At the International Housing Congress organized by the National Housing
Reform Council and held in London in 1907 representatives were present
from a number of foreign countries and a good deal of information was
collected and published in the report of the Congress. Further detailed
data have been supplied by foreign correspondents to Mr W. Thompson and
published in _Housing up to Date_. The more important facts relating to
the principal industrial countries are here condensed from this and
other sources of information.
_Austria._--An act for encouraging the building of cheap working-class
dwellings was passed in 1902; it provides for exemption from taxes for
24 years of working-class dwellings which fulfil certain conditions
including sanitary requirements, a minimum area per room, minimum
height, minimum door and window spaces, thickness of walls, a maximum
number of inhabitants (one to 4 sq. metres in sleeping rooms),
prohibition of lodgers, fixed rent and maximum profit. The
municipalities are the authority for administering sanitary and
housing laws; they have no power of compulsory purchase of land
without a special law. There is excessive overcrowding in the large
towns; in Vienna (1900) 43% of the population live in dwellings of 1
room or 1 room and a kitchen; in 60 provincial towns the proportion is
63%. Overcrowding is reckoned at more than 5 persons to a room and
more than 9 to two rooms; the proportion of overcrowded on this basis
is nearly one-fifth in Vienna and one-fourth in the provincial towns
(Thompson).
_Belgium._--An act was passed in 1889 instituting _Comites de
Patronage_; since then other Acts relating to loan societies, and to
inheritance and succession in the case of small properties. Comites de
Patronage are semi-official bodies, but without legal power, whose
function it is to study the subject of housing, to report to local
authorities on existing conditions, to advise, to collect funds and
promote the provision of good houses by any means in their power. They
influence public opinion and stimulate the activity of local
authorities which have the power to compel improvements and close
dwellings unfit for habitation; they have led to the formation of
numerous societies for erecting working-class dwellings. The latter
are encouraged by the law in various ways; they are exempt from the
payment of some government duties and partly exempt from others.
Working men buying or building houses liable to registration fees up
to from 72 to 171 francs are exempted from personal, provincial and
communal taxes. The National Savings Bank of Belgium is empowered to
lend money to working men for buying or building houses and to insure
the lives of those doing so, to preserve the home for the family. In
1904 the number of workmen's homes exempted from taxation was 164,387,
and the amount of taxation remitted considerably exceeded 3 million
francs; workmen had acquired lands and houses valued at nearly
L4,000,000; there were 161 societies for building working-class
dwellings; 30,000 workmen representing a population of 150,000 had
become owners of property; and 70,000 representing a population of
350,000 had availed themselves of the law in obtaining exemptions and
loans (O. Velghe). The foregoing results effected in 15 years are
remarkable and indicate a great capacity for self-help on the part of
Belgian workmen with suitable and well-considered assistance. But this
movement, in common with those of a similar character in other
countries, does not touch the problem of housing the very poor. No
statistics of overcrowding are available, but the average number of
persons to a dwelling is over 5 for the whole country and nearly 9 in
Brussels. The communal administrations are the authorities for health
and housing; they have power to abate nuisances but not to compel
landowners to sell land for building, though they have the right to
dispossession for "public purposes." No town has constructed quarters
devoted entirely to working-class dwellings and only one commune (St
Giles) has built any. In towns the height of buildings is regulated by
the width of streets; generally it is the width plus 6 metres. The
height of rooms and thickness of walls are prescribed by local
regulations but not the area of rooms. The housing difficulty has been
lessened in a notable degree by cheap transport facilities, including
railroads, light railroads and tramways; a large proportion of the
workpeople travel long distances to and from work. One-quarter travel
on the State railways alone; fares are 1s. 6d. a week for a daily
double journey of 20 m., 2s. for 44 m. and 2s. 6d. for 66 m. The area
of the labour market of Liege extends nearly to Ostend and out of 5830
workmen travelling over 1000 live more than 50 kilometres from Liege.
Some journeys last 3 hours.
