In throwing out this suggestion to your Hon. Court, I, of course, do not pretend to offer you any details for its realisation. These can more fitly be supplied by others; nor should I have introduced even this general mention of a plan, but for the vividness with which its practicability and usefulness have struck me. During my period of office, I have seen distinctly that what seems incurable in the dark intricacies of our worst courts and alleys often depends for its difficulty on the _number_ of landlords, and on their mutual independence. The conviction had thus been forced on me, which I have endeavoured briefly to express to you; that the only available cure for such evils would consist in the Corporation assuming to itself (if only for a time, and in gradual succession) the proprietage of such wretched tenements, and fulfilling towards them those large and liberal duties of landlordship, which now remain unperformed through the multiplicity and neediness of petty owners. And, as a precedent for one species of such improvement, I may mention to your Hon. Court, that in such property as I have described to you, situated in other parts of the metropolis, private societies have already effected purchases which have enabled them to convert bad and unwholesome residences into the form of model lodgings for the working classes.
Before leaving the consideration of evils, in which over-density of building and defective ventilation form such important parts, I would avail myself of the opportunity to observe, that it is of incalculable importance to preserve, for the health of the City, every open space which at present exists. The density of buildings within the City of London Union is very great, and in the East and West London Unions, is very considerably greater than in any other part of the metropolis; and not merely are the houses closely packed together, but (as I have already described them) very thickly inhabited. Within the City of London Union, each human being, on an average, has less than an eighth part of the space he would have if residing in the district of Islington; and, small as is this pittance, it is more than double what he would enjoy if he were living in the district of the East and West London Unions. With such density of population, it would, of course, be advantageous if any space now occupied by buildings should hereafter become vacant, so as to increase the breathing-room of the neighbourhood; and your Hon. Court will see the imperative necessity of discountenancing, so far as may be, the erection of additional houses on the few unoccupied spaces which remain. In order to do this effectually, it would be desirable to procure the enactment of a clause, giving you absolute prohibiting power in this respect, whenever, for sanitary reasons, you might think it right to interfere.