NIGHT PERILS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3356, 24 October 1911, Page 8

NIGHT PERILS.

HACKNEY DOCTOR EXPOSES CLOSED BOX BEDROOMS.

Dr J. King Warry,, medical officer for Hackney, in the course of liis annual report, refers to certain rooms in a large number of three and four-roomed tenements in the London borough. These rooms, he states, are intended presumably, for bedrooms, although they correspond in structure to a ventilated and lighted boxroom. They are email, lighted by an ordinary sash window, and have a hole in the wall about six inches square, guarded outside by a grating, but they have no fireplace Or chimney flue. If the tenant, can afford to keep a servant “living in” the room is allotted as her bedroom. The ventilating hole is promptly blocked up on the first cold i day. and she sleeps at night practically in a closed box, through which there is no circulation of air. If the occupier has a family one or more of the children are put to sleep in the room, the hole is blocked up, and the same results follow, but, being younger, tlie children suffer more severely from the vitiated air.

The. curious point of the construction of such living rooms is that it is perfectly legal. Iu the Building Acts for London there is no mention of bedrooms. Rooms are designated by the title “inhabited rooms” or “living rooms,” and there does not appear to be any obligation to provide any habitable room with firei>laces. In the opinion of Dr. Warry, this-, is a great want. No better means for the ventilation of habitable rooms can be suggested than a fireplace with a flue. In addition to ventilation, means of warming are also required in every bedroom at certain times of the year and at other times in case of illness.