_France._--The question of housing was publicly raised in France quite
as early as in England on grounds of public health in connexion with
the first visitation of cholera, and building societies were formed as
early as 1851, but little was done until after 1889, when the _Societe
Francaise des Habitations a Bon Marche_ was founded under the
inspiration of M. Siegfried. This led to the formation of several
societies, which increased rapidly after the passage of _la loi
Siegfried_ in 1894, for promoting the provision of working-class
dwellings. In 1902 a Public Health Act and in 1906 a Housing of the
Working Classes Act were passed, and these three enactments with
regulations made in 1907 govern the procedure. The act of 1906
embodies the Belgian system of Comites de Patronage, of which at least
one was to be established in each department with grants in aid, and
exemptions from certain taxes of working-class dwellings fulfilling
specified conditions as to sanitation and rent. The law promotes the
formation of Housing Societies by granting various facilities for the
investment of money in building by public bodies and benevolent
institutions by taking shares or by loans. Down to the end of 1906
there had been lent for this purpose L233,000 by savings banks,
L258,000 by the Caisse des Depots, and L14,000 by charitable
institutions. The law does not authorize municipalities to build
houses and none of the communes have acquired land for this purpose.
Under the Public Health Act of 1902 towns can purchase land
compulsorily in connexion with unhealthy areas. The Public Health and
Housing Acts are administered by the local authority, which makes
regulations for building and for laying out building land. A minimum
height of 2.6 metres and a minimum cubical content of 25 cubic metres
are prescribed for rooms; there are no regulations for thickness of
walls. Housing societies are under the Ministry of Works and a
Superior Housing Council, which is a central advisory body. These
societies are now numerous; there are 46 in Paris alone, but their
operations are not on a large scale. One of them deserves special
notice on account of its special object. It is called the _Societe de
logements pour familles nombreuses_ and it builds special flats called
_maisons des enfants_ which are let at low rents only to persons with
large families. In 1907 it had housed 168 families, averaging 6.8
persons, in two blocks at Belleville and Montmartre. The great defect
in France is the large quantity of old, bad, insanitary housing. Real
slums exist in all the old towns and in some of them, such as
Marseilles and Lyons, on an extensive scale. Very little has hitherto
been done to grapple with this difficulty. The standard of sanitation
is altogether lower in France than in England, as is shown by the
death-rates, and this holds good of the housing. But conditions vary
widely in different parts of the country. They are better, generally
speaking, in the industrial towns of the north, which are largely
Flemish and distinguished by the prevalence of small houses after the
English fashion, than in the central or southern districts where tall
old tenement houses of six and seven storeys abound. There are no
statistics and no standard of overcrowding; but the careful inquiry
carried out by the Board of Trade and published in 1909 shows the
extraordinary prevalence of tenements consisting of 1, 2 or 3 rooms.
In 16 towns for which information was obtained the average proportion
of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms was 75% of the whole; in
some it was as high as 89% and in none lower than 61%. In 8 towns,
including Paris, the number of one-roomed dwellings was more than a
quarter of the whole, and in two towns (Brest and Fougeres) it was
more than half. Some corresponding statistics for English and German
towns are given below in the section on Germany. According to the same
report, the general accuracy of which has been confirmed by personal
inquiries, made in 1909 by the writer in a number of towns, rents are
decidedly lower in France. If the London level be taken as 100 that of
Paris is only 78 and the other French towns are considerably lower, 21
out of 29 being less than half the London standard. A general
comparison between a number of English and French towns shows the
average level of French rents to be less than three-fourths of English
ones. A noticeable feature of housing in France is the large number of
dwellings built by employers in recent years. The mining companies,
particularly in the Pas de Calais, have built whole groups of
villages; the railway companies and various manufacturers have also
done a great deal, chiefly in rural areas. Among the manufacturers MM.
Schneider at Le Creusot and the textile mill-owners in the Vosges are
noticeable. The houses provided are of a charming type, white with red
roofs; the rooms are of good size, the rents low, and a large garden
is usually attached to every house.
