I am not slow to admit that water under pressure is a great advantage if it be wisely used, I have pointed out persistently for some years that our present system of water-carried sewage gives a 'fatal facility' to the overcrowding of houses, and has made life, of a sort, physically possible under conditions of overcrowding which have never been equalled in the history of the world.

In China and the East generally, be it remembered, the large population lives upon one plane. It has been left to Europe and America to try the experiment of piling the city populations in heaps, of housing them in many-storeyed buildings, some of which (in America) are fifty times the height of a man.

The facilities for overcrowding which are afforded by big schemes of water-supply and sewerage are now well understood, and have caused the formation of 'Building Societies' throughout the country. A large number of these societies during the past few years have been proved to have been dishonestly managed, and have involved widespread financial disaster amongst the poor and thrifty.

The mode of proceeding of these societies is to buy up, on the outskirts of towns having a system of sewers and a common water-supply, plots of land abutting on roads which have been sewered at the expense of the ratepayers.

These plots are then sold to purchasers who pay 10 per cent. deposit for possession, and pay the rest of the purchase money in monthly or quarterly instalments for a term of years, 10 or 15, as the case may be, with 5 per cent. interest. Thus the artisan, having paid a most exorbitant price for a plot of ground, starts in life with a mortgage round his neck, and probably finds, should anything interfere with the regular payment of instalments, that he has a hard-faced usurer to deal with, who merely concealed his identity behind the title of 'Company, Limited.'

The accompanying diagram (fig. 31) gives a good idea of the development of a district subsequent to sewering. It has been copied from the prospectus of a Building Society. A A A is an old road having houses on the north side only; B B B is an old road with houses on the south side only, i.e., seven dwelling houses in a course of more than half a mile.

The space between A A A and B B B was, until a few months ago, a market garden full of fruit trees, and about nine acres in extent.

A few years ago A A A and B B B were sewered at the expense of the ratepayers, and very soon afterwards this market garden was bought by a 'Building Society' and converted into a 'building estate.'

It is obviously a very 'eligible' estate, for there is a Railway (R.), with a Station (S.), a Post and Telegraph Office (P.O.), a Church (Ch.), and two Public Houses (P.H.). None of the elements of modern civilisation are wanting. After the sewering of roads A A A and B B B, the District Council, in a fit of zealous extravagance, destroyed the gravel paths at the side of B, and put a 12 by 6 inch kerb, and laid half a mile of granolithic pavement for the benefit of the aforesaid seven houses.

When the Building Society issued its prospectus the plots abutting on the old roads A A A and B B B were sold at once, and the reason is obvious, viz., that the roads are ready made and sewered; and a note with regard to road B B B says, 'This road is a highway maintainable by the local authorities, who will provide a proper footway in front of the plots in due course.' The ratepayers as a whole are to provide pavements for the speculative builder in this particular instance, and it is evident that the owners of the plot and the Local Council had come to an agreement in the matter. The houses abutting on the new roads, Z Z Z, will, in addition to the purchase money for the land, be charged 3s. per foot frontage for sewers, and 'also such a proportion as their surveyor shall assess of the expense of repairing and maintaining the road or roads, until the same shall be handed over to the local authorities.' On an adjoining property the cost of 'making up' a private road was estimated at 12s. per foot run, so that the cost would amount to between 10l. and 11l. for a plot having a frontage of 18 feet, and might form a ruinous charge on some of the corner plots.

The ground will accommodate 177 plots, and the plots facing the old roads fetched 3l. a foot. Of these there is room for fifty-nine, having a frontage of 20 feet each, so that the price paid for these at 60l. per plot would be over 3,500l.; and if the remaining 118 plots fetched 40l. each (4,720l.), the total price realised for this 9 acres would be over 8,000l., in addition to the charge for sewerage and road-making.

When, moreover, it is remembered that the society may possibly hold a mortgage on every plot and every house, for which they get 5 per cent. and excellent security, it will be admitted that running a 'Building Society' is a tolerably profitable business.

If all these plots are sold there will be a population of over 1,200 persons on 9 acres of ground, and the ratepayers will be at the charge not only of educating the children, but of providing hospitals for the segregation of infectious diseases, allotments, free libraries, open spaces, and additions to the sewerage works for dealing with the sewage of 1,200 persons.

When a 'progressive' municipality sets to work to 'develop' its district (a speculative and hazardous process, which it should leave to private enterprise), the ratepayer soon begins to see that a great diversity of interests has to be served.

The little shopkeeper (and it is of this class that Boards and Councils are largely composed) wants the greatest number of people on the smallest space; and he sees that in proportion as the dwelling has an insufficient curtilage, so are its inhabitants wholly and entirely dependent on the shop.

The person with a fixed income who settles in a district wishes the district to remain picturesque, rural, and quiet, and, above all, he desires that the 'rates' may be kept down. He naturally objects to be taxed for the sewering of country roads in order that the fields may be covered with courts and alleys of jerry-built houses, and equally he objects to be taxed in order that every railway station in the country may display a large invitation to trippers to invade his solitude and make his life a burden.

All sanitarians are agreed that mortality and density of populations are directly proportional. The following figures, taken from Table R (p. xlvii.) of the decennial supplement of the Registrar-General (1895), show this very clearly, as does also the diagram of the mortality figures for London (p. 144).

The corrected death-rate for 'Urban England,' as given by the same authority, is 22·32, as against 16·95 for 'Rural England.'

To form a just estimate of the comparative healthiness or unhealthiness of a great city like London is no easy matter. The composition of the population is, especially in the central parts, so abnormal in regard to age and sex that unless corrections be made for this abnormality any comparison of London with other places is futile. Such corrections are now made by the Registrar-General.

