'Ticketed houses' of Glasgow : with an interrogation of the facts for guidance towards the amelioration of the lives of their occupants / by James B. Russell.

  • Russell, James Burn, 1837-1904.
Date:
[1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: 'Ticketed houses' of Glasgow : with an interrogation of the facts for guidance towards the amelioration of the lives of their occupants / by James B. Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    were spent in serving notices, inspecting, certifying, and again notifying, before the proprietor removed this abominable nuisance. After everything has been done by Parliament and by Local Authorities which can be done to exterminate unwholesome houses, and banish adulterated property from the market as resolutely and successfully as adulterated food, there will still be a necessity for the assistance of private effort. The public of Glasgow trust too much to authorities and officials for the solution of their social difficulties—more, I think, than any other community. Where are the Open-spaces and Playgrounds Associations, the Artizans' Dwellings Companies, and the like, which unite the business capacity and Christian sympathy of the citizens of so many other cities in successful labour for the common good ] Why have we not an Octavia Hill in Glasgow ? There are various ways in which private associations might help to elevate the 75,000 inhabitants of the ticketed houses of this city. They might attack the question of building new tenements of small houses, to be let at monthly rents, to return a modest interest on the outlay, and yet be within the means of those who could be tempted to try to lead orderly lives if they had the chance of physical circumstances which would help them up and not help them down, or keep them down. They might buy a tenement here and there which could be made-down in an honest fashion, and yet yield a reasonable return on the money invested. They might acquire a poor tenement, and try to acquire the poor tenants also, and make them feel the elevating influence of the introduction into the relation of landlord and tenant of friendly interest and moral responsi- bility. Or they might undertake the factorage of such properties held by private individuals, administering them on the principle that the maintenance of the property shall be the first charge on the rental. These last are undoubtedly the best directions which private enterprise can take. They are the methods of Miss Octavia Hill and those who work under her. They are far better than building model houses, selecting the good and casting the bad away, even if the good belong to the class for whom tliey were intended, which they seldom do. It is the people you reject who require your help. If you go on selecting you merely leave somewhere in the city a more utterly hopeless and homogeneously bad residuum. Read Miss Hill's book on the Houses of the London Poor, in which she relates her practical experiences. You will find that she is no soft sentimentalist,