The best practicable means of organizing the demoralized dock laborers, and so healing the spreading social ulcer of the East End. task of managing the London Docks would be great, but no greater than that already successfully undertaken by Liverpool, where the 'Mersey Docks and Harbor Board" had, in 1886-7, a capital debt of £17,006,169, with receipts of £1,405,562 and expenditure of £617,228, with £791,731 for interest and sinking-fund. (House of Commons Return, 431 of 1889, p. 39.) PUBLIC BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES. ONLY 17 London Vestries have established public baths and washhouses, although these are of inestimable advantage directly to the poor, and indirectly to the public through their reaction on health. When properly managed they do not involve any appreciable expense from public funds. Those at Whitechapel, Marylebone, St. Pancras, and Bloomsbury even yield a considerable annual profit, after paying all expenses and interest on loans outstanding. The Islington Vestry determined, in August, 1889, to follow their excellent example. Battersea, Hampstead and Kensington were not open in 1886-7. (Compiled from H. C. 341, August, 1888, p. 325) Every parish in London ought to have at least one of these useful institutions; and there is no reason why, like the roads, bridges, libraries, reading-rooms and (presently) elementary schools, they should not be freed from toll. The total receipts for tickets in the 14 baths and wash-houses open in 1886-7 only amounted to £38,322 (baths, £27,592; wash-houses £10,730), representing the fees collected for admission at an average of 3d., from about 3,000,000 people; yet not amounting to much more than a farthing in the pound on the rates for London. Would it not be well for London to emulate ancient Rome and allow its millions unlimited opportunity to wash? Communism in baths, as in roads and bridges, would result in a saving of trouble, annoyance and expense, and could not have other than beneficial consequences on the public health. Other public conveniences are still lacking. No London Vestry has yet provided any public water-closets for gratuitous use, although twenty-seven provincial municipalities do so. Only three metropolitan authorities provide this accommodation on payment (the City Corporation, the Strand District Board of Works and Kensington Vestry), though the value of the service is proved by the large profit obtained in these cases. Shoreditch and Clerkenwell are now timidly following suit. No public accommodation is anywhere provided for women, though this is successfully done at Glasgow, Nottingham and Sheffield. (Report of Surveyor to Strand District Board, 1889.) PUBLIC LIBRARIES. UNDER a series of Acts of Parliament the Vestries have power to establish public libraries and reading-rooms; but until quite recently this power was practically unheeded. The Parish of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, established a useful little library in Great Smith Street in 1857, but for 29 years it found no imitator; and Londoners had to crowd the Guildhall Library (City Corporation) and the British Museum, or to rely on the few libraries and readingrooms provided at various points by private philanthropy. Wandsworth got its free public library in 1886; and now the Acts have been adopted in Battersea, Bermondsey, Camberwell, Chelsea, Clapham, Clerkenwell, Fulham, Hammersmith, Kensington, Lambeth, Putney, Rotherhithe, and St. Martin's in the Fields; but-such is official dilatoriness and the power of obstruction possessed by the landlords on whom the rate falls-the Commissioners for carrying out the Acts for these places "had no financial transactions before the close of the year" 1886-7 (H.C. 341, 1888, p. 333). The great majority of parishes still neglect to adopt the Acts, though the maximum library rate is limited to a penny in the pound. No East End Vestry has yet provided its constituents with a library. We want numerous small local reading rooms and libraries, so that every child, as well as every adult, may be able easily to resort to them. Every parish, without exception, should adopt the Acts, and establish, not only central, but also branch libraries. A LONDON CHURCH-RATE. THROUGH special exemptions in the Compulsory Church Rate Abolition Act, 1868, 74 parishes still levy rates applied to Church purposes. One of these is in London (St. Marylebone); and the rate collected there in 1886-7 amounted to £6,241, of which only £500 was applied to repayment of debt, the rest being given to the maintenance of public worship in the five Marylebone Churches (H. C., 431, 1889, p. 33). In this case the outstanding loan of £10,800 ought to be discharged within two years by the devotion of the whole rate to that purpose, and the rate then abolished. Some other parishes have what are practically church-rates under various disguises, and Bethnal Green has a small but irksome "Composition Rate," applied to ecclesiastical purposes. The incumbents of some parishes have still, in some cases, rights to fees on the interments of persons who had resided in their parishes. The main expense of London's 400 Churches is, however, defrayed by the public property in the hands of the beneficed clergy. The "Ecclesiastical Commissioners", successors to various Church dignitaries, are amongst the largest owners of London land and houses. as THE CITY GUILDS. A PROPERTY Worth at least £15,000,000, clearly belonging to the people of London, is now secretly administered by the 1,500 members of the self-appointed "courts of assistants" of the seventy-four "livery companies," the ancient trade guilds of the City of London. The total income of these companies (besides their valuable halls, plate, etc.) is at least £750,000 A YEAR, derived mainly from land and house property in London and elsewhere. They are, indeed, among the very largest of London's ground landlords. About a quarter of this income is devoted to special charitable trusts; some good-such as schools, almshouses, pensions to the aged, etc.-but needing democratic control; and some bad, such as pauper doles, City lectureships, etc. The balance of the companies' income, about £600,000 a year, is their corporate property, and is regarded by the members as being at their own disposal. Accordingly, whilst generously contributing about half of it to various public. purposes (schools, technical education, charities, etc.), they divide the rest practically among themselves: about £175,000 a year being devoted to "management and maintenance," a large portion of it paid to the 1,500 members of the respective "courts of assistants" in fees for their attendance, about £100,000 consumed in banquets, and about £60,000 in salaries of officers, etc. |