It is probable that in no city are the annual variations of population greater than in London. The population of June (the height of the season) and the population of September (when 'everybody is out of town') must be very different. In September the rich go to the country, the shopkeepers go to the seaside, and the poorest of the poor go hop-picking. The School Board attendances for the first week of September show a deficit of 80,700 children, or 11·1 per cent., figures which clearly demonstrate that the autumn exodus is not limited to the wealthy classes.

It is at this season that we see paragraphs in the paper to the effect that the death-rate of some London parish for the Michaelmas quarter reached an incredibly low figure, and we are asked to infer that the population, thanks to the wise policy pursued by the vestry, is fast making for immortality. Of course such statements are not worth the paper they are written on, because there are no data as to population, and the period chosen is so short as to be valueless.

In estimating the death-rates of different sanitary areas of London it has been customary for the last six years to distribute the deaths occurring in institutions to the districts to which the deceased 'belonged,' and to exclude entirely the deaths of persons belonging to districts outside registration London; in this way about 1·5 per cent. of the deaths occurring in registration London may be excluded. This manoeuvre helps to diminish the London death-rate, but, as no account is taken of sick people who leave London to die elsewhere, it is manifestly an unjustifiable thing to do.

If the strangers who die in London institutions are to be excluded, it is a question whether all strangers merely sojourning in London ought not to be excluded from the estimate of population. Again, a man comes from the country and is knocked down by a vehicle in the street and dies in a London hospital; or during a sojourn in London he gets caught in a London fog and dies of bronchitis; or he 'catches' influenza, or pneumonia, or diphtheria in London and dies. Surely the deaths of these three ought to be credited to London in all fairness. It is a very dangerous thing to 'cook' statistics, and we do not get much nearer the truth by doing so.

The best indication, probably, as to whether the conditions of life in any locality are healthy or the reverse is the infant mortality; in this way we exclude the fallacies due to abnormal age distribution, because we compare identical age periods; and the proportion of the sexes among children is practically the same everywhere. We exclude also the influences of occupation. By studying the mortality of children under five we are studying the influence of the home and home surroundings on the incidence of disease, which is particularly what we wish to do.

In the decennial supplement of the Registrar-General published in 1896, Dr. Tatham gives a table (Table II. p. lxxxii. et seq.) of the 'annual death-rate per million living among children under five years of age, from all causes and from several causes, 1881-90.' This valuable table ought to be most widely studied. Being based upon statistics of ten years intervening between the censuses of 1881 and 1891, the estimates of population have a maximum of reliability, because we are relieved of the errors inseparable from statistics referring only to short periods of time.

It is constantly stated that London is the healthiest city in the world, a statement which, if true, must make us very sorry for the other cities. In Dr. Tatham's table, alluded to above, he first deals with counties.

We find that the death-rate of children under five from all causes in England was 56,825 per million; that the highest death-rate among children was in Lancashire (72,795), and the next highest was in the county of London (68,164). The lowest death-rate was in the county of Dorset (35,651).

Table Legend:
A = Smallpox
B = Measles
C = Scarlet fever
D = Diphtheria
E = Whooping cough
F = Fever
G = Diarrhoea
H = Tuberculosis Disease
I = Respiratory Disease

I have also thrown in Hampshire, because not only is it my own county, but it is a mixed county, largely rural, but also containing the big towns of Southampton and Portsmouth.

Looking at these four in tabular form, we see that in Lancashire the mortality from measles, scarlet fever, fever, diarrhoea, and respiratory disease was greater than in London; and in London the mortality from small-pox, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tuberculous disease was greater than in Lancashire.

In Hampshire and Dorsetshire the mortality was very much less from every cause than in either Lancashire or London.

It is important to point out that the deaths of children from tuberculous disease are greater in London than in any other county, and that the deaths from tuberculous and respiratory diseases combined are greater in London than in Lancashire.

We have seen that the mortality of children under five averaged for the whole of London 68,164 in the decennium 1881-90, while that for England and Wales was 56,825, or, omitting the last three figures, let us say they were 68 and 57.

Examining the various registration districts more closely, we find that the child mortality was less than the average for England and Wales in four London districts only, viz., Lewisham (44), Hampstead (48), Woolwich (51), and Wandsworth (56), districts which are all on the outskirts of the place we call London. Certain other districts had a child mortality less than the average of London as a whole, viz., Camberwell (59), Hackney (60), Islington (61), Paddington and Kensington (63), Greenwich (63), St. Pancras (66), Fulham, Poplar, and Lambeth (67).

All the other districts had a child mortality greater than the average of London, viz., Mile End (69), St. George's, Hanover Square (71), Westminster (72), Chelsea and St. Olave's (73), Marylebone (75), Bethnal Green (76), Shoreditch (78), St. Saviour's (79), St. Giles's (80), Holborn (82), Whitechapel (85), St. George's in the East (87), the City (90), Stepney (99) and the Strand (109).

With the exception of the City, Stepney, and the Strand, there are only two registration districts in the whole country which have a child mortality over 90, viz., Manchester (93) and Liverpool (114). To Liverpool therefore belongs the distinction of being the most unwholesome place for little children in the whole country, and the 'Strand,' which constitutes the very centre of London, comes next.

Let us examine these figures more closely, and let us throw the child mortality of Liverpool and the Strand into tabular form, and contrast them with the registration district of Andover, in Hampshire, a district which I select for reasons which will appear later.