_Germany._--In no country is the problem of housing more acute than
in Germany, where the increase of population, the growth of
manufacturing industry and the urbanization of the people have
proceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace in recent years and have
combined with increasing wealth and a rising standard of living to
force the question into prominence. Up to 1909 no uniform legislation
for the empire had been framed and no central authority existed for
dealing with housing; but the several states have their own public
health and housing laws, and great activity has been developed in
various directions. The most general difficulty is deficiency of
quantity consequent on the rapid change in the distribution of the
population. The proportion of the whole population living in the great
towns increased from 7.2% to 16.2%, or more than doubled between 1890
and 1900; in England it only increased by about one-tenth. Slums are a
much less conspicuous feature than in England because of the
comparatively recent development of German towns, but where old
quarters exist on a large scale, as in Hamburg, the conditions are
quite as bad as anything in English towns, and call for similar
measures. Public sanitation in Germany is still as a whole less
advanced than in England; but in some cases it is superior and in
general it is coming up rapidly; the administration of sanitary laws,
as of others, is more effective and uniform, and less subject to
evasion. This also contributes to the comparative absence of slums.
And there is a third factor which has perhaps the greatest influence
of all, and that is the superior manner in which German homes are
kept. But the pressure of inadequate quantity is urgent; it has caused
high rents, overcrowding, and the development of large barrack or
block dwellings which are becoming the prevailing type. At the same
time it has led to many and varied efforts to meet the difficulty.
Isolated attempts go back to an early date. For instance a building
society was formed in Berlin in 1849, Alfred Krupp began to build his
"colonies" at Essen in 1863, Barmen started a society in 1871 and
there were other cases; but general attention seems first to have been
drawn to the subject by the reforming efforts of Pastor Bodelschwingh
at Bielefeld about 1884 in connexion with his _Arbeiterheim_. In short
housing reform in Germany is really a matter of the last 20 years. The
first efficient by-laws for regulating building in Berlin were not
adopted till 1887; the previous regulations dating from 1853 permitted
many abuses and under them a great deal of bad housing was
constructed, especially after the establishment of the empire and the
beginning of the great development of the capital.
The worst feature is the general prevalence of dwellings containing a
very small number of rooms--from 1 to 3--and consequent overcrowding.
The following figures are extracted from the Report to the Board of
Trade on Rents, Housing, &c., in Germany (1908, Cd. 4032). They
indicate the proportion of dwellings containing 1, 2 or 3 rooms, or
(in a few cases) the proportion of the population living in such
dwellings. The towns are those for which the information is given.
They are not selected as particularly bad specimens but as
representative, and they include most of the capitals and chief
industrial centres. The figures relate to the year 1900, except in a
few cases, in which they are taken from a municipal house census in
1905.
_Percentage of Dwellings or Population living in Dwellings
containing_
+-------------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+
| Town. |1 Room. |2 Rooms.|3 Rooms.|Total under|
| | | | | 4 Rooms. |
+-------------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+
| Berlin | 8.0 | 37.2 | 30.6 | 75.8 |
| Aachen | 13.7 | 32.0 | 21.9 | 67.6 |
| Barmen (pop.) | 1.5 | 24.3 | 28.8 | 54.6 |
| Bremen | 3.8(?)| 26.8 | 26.1 | 56.7(?) |
| Breslau (pop.) | 3.9 | 46.0 | 24.4 | 74.3 |
| Chemnitz (pop.) | 1.7 | 34.8 | 29.9 | 66.4 |
| Dantzig | 3.3 | 45.0 | 29.9 | 78.2 |
| Dortmund | 4.7 | 45.5 | 30.0 | 80.2 |
| Dresden | 0.8 | 3.5 | 27.8 | 32.1 |
| Dusseldorf | 5.0 | 26.4 | 22.7 | 54.1 |
