[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In a letter from
Constantinople published in your issue of July 16th I notice that your correspondent writes
The city itself is remarkably clean compared with what it was just after the War. The municipal authorities are well organized and the system of street-cleaning and house-cleaning is efficiently carried out. If the authorities notify a householder that his house must be cleaned and redecorated and he neglects the notice, the authorities come themselves and do it for him, but charge about double what he would have paid in the ordinary way."
Does not this contain the germ of an idea for the reformation of the slums of Westminster and similar plague-spots in our larger cities.? This good town of Edinburgh has more than its share of such places. No doubt the administrative diffi_ culties,of applying any such plan would be formidable, and to do so might savour of Fascism, but where there's a will there's a way, and, if the public conscience were once properly aroused, we might soon witness an improvement without attempting to raise the .fabulous sums from the public purse which you
indicate in your article under the above heading.
I feel sure that many of your readers will share my feeling
of gratitude to the Spectator for lending its powerful advocacy to schemes of reform in a matter for which we arc all respon- Edinburgh.
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