Table Legend:
A = Smallpox
B = Measles
C = Scarlet fever
D = Diphtheria
E = Whooping cough
F = Fever
G = Diarrhoea
H = Tuberculosis Disease
I = Respiratory Disease

From this table it appears that the mortality from measles, scarlet-fever, and diarrhoea was greater in Liverpool than in the Strand; but that the other diseases scheduled were more fatal in the Strand than in Liverpool.

We have previously pointed out that the deaths of children from tuberculous and respiratory diseases are greater in London than in any other county, and now we find that the death-rate of children from these two classes of diseases amounted in the 'Strand' to 42,003, far and away the highest figure in the country, Liverpool coming second with 33,218. The death-rate of children from the same causes in Andover was only 9,305, considerably less than a quarter of the Strand death-rate.

Thanks to vaccination and the purity of the water-supply the mortality in the Strand from small-pox and fever is very small, but the mortality of children from the acute air-borne contagia (measles, whooping cough, scarlet-fever, and diphtheria), and still more from the chronic air-borne contagia, is fearful to contemplate.

The big mortality from tuberculous disease forces upon us the reflection that a large number of children who become tuberculous in the 'Strand' do not die within the age limits with which we are concerned, but drop off later in life after years of invalidism and suffering. We have seen that children under five are decimated yearly in the Strand. How many more are crippled for life?

The deaths of children under one year of age per 1,000 births is a safe criterion of the health conditions of a locality. This figure for the ten years 1881-90 was, for the whole of England and Wales, 142. In London, we find that in five districts (Hampstead 117, Lewisham 121, Woolwich 124, Hackney 137, and Wandsworth 141) this mortality was below the average of the whole country, while in the remaining twenty-five districts it was above the average.

In Paddington, Islington, Camberwell, Lambeth, Greenwich, Mile End, Poplar, and Marylebone, it was above 142 and under 150. In St. Pancras, Kensington, St. George's (Hanover Square), St. Giles's, Bethnal Green, and St. Olave's, it was above 150 and under 160; in Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster, Holborn, Shoreditch, and St. Saviour's, it was over 160 and under 170. The City was 171, Whitechapel 173, St. George's-in-the-East 182, Stepney 196, the Strand 226.

To show what this figure of 226—the infant mortality of the Strand—means, I will give the infant mortality of some of the worst towns in Lancashire: in Liverpool 219, Wigan 161, Bolton 163, Salford 183, Manchester 193, Ashton-under-Lyne 173, Oldham 169, Rochdale 145, Burnley 184, Blackburn 178, Preston 203. On the other hand, one may say that the infant mortality of Andover, which has just adopted a great part of the London Building Act, with the approval of the Local Government Board, was (for the ten years 1881-90) 91, or 23 per cent. less than the best of the London districts, and nearly 60 per cent. better than the Strand.

Glancing at the other Hampshire districts, one may note that in the New Forest the infant mortality was as low as 80, and that it was only in Portsea Island (139), Alverstoke (123), and Southampton (135) that even the lowest of the metropolitan figures were approached. It is interesting to note that even the worst districts in Hampshire are below the average of the whole kingdom in the matter of infant mortality.

The Strand

I have previously alluded to the high mortality of the Strand registration district, and my remarks on one occasion were contemptuously dismissed, with the criticism that it was unfair to judge of the state of London by the health of the slums.

It becomes necessary therefore to say that the Strand registration district includes the Temple, St. Clement Danes, the Precinct of the Savoy, St. Mary-le-Strand, St. Paul, Covent Garden, and St. Martin's in the Fields.

Its southern boundary extends from the Temple Stairs to Whitehall Court, along the Thames Embankment. From Whitehall Court, the western boundary runs through the 'Horse Guards' and through the middle of Buckingham Palace to the top of Constitution Hill. It includes the whole of the Green Park, but none of the houses abutting on it, with the exception, I believe, of Stafford House. From Stafford House the northern boundary runs south of Pall Mall, and includes Clarence House, St. James's Palace, the War Office, Marlborough House, and Carlton House Terrace. Thence the boundary runs up the Haymarket, along the north side of Leicester Square and Long Acre to Drury Lane and by Sardinia Street and the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields to Chancery Lane, the south end of which constitutes its eastern boundary.

This district includes parts of four royal palaces and also Somerset House, Horse Guards, Admiralty, War Office, National Gallery, and National Portrait Gallery. In it are to be found five churches (Temple, St. Clement, St. Mary, St. Martin, St. Paul, Covent Garden), Exeter Hall, and more than twenty of the largest and best known theatres and music-halls. The Constitutional and National Liberal Clubs are within its boundaries, and its numerous huge hotels are famous throughout the world.

The worst parts of the district are in the north-east, but one must mention that it does not include the Seven Dials or the north half of Drury Lane. Clare Market, the south end of Drury Lane, Drury Court and Bedfordbury, are the slums of the Strand registration district. It is not a poor district. The percentage of persons 'in poverty' in London as a whole is given by Mr. Charles Booth as 30·7, while that for the Strand is only 23·9.

Many of the labourers employed in Covent Garden Market and in the theatres earn very good wages, but Mr. Booth specially mentions the fact that in some of the lowest districts house rent is very dear. Wages is a relative term, and the potential prosperity of a person is only to be determined by subtracting from the earnings the cost of the necessaries of life, inclusive of house rent.

It is obvious, however, that the prime necessary of life (fresh air) is not to be had in the Strand at any price.

It may be well to add that the Strand sanitary area is not co-terminous with the Strand registration district, which we have been considering. The chief difference is that the former includes St. Anne's, Soho, and excludes St. Martin's in the Fields.

