THE HOUSING BILL.
[To THE EDITOR or THE "seserHToR-1 SIR,—Your• criticism in the Spectator of May 16th is dis- tinctly to the point. People who dwell in cities and large towns have no conception of the thraldom in which village folk and those residing in petty market-towns are held. As you truly say, Parish Council, District Council, medical officer of health, and sanitary inspector simply dare not complain about unfit cottages and houses. To the medical officer of health and the sanitary inspector conscientious duty would spell financial suicide. The idea. of the intervention of "four resident householders" is delightfully Gilbertian. The one only possible "resident householder" in many country parishes might be the parson, provided he had moral courage enough not to be a " respecter• of persons." When you do get a disciple of Kingsley to speak out about unfit dwellings and shippons, he is oftentimes given the hint that he had better• confine himself to the sanitary conditions of the "many mansions" in the future world rather than draw attention to the insanitary state of dwellings and shippons in this present one. The one remedy is for• the Imperial Government to appoint the medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors on much the same footing as that of inspectors of Excise and their assistants. This would efficiently and speedily redress the tyrannous state of affairs in unreformed and secluded country places.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Giggleswick-in- Craven.
THEODORE P. BROCKLEHITRST.
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