If all who are even remotely connected with housing will
read this book (Gollancz, 6s.), and be made thoroughly uncomfort- able and ashamed by its revelations, then, the courage of Mrs.,Cheaterton's journalistic venture will nothave been in vain. The slum, she explains, nowadays is the old houses converted into tenements in what were once better residential streets. They arc overcrowded' because. the dWellers, displaced by the erection of " luxury " *lints on 'former slum sites, seek whatever accommodationAhey can finds even at exorbitant rents, so as to be near to their work ; far they can afford neither the money nor the time to travel to and from the outlying dormitory districts which the authorities expect them to occupy. The-book contains construVtivesSuggestiOns as well as indictment. The only criticioni-is.lthat the .atiklies told arc mainly about the PollyannaS1 Of -the- slums. -• The cheerful courage of slum dwellers in spite:Of'rats, bugs, damp, darkness, poverty and indifferent landlOidS7-is amazing, but, though many remain undaunted; there. trnist be very manly who are defeated morally and physically hythtir surroundings. Surely these are a still more compelling argunkrit for immediate and wholesale action for the abolition oft:slums.
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