Volume 1

First report.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the State of Large Towns.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/428 (page 26)
    which often render them the seats of contagious diseases, a question which also involves local regulations of police. Our attention has been invited to the means of giving facilities for providing public walks, baths, or other con- venient bathing places in the vicinity or populous towns.1 We have especially turned our attention to the means for improving the worst, and the most crowded districts, in large towns ; a subject of great importance, and of very great difficulty. It may appear to be a comparatively easy task to provide against the occurrence, in new dis- tricts, of the evils which at present prevail in parts of old towns ; but in the heart, and even in the immediate suburbs of towns, not only of ancient, but also of modern date, where these evils chiefly abound, the value of the property, the intricacy and variety of the interests in- volved, and the occupations and callings of the inhabitants, increase in a great degree the difficulty of devising mea- sures which we may be able with confidence to recom- mend as effectual, and at the same time as capable of enforcement. In the recommendation of measures calcu- lated to have a retrospective effect upon such masses of property, (the disposition of which has not hitherto been placed by the Legislature under any control,) tlie greatest caution is necessary, lest, while seeking to afford a re- medy, injustice might be done to the inhabitants or the owners. This subject is still engaging our most anxious attention. In order to admit of the recommendation of systematic and comprehensive measures, adequate to the magnitude of the subject, many practical details are involved, which must be minutely examined and viewed equally in respect to accuracy of principle, economy of execution, and ade- quate provision for regulating and defraying the necessary expenses. We anticipate that it will be necessary to have recourse to the aid of the Legislature for further enactments, before the improvements so much to be desired can be fully ac- complished ; but at the same time it is our duty to state, that in many instances much might be effected, under the 1 Vol. i., pp. 292, et seq.; 300, et seq.