| Elberfeld | 8.4(?)| 36.9 | 21.7 | 67.0(?) |
| Essen | 2.9 | 35.4 | 30.0 | 68.3 |
| Hamburg | 1.0 | 3.9 | 24.7 | 29.6 |
| Konigshutte (pop.)| 10.0 | 60.4 | 16.8 | 87.2 |
| Leipzig (pop.) | 0.4 | 1.7 | 14.5 | 16.6 |
| Mannheim | 3.1 | 22.1 | 40.4 | 65.6 |
| Munich (pop.) | 4.6 | 24.1 | 28.4 | 57.1 |
| Plauen (pop.) | 1.3 | 14.2 | 21.8 | 36.3 |
+-------------------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+
The figures must be read with a certain amount of caution, as they are
not in every case compiled on a precisely uniform method with regard
to inclusion of kitchens and attics. For this reason the position of
Bremen and Elberfeld is probably more unfavourable than it ought to
be. But broadly the table shows that in most of the large towns in
Germany more than half, and in some cases more than three-quarters of
the dwellings have less than 4 rooms. Leipzig is the most striking
exception. If working-class quarters alone are taken it is found that
dwellings of more than 3 rooms are so few as to be negligible. In
Stuttgart, where housing is very dear, the percentages for
working-class quarters are--1 room 21.0, 2 rooms 51.8, 3 rooms 26.9;
total under 4 rooms 98.7. Konigshutte, the chief coal and iron centre
in Silesia and a purely working-class town, shows the same state of
things; 60% of the whole population live in dwellings of 2 rooms and
87% in less than four. It is interesting to compare English towns. The
proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms in London was
(1901) 52.2%, in Berlin 75.8%; the proportion of the population living
in such dwellings was--London 38.7%, Berlin 71.5%. Not only is the
proportion of small dwellings very much higher in Berlin but the
proportion of the population living in them shows a far greater
discrepancy. This indicates a much higher degree of overcrowding. The
only point in which Berlin has the advantage is the smaller number of
single-room dwellings. The proportions are London 14.7%, Berlin 8.0%.
But it is to be observed that overcrowding is not so common in 1-room
dwellings, which are often occupied by a single person, as in those
with 2 or 3 rooms, which are occupied by families, though probably the
most extreme cases of overcrowding occur in particular 1-room
dwellings. In the English county boroughs the proportion of dwellings
with less than 4 rooms was 24.0%, in other urban districts 17.4, and
in all urban areas including London 26.4%. When all allowance is made
for minor errors and discrepancies it may be broadly concluded that
the proportion of small dwellings containing less than 4 rooms is at
least twice as great in German as in English towns, and that the
conditions as to accommodation which in England prevail only in London
are general in urban Germany. As a set-off German rooms are generally
larger than English ones and in block dwellings there is often a
little ante-room or landing which does not count but really increases
the space.
The German census does not take cognisance of overcrowding and there
is no general official standard; but some towns have adopted a
standard of their own, namely, six or more persons to 1 room and ten
or more to 2 rooms. In Breslau, which is one of the worst towns, 17.5%
of the population (53,000) of the "city" or inner ring were
overcrowded on this basis in 1900. In Barmen, which is not one of the
worst, 20% of the 2-roomed and 17% of the 3-roomed dwellings (together
housing more than half the population) were overcrowded according to
the English standard. Overcrowding and other bad conditions are worst
in the basement or cellar dwellings, of which some towns have a very
large number. In Breslau 15,000 persons were living in 3853 such
dwellings in 1900; in Berlin 91,426 persons were living in 24,088
basements. Some of these are free from objection, but 11,147, housing
38,663 persons, were situated in back buildings and unfit for
habitation on account of darkness, damp, dilapidation and the like.
"Back" houses are a feature of old towns; they are houses which do not
give on the street but lie behind and are approached by a passage;
they are what we call courts and quite as insanitary as anything of
the kind in English towns.
