“The poor want more than model dwellings, more than warmth, food and clothing; they want humanity, and the knowledge of the laws governing health.”
Unfortunately those remedies were, at best, a matter of considerable time, and improvement could be but of slow growth. Immediate measures were required to cope with the appalling evils, and for the house-owners, even more than for the unfortunate tenants, were supervision and compulsory rules requisite.
But not one tithe of the Vestries and District Boards would enforce against owners the regulations under the 35th Section of the Sanitary Act of 1866.
Though something was being done as regarded the inspection of houses and the repair of sanitary defects, hardly any progress could be said to have been made for the improvement of the dwellings of the poor.
The Artizans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act (Torrens) of 1868 was to a small extent being made use of.
In some parishes houses considered by the Vestry or District Board as unfit for human habitation had been closed, and were only allowed to be reopened upon proper repairs having been carried out. In other cases where no amount of repairs could put the house into habitable condition, the landlord was directed to pull down the buildings (without his receiving any compensation), and, in default, the Vestry could pull it down at his expense. The site remained unoccupied, until the owner or landlord used it again for building purposes, or sold it to some one else.
In St. Giles’ (1873–4) the District Board has been enabled under the Act to enforce “considerable improvements in and immediately adjoining the worst parts of St. Giles’.” (Houses in yards and courts were demolished.)
In St. Luke the total number of houses “pulled down or closed” amounted by the year 1875 to 104.[133]
In Holborn the Board had been—
“Applying or threatening to apply the Act to houses that could be fairly subjected to it. Besides having 150 houses, chiefly belonging to one owner, put into a complete sanitary repair, it has been actually applied to 136 houses; 70 thoroughly repaired, 40 demolished, 26 to be rebuilt, and 10 to be closed.”