This district of the 'Strand,' which I have chosen because it is the most unhealthy district in London, and in some respects the worst in the whole country, is, so to say, the pulpit from which the British have preached sanitation to the whole world. In it we find the offices of the Registrar-General and the London County Council; the Temple, where Sanitary Bills are drafted, and the Law Courts, where the sanitary law is administered; the Royal College of Physicians; the Examination Hall where candidates for diplomas of Public Health and Medicine are examined, and also the offices of the 'Lancet' and the 'British Medical Journal.' The Royal College of Surgeons, the Local Government Board and Imperial Parliament, if not within, are only just outside its limits.

It is doubtful if any district in London or any other city is better provided with open spaces than the Strand. St. James's Park and the Green Park are both partly within its limits. It has the Embankment and the Thames to the south, the Temple Gardens to the east, Lincoln's Inn Fields to the north-east, and Trafalgar Square in the centre. It is wonderfully provided with what are miscalled 'lungs,' but it is evident that lungs are of little good if the blood only circulates in them occasionally on a Sunday. It is well to bear this fact in mind, because our municipal governors sometimes talk as if the provision of 'open spaces' at exorbitant and extravagant cost could compensate for overcrowding in the dwelling, with a lack of light and air therein.

It is in the Strand, more than in any other district, that houses have been built of great height and enormous cubic capacity without any curtilage whatever. I have attended 'banquets' at more than one hostelry in this district where 150 or 200 persons have been fed in a room having no outside windows of any kind, and where, late in the evening, the guests have been provided with a little fresh (!) air by opening glass partitions communicating with a huge 'coffee-room' or table d'hÔte room. These rooms are made by enclosing what ought to be open courts in the centre of these huge hotels, and their utilisation is only possible because of the perfection to which the science of artificial illumination has been brought. There can be no health without daylight, and sunlight, and fresh air, but the electric light is good enough to make money by.

To a greater or less extent, throughout London the height of the houses has been gradually raised, and the available curtilage has been built upon. This is seen in the dwellings of the rich, and there is no doubt that the conditions which lead to overcrowding are all intensified in the poorer quarters.

Building Regulations

Part V. of the London Building Act, 1894, provides for open spaces about buildings and height of building.

It provides, in the case of new houses in new streets, for an open space in the rear, exclusively belonging to such building, of at least 150 square feet, free from erections except W.C. and ashpit. Where the ground storey is not inhabited, this open space may be provided at a height of 16 feet above the level of the pavement. The open space must extend the entire width of the building and have a depth of 10 feet at least.

A diagonal line drawn from the rear of the open space on the pavement level, and inclining towards the building at an angle of 63°·5, shall clear the top of such building save chimneys, dormers, gables, &c. This means that the house may be at all levels twice as high as the space is deep.

When a house abuts at the rear on a street or permanent 'open space,' then no private open space or curtilage need be provided.

'Nothing in this section shall apply to houses abutting in the rear on the river Thames, or on a public park, or on an 'open space' of not less than 80 feet in depth which is dedicated to the public, or the maintenance of which as an open space is secured permanently or to the satisfaction of the Council by covenant or otherwise.'

In new streets less than 50 feet wide no house may be erected having a height greater than the width of the street.

No house may be more than 80 feet high without the special permission of the Council.

These regulations, from the point of view of health, are as bad as can be, because they put a premium, so to say, on buildings of enormous cubic capacity. We have seen that the provisions as to private curtilage are limited to a back yard 10 feet deep, but in the case of houses abutting on two streets, front and back, or abutting on a street and 'open space' 80 feet deep, these restrictions are dispensed with.

If an open space, acquired and maintained at enormous cost, is to be an excuse for surrounding it with huge blocks of 'flats' 80 feet high, it is not difficult to see that their effect on the public health will be mischievous rather than beneficial. There is no advantage in looking out on an open space through a closed window, and the great problem in London is how to manage that young children under school age are to breathe the external air which is essential to their proper development. In the country the perambulator is pushed into the garden, and through the open door the mother at her work can have an eye upon her children. But for a family occupying a set of rooms in a 'model dwelling,' when the father is gone to work, the elder children at school, and the mother busy, there is nothing for it but to allow the children to breathe the air of the living-rooms, fouled from many sources. These children seldom breathe external air, and never breathe really fresh air. When they are a little older, they fluctuate between crowded two-storeyed schools, a fetid home, and an 'open space' (perhaps 80 feet wide and surrounded by houses 80 feet high!). Is it to be wondered at that the even tenor of their way is interrupted by diphtheria and scarlet fever, or that 22 per cent. die without ever keeping a birthday, and that children under five are more than decimated annually?

One must rejoice to think that in new houses (mostly) on the outskirts the little child will have a back yard to play in, having an area of at least 150 square feet (with deductions for the permitted erections).

The little child in the 'Strand' will enjoy no such luxury, and how it is to get any fresh air before it is old enough to play in the fearfully crowded and dangerous streets is a mystery.

These regulations of the London Building Act seem to point to the fact that 'betterment' really means overcrowding in houses of enormous cubic capacity.

I shall be told, and rightly, that the horrible overcrowding of houses in the centre of London is caused by the high price of building land, and that it cannot be prevented. Further, I shall be told that, in spite of the overcrowding and general unsanitary conditions, rents are increasing. This is also true as regards some districts, but, as I have said before, there is no relation between hygiene and money-getting. But there is no reason why we should deceive ourselves as to the results of overcrowding. They are set forth with absolute plainness by the Registrar-General, and we must be thankful that we have an official statistician who is above local considerations, and who does not feel himself called upon to keep unpleasant facts in the background. There is yet one Balaam among the prophets.