With regard to rents the Board of Trade (London) Report gives the
following figures for Berlin and a number of other towns:--
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
|No. of Rooms | Predominant Range of Weekly Rents.|
|per Dwelling.+----------------+------------------+
| | Berlin. | Other Towns. |
+-------------+----------------+------------------+
| 2 rooms | 5/- to 6/- | 2/8 to 3/6 |
| 3 rooms | 7/- to 9/3 | 3/6 to 4/9 |
| 4 rooms | .. | 4/3 to 6/- |
+-------------+----------------+------------------+
Rents are higher in Berlin than in any other town, though Stuttgart
comes very near it. The following table of index numbers shows the
relations of 32 towns to Berlin:--
+--------------+-------++---------------+-------+
| Town. | Index || Town. | Index |
| |Number.|| |Number.|
+--------------+-------++---------------+-------+
| Berlin | 100 || Nuremberg | 53 |
| Stuttgart | 97 || Aachen | 53 |
| Dusseldorf | 79 || Crefeld | 52 |
| Dortmund | 68 || Bremen | 52 |
| Anchaffenburg| 67 || Plauen | 52 |
| Hamburg | 66 || Leipzig | 51 |
| Mannheim | 64 || Dantzig | 49 |
| Konigsberg | 62 || Mulhausen | 48 |
| Munich | 63 || Konigshutte | 47 |
| Essen | 62 || Stettin | 46 |
| Solingen | 61 || Magdeburg | 43 |
| Bochum | 57 || Chemnitz | 40 |
| Elberfeld | 57 || Zwickau | 38 |
| Barmen | 57 || Brunswick | 37 |
| Remscheid | 56 || Stassfurt | 33 |
| Breslau | 56 || Oschersleben | 28 |
| Dresden | 54 || | |
+--------------+-------++---------------+-------+
Comparing rents in Germany and England, the Board of Trade Report
gives the following table, to which the corresponding ratio of French
towns has been added.
+-------------+-------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| |Predominant Weekly Rents.| Ratio of | Ratio of |
|No. of rooms.+-----------+-------------+ German to | French to |
| | England. | Germany. |English (100)|English (100)|
+-------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| 2 rooms |3/- to 3/6 | 2/8 to 3/6 | 95 | 79 |
| 3 rooms |3/9 to 4/6 | 3/6 to 4/9 | 100 | 86 |
| 4 rooms |4/6 to 5/6 | 4/3 to 6/- | 102 | 78 |
+-------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
If the mean of the English and German figures be taken it shows a very
slight difference in favour of Germany; the mean weekly rent per room
being 1s. 5d. in England and 1s. 4(3/4)d. in Germany. But in England
rent usually includes local taxation (rates) whereas in Germany it
does not; if this be added German rents are to English as 123 to 100,
or nearly one-fourth more.
The statistics given above indicate a wide range of variation in the
conditions prevailing in different towns in Germany; and that holds
good with regard to improvements. The administration of the laws
relating to public health and housing is in the hands of the local
authorities. The public health service is generally efficient and
sometimes very good. Increasing attention has been paid in recent
years to the sanitary inspection of houses and in some towns it is now
thorough and systematic, but active efforts to deal with old and
insanitary quarters _en masse_ are isolated and exceptional. Hamburg
is an instance; scared by the visitation of cholera in 1892 the
authorities put in hand an extensive improvement scheme on the English
plan at a cost of half a million sterling. But demolition is
exceptional; slums are usually subjected to supervision and are not
allowed to be in a state of dilapidation, and sometimes, as at
Mannheim, notices are served to abate overcrowding. In Munich a policy
of gradually buying up insanitary houses has been adopted. But
improvement has principally been promoted by new building and the
reduction of the population in old insanitary quarters, to which cheap
locomotive facilities have greatly contributed. The great bulk of
urban Germany is new, and the most valuable contribution made by it to
the housing question is the more effective control of new building and
particularly the principle of town-planning, coupled with the purchase
of neighbouring ground with a view to future extension. This policy is
comparatively recent and still very partially applied, but it is now
rapidly extending. A general act providing for the planning of streets
was passed in Prussia in 1875 and still forms the basis of building
legislation; but as noted above no effective by-laws were adopted even
in Berlin until after 1887, and consequently a very faulty style of
building was adopted, especially in large blocks which conceal grave
defects behind an imposing exterior. The Saxon towns have been
conspicuously successful in regard to housing. Leipzig stands alone
