Overcrowding is dangerous to health and destructive to morals. It consists of two kinds : either too many tenements are crowded into a given area, excluding light and air, or too many persons of both sexes, and of mature years, are crowded into single rooms. There seems at first sight no insuperable difficulty in ameliorating this condition of life. Powers may be, and in many cases are, conferred on Corporations to open up air spaces, by pulling down back lands; and to prevent over-crowding of houses, by stringent regulations, enforced by penalties. Still the remedy may aggravate the evil to pull down houses without removing the population is to drive them into fewer houses, more crowded than ever, and to enhance the rents of those which remain.

Then if the houses be visited as they have been visited by the Sanitary Officer whose evidence we have quoted, they will be found, at least many of them, dilapidated, ill lit and dark, rain creeping down from the patched roof, the walls mouldy, lacking in the necessary conveniences of life. Touching glimpses of old-world life are sometimes met with in these dens; remains of faded splendour, carved banisters, marble mantel-pieces, recalling the days when high-born dames trod, where now squalid poverty crouches.

Here is an official document which gives a grim picture of what, in irony, are called homes:

'(1) The provision made for the disposal of the excrement of the inhabitants of these tenements demands immediate attention. Several places are noted where there is no provision whatever, but in our opinion the privy is in no case a sufficient provision for flatted tenements. It is never used, and cannot in the nature of the case be used by females, and seldom by children. The result is that every sink is practically a water-closet, and the stairs and courts and roofs of outhouses are littered with deposits or filth cast from the windows. Some form of wash-out closet, in the proportion of one to every two or, at most, three families, ought to be provided, as far as possible, in a back jamb. As to ashpit accommodation, where this does not exist it ought to be provided, or a bell-cart service instituted -the extra cost of which ought to be defrayed by the proprietors of the defective property.

'(2) The necessity of supervision by resident caretakers, responsible for the upkeep of the property, for the selection and supervision of the tenants, and the collection of rents, was strongly impressed upon the committee. They found everywhere either tenants of the most reckless and

profligate description in entire possession, and signs of neglect and destruction on every hand, or poor but respectable tenants, struggling under leaking roofs, and without the conveniences of civilisation to maintain cleanliness, or mixed on the same landing with neighbours whose riotous outbreaks and bad language and conduct penetrated the thin partitions, and made their lives miserable. All this would be remedied by resident caretakers in each block, and the proper use of the water-closets would also be secured.'-Fyfe Evidence, p. 37, (Memorandum of Health Committee, Glasgow.)

This is a sample of the worst; the others bear a kindred resemblance. To remedy these evils, it seems a simple matter to demand that Corporations be armed with powers to shut up insanitary houses till they are reconstructed. To shut up tenements, however bad, without providing better, is to aggravate the evil elsewhere. Where are the evicted families to migrate to? Shelter, however miserable, is preferable to none. It has been seriously proposed that, to meet this difficulty, Corporations should be empowered to acquire land, and erect tenements to receive the evicted tenants. The proposed solution of the problem would simply aggravate the evil. Either Corporations must build and let their houses to secure a reasonable return, or they must let them at unremunerative rents, sacrificing the capital expenditure. The argument against this project seems irresistible. If the tenements are to yield a remunerative return, private enterprise will erect them. If they are to be let at unremunerative rates, then the Corporation, by their action, will drive away capital which, otherwise, might find its way into this channel. Unless, therefore, they are prepared, at the cost of the ratepayers, to provide houses for all this class of tenants, an enterprise clearly beyond the reach of the most wealthy Corporation, such a reckless interference with private enterprise would end in disaster.

The reason why capital is not attracted by this form of investment is obvious. The rents which these poor people can afford to pay out of their slender earnings (£4 10s. for one room and £8 for two rooms) are not remunerative in cities where ground is costly. Moreover, even though the rents were remunerative, the habits of the tenants, the amount of wilful and wasteful dilapidation of property enhancing the charges for repairs, would make them unremunerative. Not only are the

costs of repair increased, but the rents are irregularly paid by the dissolute, the drunken and worthless. The character and

fashion of life of the tenant require as urgently to be reconstructed as his dwelling. His character is often more dilapidated than his house. A partial remedy may be applied with some measure of confidence by making provision for the well-doing, struggling, but honest poor.

