Science and City Suburbs 



improve existing habitations, or more lately to erect 

 cottages, seemed to make little impression on the 

 condition of things I have described. Statistics 

 showed that better housing meant better health, 

 but still the strength of the nation was said to be 

 deteriorating. Public opinion, still convinced that 

 bad housing was the cause of the trouble, called 

 on the Municipalities, with their command of capital 

 and administrative ability, to take up the work, and 

 this they did, using Part III. of the Housing Act 

 of 1890, which gives " power to local authorities to 

 buy land outside their town boundaries for the 

 purpose of increasing the number of workmen's 

 dwellings." Thus whole districts have arisen, the 

 inhabitants of which are of one class only. The 

 London County Council have bought 225 acres 

 at Tottenham, on which are being placed, at the 

 estimated cost of a million and a half, nearly 6000 

 cottages to house 42,500 people. At Edmonton 

 there has grown up a population of 63,000 persons, 

 all in the same social position. In West Ham 

 there are 300,000 people, not 500 of whom keep 

 a servant. Ilford has many hundreds of houses 

 recently built, and but very few exceed the rental 

 of xos. 6d. a week. 



The result of this activity, commercial and phil- 

 anthropic, both individual and municipal, may be 

 measured in a better hygienic standard, but modern 

 thought applies other standards, and it has been 

 recognised that there is danger in the division 

 of classes. For miles to the eastward stretch out 

 mean streets, and on the west and north lie 



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