among German towns in having 83.4% of its population living in
dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards. Yet it is a great commercial city,
the fifth in the empire, with a population of upwards of half a
million. It also comes low on the rent table, having an index number
little more than half that of Berlin. All the Saxon towns are low,
Chemnitz and Zwickau particularly so, and the position of Dresden,
being a capital, is remarkable. More than two-thirds of the population
live in dwellings of 4 rooms or more, and the rent index number is
only 54. In Saxony a general Building Act, especially providing for
town planning, was passed in 1900; and the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which
alone among the German states has a government Housing Department,
adopted a Housing of the Working Classes Act in 1902. Other states
have followed or are following and the air is full of movement. The
distinctive features of urban housing reform in Germany are (1) the
systematic planning of extensions, (2) purchase of ground by
municipalities, (3) letting or sale of municipal land for building
under prescribed conditions. Many of the great towns, including
Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfort and Dusseldorf,
are owners of land to a variable but sometimes large extent. This
policy seems to have been originally adopted on economic grounds and
those municipalities which bought or otherwise came into possession of
town land at an early date derive a substantial revenue from it now,
besides being in a position to promote housing improvement. There is
comparatively little municipal building, and that as a rule only or
principally for municipal servants, as at Dusseldorf, Mannheim and
Nuremberg; but there seems to be a tendency to venture further in this
direction and some towns have built houses for letting. The
municipalities generally sell or let their land, and the building
agencies which enjoy most official favour are the societies "of public
utility"; they are encouraged in every way and have greatly developed,
particularly in the Rhine province. Some are co-operative, others
semi-philanthropic in that they aim at building good houses and limit
their profits. In 1901 the Prussian Government issued an order urging
municipalities to support these societies by remitting the cost of
constructing streets and sewers, placing the assistance of building
officials at their disposal, taking their shares, lending them money
and becoming security for them. A great deal of public money has been
advanced to building societies, and one very important source of
supply has been developed, since the Old Age and Infirmity Insurance
Act of 1889, in the National Insurance Funds which invest their
surplus capital in this way. Down to 1906 the Boards of insurance had
lent L8,650,000 to societies for building; the Imperial Government
had lent L1,250,000, the Prussian Government L1,825,000, and the other
states further large sums in addition to the municipalities. Money
lent by the state is usually limited to building houses for state
employees and Insurance Boards lend on condition that the houses are
let to persons who come under the insurance laws. The development of
building societies has been promoted by the formation of general
building associations of which the earliest was established in
Dusseldorf in 1897 for the Rhine provinces; under its influence
one-fifth of the new housing provided in 1901 was erected by the
societies. The example was followed at Frankfort, Munster and
Wiesbaden. Housing by employers has also been carried out on a large
scale in Germany. States and municipalities have to some extent built
houses as employers, the former chiefly for railwaymen, besides
lending money to societies for the purpose; but most housing of this
kind has been done by private employers. Krupps, who had built 4274
dwellings housing nearly 27,000 persons down to 1901, are the most
famous example; but they are only one among many. In Rhineland and
Westphalia employers had in 1902 provided 22,269 houses containing
62,539 dwellings at a cost of L10,500,000; more than half the families
so housed belonged to the mining industry, the rest to various
manufactures. These two provinces, in which industrial development has
been extremely rapid, are exceptional; but housing by employers is not
confined to them. At Mannheim for instance over 1000 working-class
households have been so provided. At Nuremberg the Siemens Schuckert
Company have encouraged an interesting system of collective building
among their employees, by which 722 dwellings have been provided.
