Letters to the Editor
THE SLUMS OF WESTMINSTER
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—May I offer my congratulations to the Spectator for so courageously making public the appalling conditions in Westminster slum-land ?
I venture to submit that on analysis a slum is divisible into four parts :—(1) Poverty ; (2) constricted accommodation ; (3) lack of sanitary decencies ; (4) vermin.
All these are in their various ways initiators of disease, but vermin, I submit, is the most to be apprehended, for its immediate effect is misery, its concurrent event inoculation with disease or low forms of toxicity, and its proximate event is local illness and also illness in some unrelated sphere of society, owing to the fact that most vermin are disease carriers.
Now, although it is ridiculously easy to prove these things arc incontestably true, it is extremely doubtful if telling people that it is unchristian to have such breweries of hell- broth as the slums of Westminster will do more than awaken mild concern, and yet really and truly we cannot afford to ignore their existence, for modern science, progress, and inter-communication are making man his brother's keeper.
From an employer's point of view slums are bad business because they vitiate the health and consequently the pro- ductivity of the worker.
From the point of view of the Church the least said the better, for the slum crucifies the tender flesh of helpless humanity inasmuch as that flesh is compulsorily fed to insect life under conditions so heart-rending that a heathen might be tempted to ask if Christ has any disciples now.
From a medical point of view it must seem at times that we are a nation of lunatics, for it is known, quite definitely known, that rats and mice are food contaminators and carriers of disease, that bugs, lice and fleas are pathogenic to man and capable of being carried by their hosts into our nurseries and homes. Yet with these certainties in our mind we tolerate slums where these insects exact a terrible vengeance in repayment of our toleration.
From a national standpoint slums are intolerable because they are bad finance. They are so costly in life and upkeep that it is amazing why they are allowed to persist. There is on record the case of one family that cost the State some £720 expended_ in palliating illnesses, loss of work, and for paying for funerals.
We have during the past twenty-one years proved these assertions to the hilt, and yet such is life that the very magni- tude of the horror seems to defeat its destroyal. Why ? Because no man or woman can probe into the slums and remain happy ; a scratching of the problem induces such nausea that most people prefer to salve their consciences by an occasional subscription rather than face the whole matter frankly.
Under these circumstances we have decided that there is only one practical way to fight the slum menace, and that is to bring about a knowledge amongst the public that an infested person is just as much a common danger as is a perambulating small-pox case. And to do that we have drafted a Vermin (Compulsory) Notification Bill which is at the moment being harmonized with existing Health Acts.
It will be a desperate business to get the measure on the Statute Book, but we are already assured of the help of a number of earnest men and women who will consecrate their lives to the task.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A. MOORE 110GARTH,
Chairman, College of Pestology. 52 Bedford Square, W.C.1.
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