That Act, which gave a large remission in the amount of passenger duty paid by railway companies, if the companies would provide a service of workmen’s trains, and would convey workmen at less than the usual fares, had so far not been made much use of.
On investigation it was found that the facilities afforded to workmen, particularly on certain railways, were very inadequate. There were no workmen’s trains at all on one important line—on another only one such train was run, whilst on several others the number of trains run was very small.
Representations were made to the Board of Trade and negotiations carried on with the Railway Companies, and by degrees a considerable extension of the facilities for the conveyance of workmen was secured.
The Council gave its immediate and more anxious attention to those breeding-places and forcing-pits of disease and misery, the insanitary areas in London.
The Housing Act of 1890 (by Part I.) constituted the Council the authority for preparing and carrying into effect schemes for the clearance and improvement of insanitary areas which were of such size, and situation, and character, as to render their clearance and reconstruction of general importance to the County.
The tremendous task of dealing with them was rendered more difficult and costly by the obligation imposed by Parliament of providing housing accommodation for the persons displaced; for in the lack of easy means of communication with the outer parts of London it was held to be necessary to re-house the greater number of them in the same locality.
The Metropolitan Board of Works had simply acquired and cleared the properties, and disposed of the sites to companies or individuals, placing on them the obligation to erect houses for the working classes. Now, however, the Council determined itself to erect, let, and maintain, the necessary dwellings. The chief reason for the change was the difficulty experienced in finding companies or persons who were willing to undertake the erection of dwellings on some of the sites.
The Council had to complete several schemes which it inherited in an unfinished condition from the Metropolitan Board of Works, but it at once initiated many itself, and carried them through to a successful conclusion.
And as one after another of the insanitary areas was investigated, so again and again was revealed to public view the appalling condition in which thousands of people—in the very heart of London—dragged out an existence more bestial than human; horrors piled on horrors—a state of things all the more awful because it had been existing for an indefinite number of years—levying annually the heaviest of tolls on those who came within its deadly sphere, and scattering its poison abroad among the community at large.
There was the Clare Market (Strand) Scheme, some 3½ acres—3½ acres of human wretchedness and disease and misery and filth. In one sub-area there were upwards of 800 persons to the acre. Here the death-rate was 41·32 per 1,000 in 1894; in another sub-area, the death-rate had been 50·52 per 1,000 in 1893; the death-rate for the whole area having been 39·03 in 1894. And in addition to this was the unknown sick-rate. There was the Webber Row Scheme in St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark—close upon 5 acres in extent, with a death-rate of 30·5 per 1,000. There were the Roby Street and Baltic Street areas in St. Luke, areas which “have about the worst reputation of any in London.”