I have for years combated the oft-repeated statements as to the 'healthiness' of London, not because I expect that London will alter its way, but because rural places and the Colonies should not blindly follow the lead of London, in the belief that they are following a good sanitary model, and that disastrous consequences will not inevitably follow upon a reckless overcrowding of houses.

The prime object of overcrowding was for safety. Cities were originally walled fortresses, and people crowded into them for protection, and were killed by epidemics instead of by their enemies. Modern sanitation favours overcrowding, and this it is which makes it so popular, for overcrowding favours money-getting.

When sewer pipes and water pipes are laid throughout a district it becomes possible (but not till then) to build houses without curtilage, except a 10-foot back yard.

If, therefore, rural places are reckless enough to perpetrate a 'sewage scheme,' it becomes very necessary to check the overcrowding of houses.

'Model' (!) By-laws

I am sorry to say that the Local Government Board does not appear to be sensible of this necessity.

My reason for this statement is (to quote an example within my own knowledge) that the Local Government Board a little more than a year ago sanctioned the adoption of 'model' (!) by-laws by the borough of Andover, and on examining these by-laws, which cover 69 closely printed large octavo pages, and comprise hundreds of sections and sub-sections, the bulk of which must be quite incomprehensible to the Town Council, I find that as regards buildings many of the clauses are practically identical with those of the London Building Act.

The Local Government Board does not seem to recognise that circumstances alter cases, and that the regulations which may be beneficial in the crowded and filthy slums of a great city, may he mischievous in a village or country town. Andover is an exceedingly healthy little town, as the table on p. 99 will show, and in it there must be very few, if any, houses more than 50 feet high, and the great majority of the houses and cottages have large yards or gardens.

And yet the Local Government Board sanctions regulations for this town which permit the erection of dwelling houses a hundred feet high! with a backyard 25 feet deep!! and it further allows the adoption of the minimum of 150 square feet of back yard for dwelling houses.

In illustration of this, reference may be made to figs. 32, 33, 34, which are borrowed from Knight's 'Model By-laws,' published under the authority of the Local Government Board. Fig. 32 shows the 'model' open space for a cottage, fig. 33 for a house up to 25 feet high, and fig. 34 the maximum which is necessary, even though the house be 100 feet high or more.

These regulations may be good in London, but when such regulations are printed in the by-laws of rural places they become dangerous and wicked suggestions, which one fears the local builders will not be slow to adopt, especially if the town be sewered throughout, which happily as yet is not the case.

These elaborate building regulations as applied to country places are absurd. I do not say that in the case of houses abutting on the streets and which touch other houses some control by the local authority is not necessary, or that the local authority is not to exercise supervision as to the manner of making connections of houses with sewers, water pipes, and gas pipes.

But it is clear that all harassing regulations are out of place when they are applied to isolated dwellings which are wholly detached and separated by a moderate interval (say a distance equal to the height) from the boundaries of other premises. The man who builds a detached house ought to be encouraged, and not worried, and the insurance offices and the owner may be left to see that the construction of the house is good enough.

These by-laws contain a prohibition of overhanging storeys (in the old English fashion), which may be reasonable enough in crowded streets, but are unreasonable and silly when applied to isolated dwellings. A friend of mine had a fancy to build a house of this kind in the middle of three acres of land which he bought in Hertfordshire, and after he had been at the expense of getting out his plans, &c., he found that such a building was against the by-laws. However, he discovered means to 'square' the local jacks-in-office, and his very pretty house was built, and is a decided ornament to the district.

These by-laws are an expense to ratepayers, and they increase the cost of buildings. Elaborate plans and descriptions have to be furnished, and the buildings have to be inspected at various periods of their construction, and, of course, all variations of plan which may appear necessary in the course of construction must also be submitted and 'passed' by the local authority. It may happen that there are members of the local council who understand the technicalities of the building trade; but even if this be the case, it is manifestly unjust that the plans of a builder who is outside the council should be submitted to and judged by a competitor who happens to be inside. As a rule, the council is completely in the hands of the local surveyor, and the local surveyor exercises despotic power over all building operations.

This leads us to ask the question, 'What is a surveyor?' Lawyers and doctors have to be 'legally qualified,' and the ratepayers have some guarantee that the town clerk and medical officer of health know something of their business. But it is difficult to get a similar guarantee with regard to that terrible despot, the surveyor to the local board.

Whether the surveyor be learned or ignorant in the matters which he undertakes to survey must always be a matter of doubt, but it is evident that a person who exercises such arbitrary power ought on no account to be allowed to practise his profession for his private gain. Humanum est errare. We must not expect an impossible standard of morality in any man, and no surveyor ought to be placed in the invidious position of sitting in judgment on his own plans.

These arbitrary by-laws must tend to check building operations, and to hinder the development of the art of the architect and the science of the builder. The restrictions are another instance of

and I feel certain that, in the interests of the public health, builders of isolated dwellings ought to be allowed to escape from the despotism which is so dear to modern democracy.

Everything which tends to encourage the provision of adequate space round dwellings is a great gain.

Such by-laws as I have quoted, when applied to country places, and when no exceptions such as I have indicated are made, are a downright incentive to overcrowding, and mischievous in the highest degree.

The Cost of the Dwelling

Everything which increases the cost of the dwelling must tend to increase overcrowding.

The London rents are enormous; the artisan pays 7s. or 8s. for accommodation which he could get in a village for 1s. 6d., and in a country town for 2s. 6d.

The rich man pays his 200l., 300l., or more for a house (without a square inch of curtilage) which out of London would fetch 40l. or 50l. at most.