Herding amongst the depraved and disorderly, are to be found families of decent folk, struggling to keep up a respectable appearance, whilst driven to seek lodging amongst so uncongenial a company by the hard necessities of poverty. The fate of such is pathetic, and not less perilous than pathetic; like just Lot in the doomed city, they are vexed by the filthy conversation of the wicked. They may have come to the city fresh from country scenes, with children innocent and, as yet, unstained; work scarce, wages slender, they drift into these squalid dens. Pitiful it is to think of little children breathing an atmosphere morally and physically tainted; growing familiar with obscene words, and prematurely forced into contact with riotous living of the lowest sort. Not less pitiful is it to think of the many decent, hard-working women, left fatherless or widowed, who are forced to earn their poor pittance amid daily recurring scenes of infamy. To those familiar with these haunts and their dwellers, it is pathetic to witness their quiet, patient struggle, striving to keep their bits of houses clean and bright amidst general squalor and depression; tending a flower or herb in the window, or treasuring in their barely furnished garret the relics of happier days. Happily this condition of things admits of being ameliorated, without detriment to anyone, with wonderful gain of happiness to the respectable poor.

It has been suggested that Associations might be formed to purchase insanitary property, especially tenements compulsorily closed by authority, and reconstruct them. These properties, it is maintained, could be reconstructed; sanitary appliances provided; light and air freely admitted; the general surroundings brightened and improved ; and the houses let to selected tenants, at the rent presently paid, and that such purchases would still prove a remunerative investment. This calculation is based on the

assumption that the selected tenants, being well-behaved and industrious, the rents would be regularly paid, and the cost of repairs reduced. And certainly if such Associations, conducted on commercial principles, could demonstrate that it is practicable to provide, for decent tenants, superior houses at the rent of dilapidated dens, and yet shew a fair return on the investment, there would, in a short time, be as many houses reconstructed and improved by private enterprise as there are respectable tenants to fill them. But by some this is doubted. For instance, one of the witnesses examined before the Glasgow Commission, when alluding to this said :—

'Philanthropic effort may set an example, but I do not think it could be so widely applied as to supply all, or anything like all, the houses that are required. In Glasgow, according to Mr. Henry, there are 35,892 houses of one apartment, 54,960 of two apartments, and by calculation I find that these represent a capital of about £8,000,000. It is vain, I think, to look to philanthropic effort to supply even a large percentage of such a large matter.'-(Binnie, Evidence, p. 153.)

But on the other hand, it may fairly be replied that the ordinary operation of the law of supply and demand would, if the experiment of philanthropists proved successful, produce the desired result. The formation of such associations in Glasgow would, at the present juncture be of immense importance, and go to strengthen the hands of the corporation. Extensive powers have by recent legislation been conferred on that body. They are authorised to require owners of property to put them in a sanitary condition: to provide an effective arrangement of sanitary appliances: and in the event of their orders not being carried out forthwith, they are farther authorised, subject to a summary form of appeal, to declare such tenements uninhabitable and to close them compulsorily.

It would be little short of a calamity to the poor if many tenements, standing on sites most convenient to the tenants were to be closed. The results indicated above would follow. If associations were ready to step in and purchase these properties, when thrown on the market, and renovate them, they would assist the corporation in proceeding with the work, without inflicting any hardship. There would then be no evictions: the

same number of tenements would remain: only sanitary houses would be substituted for insanitary ones. Whether such investments would be remunerative or not, there is no question as to the good which would be effected; for no greater boon can be conferred on the decent and industrious poor than to remove them from commerce with the depraved, drunken, and criminal, and to provide for them quiet resting places, where they can dwell apart. It is one of the saddest burdens of a sad lot, to be driven by grim necessity to lodge in dwellings where the air surrounding them is full of sounds of drunken ribaldry; their souls vexed with unrighteous deeds; and the fresh lives of young children polluted by too early contact with vice in its grossest forms. They might happily be rescued from perdition. Families drifting into these regions of sorrow and death are perilously apt to adapt themselves to the demoralizing surroundings with which they are forced into familiarity, and which at first they regard with loathing and disgust. If the operations suggested were carried forward on a considerable scale, the result would be that disorderly and abandoned tenants would be crushed out. No association or landlord would admit them to reconstructed or improved dwellings; if they did, the improvements would soon disappear. This class would be driven from renovated tenements to those not overtaken by the sanitary authorities. In this there would be an advantage; they would congregate by themselves in certain blocks or areas, where they could be more readily placed under police supervision and control.

The residuum which remains, after separating the industrious, may be divided into two groups: (1) those who still work, though their work is precarious, partly due to their vicious habits and partly to the class of work at which they are employed; people whose sins have found them out, and whose lives are very hard and very miserable; and (2) the criminal and lazy, who do not work, and doggedly decline to work; who prefer to live on the fruits of vice and pillage. It is hopelessly impracticable to find decent dwellings for such a class. They are violent, disorderly, reckless; they pillage and destroy the houses in which they live; they pull down the skirting and tear up and burn the very planking of the floors. No sane landlord will provide renovated houses for such tenants. Dilapidated, dark and