“At present no more regard is paid in the construction of houses to the health of the inhabitants than is paid to the health of pigs in making sties for them. In point of fact there is not so much attention paid to it.”
Legislation against some of the evils which had already reached huge proportions, and which, as London grew, were spreading and developing, was not alone ineffective, but earlier legislation, in one notorious Act, had been the direct incentive to, and cause of evils. This was the Act which imposed a tax upon windows.[16] In effect this Act said to the builder, “Plan your houses with as few openings as possible. Let every house be ill-ventilated by shutting out the light and air, and as a reward for your ingenuity you shall be subject to a less amount of taxation.”[17]
The builder acted upon this counsel, and the tax operated as a premium upon the omission from a building of every window which could by any device be spared; with the result that passages, closets, cellars, and roofs—the very places where mephitic vapours were most apt to lodge—were left almost entirely without ventilation.[18]
In effect, the window duties compelled multitudes to live and breathe in darkened rooms and poisoned air, and with a rapidly increasing population the evils resulting therefrom were being steadily intensified.
Admirable was the comment passed upon the tax in 1843:—
“Health is the capital of the working man, and nothing can justify a tax affecting the health of the people, and especially of the labouring community, whose bodily health and strength constitute their wealth, and, oftentimes, their only possession. It is a tax upon light and air, a tax more vicious in principle and more injurious in its practical consequences than a tax upon food.”
Not until 1851 was the tax abandoned, but its evil consequences, wrought in stone and embodied in bricks and mortar, endured many a long year after.
The existing laws or regulations as to building were wholly inadequate to secure healthy houses. And there was no public authority with power to compel attention to the internal condition of houses so as to prevent their continuance in such a filthy and unwholesome state as to endanger the health of the public. There was no power to compel house owners to make drains and carry them to the common sewer where it existed. No persons were appointed to carry into effect such communication. No persons were authorised to make inspection and to report upon these matters.
The poor, or, indeed, the working classes generally, were powerless to alter or amend the construction of the dwellings in which they were compelled to reside, still less to alter their surroundings. Any improvement in the condition of their dwellings could only be by voluntary action on the part of the landlords, or of interference by Government to compel that measure of justice to the poor, and of economy to the ratepayers.