In London it happens, probably, more often than elsewhere that people pay in house-rent a sum which is an excessive proportion of their income, and their finances feel the strain of slight increments to the cost of the dwelling, and they are often driven to take lodgers or 'paying-guests'; or people apparently well off give up their houses and take a 'flat,' in which the crowding is excessive.

This kind of thing goes on among the well-to-do classes, and certainly to a greater extent among the poor.

When we consider the charges, other than rent, in London as compared with country houses, we must never forget that, rents being three or more times as high in London as elsewhere, the rating in the pound ought to be multiplied by three or four before we can compare London rates with country rates.

Or we must take some other basis of comparison, such as the area occupied or the cubic contents. A house which I lived in in London for twenty-five years occupies an area of 18 by 72 feet, or 1,296 square feet, or 144 square yards.

The rent was originally 180l., which was raised to 200l. when the lease was renewed in 1892; i.e. the rent was originally 1l. 5s. per square yard, and is now 1l. 8s. per square yard. 'The rateable value' has been gradually pushed up from 150l. to 184l., and the gross value has lately been set down at 220l., or 10 per cent. more than the rent (because the tenant undertakes to do the repairs).

The changes other than rent have been as follows:—

Thus it will be seen that the cost of this house (which has not been enlarged in any way) has been increased by 23 per cent. The rent has increased 11 per cent., or 20l. a year. The rates have increased by nearly 87 per cent., or very nearly 26l. a year.

The imperial taxes have increased nearly 53 per cent., or 5l. 3s. 4d. per year, and the water by nearly 18 per cent., or 1l. 2s. 6d. per year. It will be noted that while the tenant in this case submitted to an increase of 11 per cent., the charges over which the tenant has practically no control have increased in a much higher ratio, and now amount to 78l. 8s. 2d., or more than 10s. 6d. per square yard of occupied land, the total cost of the house being 1l. 18s. 6d. per square yard, or, including repairs, more than 2l. per square yard.

The total obligatory charges (rent, rates, taxes, and water), which in 1873 were 226l., had risen in 1896 to 278l. In the same time the interest on 100l. invested in Consols has fallen from 3l. 5s. to 2l. 10s.

In 1893 a sum of 7,000l. invested in Consols would have paid the obligatory charges on this house. In 1896 these charges could only be met by a sum of 11,000l. invested in Consols.

Looked at in this way, the cost of the dwelling has risen 57 per cent. in 23 years, the size of the dwelling remaining constant.

The charge for water has been included because no house is habitable without it, and in this case the tenant cannot sink a well, because the house is totally without curtilage of any kind, and the rain-water having fallen through the London air is so foully dirty as to be unusable.

The householders of London rightly view with alarm the rapid increase of the sum levied for rates. This sum has increased at the rate of more than 3 per cent. per annum during the twenty-five years I lived in the house I have been describing, and now amounts to rather more than 7s. 6d. per square yard occupied. The average householder is naturally nervous and apprehensive; he is getting unwilling to take a house for a long term, and is squeezing his household into 'flats,' in which (as the landlord pays the rates) the yearly expenditure on house accommodation is fairly calculable. The attractiveness of the flat is further enhanced by short-term leases, so that, should illness or a financial mishap befall him, he will be less heavily weighted than would be the case if he were the owner of a long, unmarketable lease.

I think we may take it for granted that if the well-to-do classes are showing a tendency to overcrowd, this tendency will be found to get progressively more intense as we descend in the social scale. The well-to-do occupiers of flats have to be content with what may be called 'rather close quarters,' but their servants are often squeezed into rooms scarcely bigger than cupboards. It is not conceivable that those who are in a dependent position will have better accommodation than those whom they serve.

Remedies for Overcrowding

The final question is, What can be done to prevent overcrowding of houses and of persons in the house?

I freely admit that very little can be done in big towns, and people must be left to judge for themselves as to whether they will allow their children to run the extra risk of death, crippling disease, or defective development, inseparable from life in a crowded city. The statistics of the Registrar-General (i.e. the Annual Summary and the Decennial Supplement) show clearly what these risks are, but it is necessary to add that some of the local statistics manifest at times an undue desire to minimise the mortality of the district from which they emanate.

A great metropolitan city like London, concerning which we are educated from our cradles to utter big boasts, exercises an enormous influence on public opinion, but it is perfectly clear that she is a dangerous model to follow in the matter of house-construction.

I call to mind the case of a great London builder who bought a country mansion in a park. He was a very able man, but when he carried out some alterations and additions to his new house he found it impossible to cast away his town-bred ideas, and accordingly built underground kitchens and coal cellars, and had the coals put into his cellar through a plate in the pavement just outside the drawing-room window. He had been so long accustomed to build houses with a minimum of area, that when he had an unlimited space at his disposal he failed to utilise or appreciate the advantages of such a boon.

Country places should be careful to avoid the adoption, as by-laws, of regulations originally framed with the idea of mitigating the horrors of the London slums. With regard to these regulations, it must be remembered that 'the trail of the Cockney is over them all,' and it has been shown that regulations, especially as to space round dwellings, which may be beneficial in the Seven Dials become mischievous suggestions when printed and circulated as the by-laws of a country district. It seems almost incredible that the Local Government Board should sanction the adoption of some of these by-laws by country communities.

The exigencies of space in London have led to the construction of underground offices, with the result that at least a tenth of the inhabitants of modern London are cave-dwellers; and in the by-laws from which I have quoted I find no attempt to penalise, or in any way to restrict, the perpetration of similar barbarities in the country.

If there be underground 'offices,' the drains of the house will leave it at a level of some 10 feet below the ground level, and the public sewer must be at least 11 feet underground, and the laying of sewers at such a depth is relatively expensive. As there are extra charges for high level water service, ought there not to be similar extra charges for low level drain service?

