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.
'Thou art so full of misery
Were it not better not to be?'
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.