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11. Houses fronting on narrow lanes.-Many cases exist in which private property has been laid out, the block of buildings being only separated by narrow lanes from 5 to 10 feet wide which afford the only means of access to such buildings from 30 to 50 feet in height. Such buildings must evidently, especially on the ground floor, be in- sufficiently lighted and inadequately ventilated. The laying out of property in this manner leads to surface-crowding and their insanitary condition is much aggravated by the tenants having the free use of the lanes in which they carry out their trades or use them for storage purposes.
12. Houses with insufficient air space in their rear.--Under this heading is included the larger portion of insanitary dwellings in the City of Victoria. The necessity of insisting on open spaces in the rear of houses has long been recognised in England, and we now find most of the Urban Authorities in England availing themselves of the power conferred upon them ander section 157 of the Public Health Act of 1875 and insisting on ample open spaces beign provided in the rear of all new buildings.
13. The Local Government Model Bye-laws provide that in the rear of every new house there must be an open space exclusively belonging to the house 150 square feet in area extending along the entire width of the house, and in the statement attached to this report copied from Vol. XII., Sanitary Institute Proceedings, will be found the requirements in this respect in Brighton, Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle-upon- Tyne.
14. Houses abutting against the Hill-side.--Owing to the steepness of the ground in the City of Victoria, many building sites are formed by extensive examination, and the lower stories of the houses abut against the hill-side, though the upper stories above the ground may be adequately provided for in respect of light and ventilation.
15. It will be observed that the enforcement of the provisions of section 52 of Or- dinance 15 of 1889 respecting the erection of new buildings will eventually get rid of many of the houses included in class (b), but some further provision is necessary to compel owners of property to provide open spaces at the rear of all houses in order to improve the condition of houses included in classes (a), (c) and (~), and we urge upon the attention of the Commission the importance of the early introduction of legislation in this respect.
16. Having dealt with the most glaring sanitary defects in the design and erection of houses it is necessary to point out that many houses which could not originally be considered insanitary have been brought into that category by subsequent additions and misuse.
17. Obstructions of Yards.-It is evident that in many cases where originally open yards existed at the rear of houses these yards have been subsequently obstructed by being covered over and converted into stores. cook-houses and latrines. Indeel, such is the extent of surface-crowding within the City of Victoria that every available open space is encroached upou permanently or temporarily by the tenants of the houses in their immediate neighbourhood.
18. Mezzanine Floors, Cocklofts and Cubicles.-Though these structures have to some extent been regulated by Ordinance 15 of 1894, the sub-division of a room, say, 40 feet in depth with a frontage of 15 feet into a number of cubicles precludes the access of light and air to such an extent as to seriously affect the sanitary condition of such premises, and we would here call attention to the necessity of limiting the sub-division of any floor by the erection of partitions unless the cubicle so formed are adequately lighted and ventilated.
19. In the villages exist many houses to which the previous remarks apply, but the course adopted by the Government during recent years in laying out the villages of
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