The great blot on modern sanitary legislation is the entire absence of any encouragement for the sanitary well-doers.

Sanitary legislation is founded on a basis of mischievous lop-sided socialism, in which the sanitary well doer is heavily taxed for the support of the jerry-builder, and is called upon to pay for all the shortcomings of the negligent and filthy.

Encouragement ought to be given to the man who builds a house with ample curtilage; and if such house be removed from all other dwellings by a distance equal to its height, he ought to be freed from the restrictions of harassing by-laws, and the despotic control of district surveyors whose credentials are often of the flimsiest, and whose ideas are stereotyped.

The idea which was prevalent a few years ago, that open spaces should be taxed at 'site value' is, one must hope, dead. Its obviously mischievous tendency needs no comment.

The only equitable basis for calculating the rateable value of a house for sanitary purposes is the cubic capacity, because, as a broad rule, the bigger the house the greater is the amount of work which it throws upon streets and sewers. The 'grounds' or 'curtilage' of a house ought to be very leniently taxed, although one must admit that streets and pavements ought to be paid for in proportion to house and ground frontage.

If a man spend money in beautifying his house without enlarging it, this ought not to entail an increase in rateable value for sanitary purposes. Such beautifyings are good for trade in a proper sense, and ought not in the interests of the community to be checked.

The rich man who has a fancy for a fine house has already had his income handsomely taxed, and it seems scarcely just or wise that he should be further directly taxed for spending his income.

Horses if of similar dimensions used to be equally taxed, and no distinction was made between the 'Thoroughbred' and the 'Screw,' which was quite equitable, because the owner of the former had already paid income tax.

I have been at some pains to point out that in country or semi-rural districts, where it is possible to give a house a decent curtilage or small garden, it is easy for a householder to make the sanitation of his dwelling quite independent of the local authority. In fact, the householder is able if he be so minded to make his sanitation complete, and to finish, on his own premises and to his own profit, that 'circulation of organic matter' which is a law of Nature, and the only true basis upon which the science of sanitation can possibly stand firm.

The householder can do piecemeal what no public authority has ever succeeded in doing wholesale, albeit that millions of money have been wasted in silly attempts.

Why should not the householder be encouraged? One method of encouragement would be to allow him to pay for water by meter, if he be so minded, exactly as he pays for gas. Such a measure as this would effectually solve the water difficulty everywhere.

On referring to p. 113 it will be seen that in 1873 I paid 6l. 8s. per annum for water. As there were no fixed baths and washing was not done at home, I reckon the water consumption was not more than seventeen gallons per head per diem.

In 1873 my household averaged nine persons, so that the yearly consumption of water was not more than 9 × 17 × 365 = 55,845 gallons (say 56,000), which, at 6l. 8s., means about 2s. 3d. per 1,000 gallons.

In 1896 I reckon that my household averaged four and a half persons, and that the yearly consumption of water was 28,000 gallons, which, at 7l. 10s. 6d., means very nearly 5s. 6d. per 1,000. Suppose that this house stood in the country, and that it were possible to adopt dry methods of sanitation, this would reduce the water consumption by about one-third, say to 12 gallons per head, or 19,000 gallons a year for the household of 1896. At a shilling per 1,000 gallons, which I believe is a fair price, the water bill would fall to 19s.

At a shilling per 1,000 gallons, twelve gallons per diem, or 4,380 gallons per year, would cost 4s. 4d. per head, or a penny per head per week. If in a country place the rain-water were stored the annual cost for water would be still less.

It may be well to add the twelve gallons per diem allows for a daily sponge bath, and that on this quantity of water absolute domestic and personal cleanliness can be maintained. An excess of water is a pure luxury, and it should be remembered that sewage difficulties are largely proportionate to the amount of water which has to be dealt with.

The supply of water by meter would effectually check waste, which no by-laws and regulations can effect; and if the water mains were frozen, the water companies, very properly, would be the chief losers, and the householder would not be called upon to pay for that which he had never been supplied with.

In the matter of water 'enough is as good as a feast,' and it is idle to imagine that the public health will be improved by a reckless extravagance in this or any other direction.

Finally, is it not possible to consider the sanitary well-doer in the matter of sewerage rates? As it is, the householder who perfects and completes the sanitation of his house on his own premises, very possibly pays more than he who throws the whole of the trouble and expense on the public authority.

He who takes trouble in this matter is regarded as a fool by the majority, who say, 'He has got to pay rates; why should he bother.'

That the burden of public authorities and the pollution of rivers would be very much lessened by the recognition of the well-doer, there can be no doubt.

In considering the rating of a house for sewerage works it is clear that every sink, W.C., bath or gully discharging its contents into a public sewer ought to be charged, and such charge should be progressive; thus, if 5s. were paid for one such discharge hole, 7s. 6d. should be paid for the second, 10s. for the third, 12s. 6d. for the fourth, and so on. In this way a cottage with one kitchen sink only would pay 5s., but a mansion with, say, 10 sinks, baths, and W.C., would pay 8l. 2s. 6d. Such charges are analogous to the charges made by water companies, which are higher for the better class of house. If this or something like this were done, the fixed charges on the house would produce a considerable sum, which would go far towards paying the municipal bills for scavenging and sewering. The balance would have to be raised by a rate on the buildings themselves, which rate should be in proportion to the cubic contents of the buildings, without reference to their curtilage, because large curtilage tends to improve the public health more than all the clauses of all the sanitary Acts that ever were devised.

