Page:Dwellings of working-people in London.djvu/21

 possesses a power of which the authorities of London are deprived.

Let me state very briefly what have been some of the results of this legislation. I will restrict what I have to say to the Glasgow case. The results in Glasgow have been very remarkable with reference to crime. The total number of crimes have singularly diminished. According to the report of Captain McCall, Chief Constable of the City, for the year 1871, the number of houses of an immoral kind have been reduced from 204 to 50. Captain McCall adds: 'I should consider that I fell short of my duty were I not to acknowledge that the operations of the City Improvement Trustees and the Directors of the City Union Railway Company, have contributed to the results. Through these operations the city has been cleared of the foulest dens of vice and profligacy, and their occupants have been scattered among a population breathing a purer moral atmosphere.'

I have also got the statistics of what has been done with regard to the number of dwellings which have been removed in a return by Mr. Nichol, Secretary to the Improvement Trustees. The return is dated the 14th April, 1874, and states that 'the number of dwellings in the Central District of Glasgow removed by the Improvement Trustees within the last six years was 3,085 (allowing five to a family, 15,425 persons). The number in the same district removed by the City Union Railway Company represents 8,000 inmates, giving a total of 23,425.'

I take it, therefore, that what has been done in Glasgow may be pointed to as, at least, a hopeful precedent, when we come to consider the way in which we are proposing to deal with the evils that exist in London.

I know it will be said, and I admit, that the cases of Glasgow and London are very different. The case of London is in many respects totally different from that of any other