Interesting light is often to be found in the reports sometimes of the Vestries, and oftener of the Medical Officers of Health, upon various aspects of the great housing problem.
Sometimes a sentence enables so much else to be understood. Thus, in 1892, a Medical Officer of Health wrote:—
“Many persons think the Public Health Act an innovation on their privileges.”
Describing the insanitary condition of 230 houses in Provost Street, Shoreditch, the Sanitary Inspector wrote in 1892:—
“The difficulty of dealing with these houses has been greatly increased by the circumstance that the leases will expire in a very few years. There was, therefore, a very natural objection on the part of many of the leaseholders to execute substantial works, of which the freeholder would in a few years reap the benefit, and without contributing anything to the expense of the improvements.”
This “very natural objection” entailed, of necessity, sickness and death upon a considerable number of persons.
The Vestry of St. Pancras wrote in 1893:—
“The primary cause of houses and buildings becoming insanitary is the neglect of freeholders to compel lessees to comply with the terms and conditions of their leases. If the Vestry were empowered (where freeholders are negligent) to compel freeholders to cause lessees to carry into effect the covenants of the leases, the houses inhabited by the poorer classes would not become so wretchedly dilapidated and a scandal, but might be maintained in a fairly habitable condition.”
The Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green exonerated some property owners, whilst fixing the blame on others.