The cubic contents should alone be considered in making assessments for rates. If a man spend money in making his house more wholesome without increasing its size, and thereby increases its value, it is clearly not in the interests of the public health that he should be fined by the sanitary authority for so doing. Nevertheless this is done daily.

That a man should pay for so much water as he uses and for no more, and that he should pay the municipality for personal services directly in proportion to those services, seem to be two propositions so simple and so equitable, and so absolutely fundamental for all just dealing, that one cannot be surprised at the trouble which follows the neglect of them.

Great as are the sanitary evils connected with overcrowding, it is probable that the moral and social harm which results from it is infinitely more important; and yet we find that our modern socialistic legislation does everything to encourage and nothing to discourage this greatest of sanitary and social ills.

It is strange that the cubic contents of a building should be a factor which is rigorously excluded from consideration when rating and building regulations are being considered. It seems to the writer to be obvious that it is by far the most important factor, and one which cannot be neglected if our municipal regulations are to have any permanence. The Metropolitan Building Act we have seen puts a premium on large buildings, by abolishing all restrictions as to curtilage, provided the building runs from street to street or from street to 'open space,' and never considers the enormous dangers of these large buildings in relation to epidemic disease and fire.

Every country place would do well to enact that—

• (1) The height of a house shall in no case be greater than the width of the street upon which it abuts.
• (2) Every house shall have a minimum private curtilage upon the ground level, and entirely free from buildings which shall equal the cubic contents of the house divided by 50.

In the second paragraph I have chosen 50 for my divisor, because the average width of a street and the average height of the four-storeyed house are not far from 50 feet.

Let us take the case of an ordinary four-storeyed house (with no basement) having an area of 20 × 50 and 50 feet high. Then the curtilage would be (20 × 50 × 50)/50 = 1,000; i.e., the house must have a curtilage exactly equal to the area occupied by the building—a back yard probably, 50 feet deep and 20 feet wide. If in addition to the four storeys there be a basement of 12,500 cubic feet, then an additional 250 square feet of curtilage would be required, and the builder who is tempted to overcrowd would be constantly checked by the price he has to pay for his obligatory curtilage.

The high price of building land is largely due to there being practically no restriction as to the cubic contents permissible on a certain area.

If we take the smaller two-storeyed cottages, having a width of 15 feet, a depth of 25, and a height of 20 feet, then the curtilage would be (15 × 25 × 20)/50 = 150, which is the minimum of the 'model' by-laws. If the builder put a basement to this cottage of 3,750 cubic feet, he would have to provide additional 75 square feet of curtilage, and thus a check would be put upon underground dwellings and high buildings which obstruct the light and air. On the other hand, there need be no restrictions on the height or cubic contents of any building provided its curtilage be ample.

If it were possible for the first house considered to have a height of 100 feet in addition to its basement, then, the cubic contents being 112,500 feet, the curtilage would have to be 2,250 square feet, and the house and curtilage combined would occupy some 3,250 square feet, or rather less than ¹/₁₃ of an acre.

It is probable that a comprehensive rule of this kind would satisfactorily keep builder and site speculator in order, while it placed a minimum of restriction on the originality and fancy of architect and builder.

Builders of houses wholly detached from other houses or boundaries by a distance equal to the height of the house should be allowed to escape altogether from the harassing 'model' by-laws and the tyranny of the surveyor.

I would say finally—

1. That overcrowding is the greatest of all sanitary evils, and far and away the greatest of all moral evils.

2. That whatever increases the cost of the dwelling inevitably increases overcrowding.

3. That overcrowding is facilitated by modern methods of sanitation.

4. That, unless the crowding of houses be prevented, great schemes of sewerage and water-supply will eventually make the health of a district worse instead of better.

5. That 'open spaces' and public gardens do not compensate for the lack of light and air in the dwelling or of curtilage around it.

What one may call municipal luxuries are not permissible if they permanently increase the cost of the dwelling.

If such luxuries be self-supporting they may be permissible, but it is clear to my mind that, as a rule, they should be left to be provided by private munificence or voluntary public subscription. They ought never to be paid for out of the rates.

The avowed policy of many municipalities is to practise a maximum of extravagance, in the belief that such extravagance benefits the poor, and these vicarious philanthropists receive a willing support from those who are directly interested in such schemes.

6. That if great schemes for sewerage, or water supply, or the provision of open spaces, be effected by loans which increase the rates for long terms, and thereby permanently increase the cost of the dwelling, they will inevitably lead to a deterioration in the public health and morals. Some of these schemes facilitate overcrowding, while increased rates, by raising the cost of the dwelling, compel it.

7. Municipal ostentation is wholly indefensible. To build palatial offices costing a million and more of money, and thereby saddle the ratepayers with another loan, is indefensible. To buy a cocked hat for the mayor out of the rates (as did a less ambitious municipality) is equally indefensible, and serves no useful purpose except to raise a laugh.

We have been long accustomed to hear that our chief sanitary necessity in this world is pure water. This would be quite true if we were fish. But it is obvious that the purity of the air we breathe is of far greater importance than the purity of the water we drink, seeing that we must take a draught of air about twenty times a minute, while many of us do not take a draught of raw water from week's end to week's end.

If the huge death-rate of the Strand were due to impure water, we may be sure that there would be no lack of discussion thereupon; but as it is due to overcrowding, and the filthiness of the air consequent upon overcrowding, we hear nothing about it. To make any serious attempt to check overcrowding would interfere with trade, and therefore it is considered silly and futile to discuss such a matter. Any man who supposes that considerations of hygiene will be allowed to interfere with trade, is, I think, deceived. At all events, I have no such belief.

My sole object in discussing these matters is to warn country places against blindly following the lead of London in sanitary matters.