INVALID CHILDREN AND INSANITARY CONDITIONS : A PUZZLE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] ,SIR,—Can you or any of your readers tell me what is the best and quickest method to ensure that all that may be possible is done towards providing the poor with decent and sanitary accommodation ? During the visits paid by our workers we find (and report to our local M.O.H.) conditions such as these :—(1) Children and adults suffering from rheumatism living in basements where floors and walls show the damp ; (2) smells from defective soil-pipes or dust- holes ; (3) foul smells at certain street corners, where children play. Week by week we write or report verbally at the Tuberculosis Care Committee, and it is often mere waste of paper and of breath. It seems futile to send children away for expensive treatment and then to bring them back to the homes where bad conditions have caused the trouble if meanwhile little or no effort has been made to remedy the conditions. (4) Rats. In July of this year we heard that a house in a mews off the Harrow Road was infested by rats. We removed the most delicate of a large family whilst the rats were dealt with : 190 were killed and " hand- fuls " of young ones, but as the owners of the house were not compelled to make the premises rat-proof, the pest. very soon assumed as bad a.form as before. Finally last week
I wrote to the M.P., who is also a magistrate and a Borough. Councillor, on the subject. About the same time the poor mistress of the tenement, after killing eight rats, and finding that one had got into the bed of one of the younger children, went herself to the Town Hall and insisted on an interview with the M.O.H., who had also a letter about the same time from the M.P. The rats will probably now end their career, but how are we to proceed in the future ? Are such troubles to be reported to : (1) The Housing Committee ; (2) the M.0.11., or (3) the M.P. ? I ask your readers for advice. The facts I mention can be verified by our papers, and the office (9A Craven Terrace, W. 2) is open from 10 to 11 every morning except Saturday.—I am, Sir, &e.,
L. C. STREATFEILD, Hon. Sec.
Invalid Children's Aid Association (Paddington Branch).
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