Some Chelsea Landlords and their Tenants
BURNING words have been spoken . by. Bishops and others with regard to the responsibility of those who derive rents from the areas of misery where vermin and darkness are doing their deadly work. But neither landlords nor Borough Councils can move faster than public opinion.
In the present article we propose to illuminate as far as may be the conditions prevailing within five hundred yards of Cadogan Square. One of the residents, a distinguished officer under the Crown, and a church- warden for more than fifty years, declared recently that although he had lived in this district for a full half- century he had only within the last month become aware of the slums of Little Orford Street, within two minutes from his door.
• Many of us are, like him, ignorant of the horrors closest to us. We all heard of the Sacco and Vanzetti case, but there are cases more deserving if less dramatic, to which we might well turn our attention, much nearer home, affecting not grown men but little children.
As we have already said, we take specific- cases in the belief that the argumentum ad hominent may prevail where a general statement would leave the reader un- touched by the human considerations which are of such vital importance. Let us begin with Mrs. W., whose children are in real danger of death. Worse cases there are in London, yet her plight would move a heart of stone. She has two boys and a girl and she lives in two basement rooms with her husband, a plasterer, at No. 42 Draycott Avenue, which we would again remind our readers is but a few steps from Sloane Street. Both her two rooms are very dark. The basement door of her front room opens some five feet below street level and there is no other window—the reader can imagine the damp we found there. Her other room, at the back of the little house, was even damper, however, and the wall positively wet to touch. No human being could live in that back room through a winter without becoming ill, so the whole family of five sleep in the tiny front room. Her youngest boy and girl have recently both been to hospital and the doctor has told her that if she continues to live in this basement with her children they will undoubtedly become consumptive. A repeal of the doom that seems to await her children may be possible now that her husband is in work. Yet although she would gladly pay .12s. a week (instead of 6s. 8d. as at present) for better accommodation, it - would appear to be impossible to find it in the neighbourhood.
Next door to her at No. 46 is the office of the Cadogan and Hans Place Estate No. 3, Ltd., the landlords of the property. Not two hundred yards away is a vacant site and it has been vacant for many years. The same landlords own Feltham Mews, ,a place of Hogarthian aspect, with horses neighing, hens cackling, and huMan • beings living in tumbledown attics above their animals. Two other properties belonging to this Company, which we personally inspected, may be briefly described. At Orford-Street lives-,Mrs. Tv-wit:Wier. husband, and her six children in two small rooms, for which they -pay 9s.. 10d. a week. The bugs- are voracious and insati- able here, but the good man and his wife are putting up a staunch fight against them and papering their front rooni little by little at night, when he gets back from work. It is a difficult business, however, keeping an old vermin- infested room clean, with so large a family to share it. At No. 27 Little Orford Street lives- Mrs. D. with her brother of 78, who is a retired confectioner. The sewage of the neighbouring houses joins the: conduit which runs through their house, and the inspection box of the sewer is—it is hardly credible—placed in the corridor on the threshold of the kitchen, where the old man lives- during the day. Whenever the drain floods, which is frequently, the trap by the kitchen door has to be lifted - and the stench is then awful ; we could imagine it without diffi- culty, for even when we inspected the place the odour in which this worthy man must spend the evening of his life was utterly revolting. Why are such things allowed ? These three families are decent, respectable people who keep themselves and their houses as well as they possibly can under the circumstances—on this point we have .the authority of the Rural Dean of Chelsea for saying that they would. be model tenants if decent accommodation could be found for them. ,. .
We do not claim that the Company referred to is a bad or negligent landlord, but rather that, with the distinguished persons who hold shares in this concern, their property should be a model one of its kind. Among those holding shares are several large insurance companies, whose directors include persons well known in politics and finance. If these gentlemen and their wives visited this property, for which they cannot disclaim all responsi- bility, something would surely be done, and that right soon, to better not only this property but all the slums of London.
We did not see the worst slums even in this small part of a small and rich Borough. Let no one believe- that the slum question " is settling itself," or that " it will ,all come right in ten years' time." The slums will end just as soon as every reader of the Spe4atoi, and the public generally, see to it that the Local Authorities in their district do not tolerate dirt and destitution sirch. as we have described, ,or overcrowding such as exists at No. 13 Little Orford Street, where nine -people are living in two rooms. Meanwhile, will the landlords of the pro- perties we have described tell us what they are doing to better existing conditions, and whether they can stir up. the Borough Council of Chelsea to end the miserable state of affairs in this district ?
The Directors of the Cadogan and Hans Place Estate (No. 3), Ltd., are Mr. F. E. Graham; of 43 Norfolk Square, Brighton ; Sir P. A. Makin, Oldbury, Stonehouse, Gloncester ; Mr. W. Birch, 22 Vale Drive, New Brighton, Cheshire.
The fate. of Sacco and Vanzetti seethed .to interest the whole World: What of the fate of Mia. W.'s little children? Are4Itey--not, important ,enough to concern. all England,? (1.2.
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