_Holland._--In 1901 a Public Health and a Housing Act were passed, and
these two embody most of the features of housing reform adopted in
other countries. The first provides for a general sanitary service
under the Ministry of the Interior. The second ordains that local
authorities shall frame by-laws for building and for the maintenance
and proper use of dwellings; that they shall inspect existing
dwellings, order improvements or repairs or demolition; empowers them
to take land compulsorily for the purposes of the act, to prohibit
building or rebuilding on sites reserved for public purposes and to
make grants or loans to societies or companies operating exclusively
for the improvement of working-class dwellings. If they fail to make
by-laws the provincial authorities may take action. Land buying with a
view to extensions has been adopted by a number of municipalities
including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and other important towns, and
the practice is increasing. Amsterdam has also begun the systematic
planning of extensions. There has been a little municipal building in
some small places, but it is on an insignificant scale; the tendency
is rather to favour societies of public utility as in France, Germany
and Belgium. The new laws are too recent to have had much effect and
housing reform is as yet in an early stage. Rents are high in the
large towns, namely, 1 room 1s. 8d. to 3s.; 2 rooms 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 3
rooms 3s. 6d. to 6s; 4 rooms 4s. 2d. to 7s.
_Italy._--A Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed in 1903, to
promote the improvement and provision of workmen's dwellings.
Municipalities have the power to purchase land compulsorily for
housing purposes and also to build workmen's dwellings. A few towns,
of which Milan is one, have done so. There are building regulations
relating to the area and height of rooms and the thickness of walls.
The antiquity of the Italian towns and the great quantity of old and
insanitary building make housing improvement a very difficult matter.
_La Societa Umanitaria_, a benevolent trust founded by Prosper Loria
of Milan in 1902, has taken up this subject among others and has built
two model tenements, housing 2000 persons.
_United States._--Interest in the housing question in the United
States is confined to a few of the largest cities and can only be said
to be acute in New York, though there have been investigations by
commissions elsewhere and Miss Octavia Hill's work in London has found
admirers and imitators in Philadelphia and Boston as well as in New
York. The evils of housing in New York have been the subject of much
sensational writing which has elevated them to the position of a
world-wide scandal. It is not necessary to accept all the allegations
made in order to see that several circumstances have combined to
produce an exceptional state of things in this great city. The limited
space--the island or peninsula of Manhattan--in which central New York
is built has compelled the erection of large tenement blocks,
otherwise rare in American towns; the incessant inrush of immigrants
from the poorest parts of Europe has filled these tenements with
immense numbers of persons of many nationalities accustomed to a low
standard of living; the generally backward state of public sanitation
in America, and the absence or evasion of regulations and supervision,
have permitted the erection of bad dwellings, their deterioration into
worse, and their misuse by excessive overcrowding. Other large cities
in which bad housing conditions are known to exist are Chicago,
Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Jersey City.
There are doubtless many others, but bad housing conditions are not so
general in the United States as in Europe. Outside the very large
cities there is more space, more light and air, less crowding
together, less darkness, dirt and dilapidation. Large houses, occupied
by two or perhaps three families, are common, but they have more room
space than is usual in Europe. The 18th annual report (1903) of the
Commissioner of Labour gives the result of a special inquiry embracing
23,447 families distributed in 33 states. The average number of rooms
was 4.95 per family and 1.04 per individual. It is a fair inference
that overcrowding is confined to a comparatively small number of
exceptional places. A large number of the schedules were furnished by
the eminently urbanized and manufacturing states of New York,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Illinois; and in all these the
average number of rooms to a family exceeded 4, ranging from 4.2 in
Ohio to 5.5 in Massachusetts. The condition of homes as to sanitation
and cleanliness was statistically stated thus: Sanitary
condition--good 61.46%, fair 32,59%, bad 5.95%; Cleanliness--good
79.63%, fair 14.66 bad 5.71%. Other special inquiries have been
carried out in particular towns. In 1891-1892 the tenements in Boston
were investigated for the Massachusetts Labour Bureau, which found
3657 sleeping rooms without outside windows and about 8% of the
population living in conditions objectionable from one cause or
another. In 1892 Congress authorized a special inquiry into the slum
population of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the
results of which were published in the seventh special report (1894)
of the United States Commissioner of Labour. It was estimated that the
total "slum population" (presumably those living in unhealthy
conditions) was--New York 360,000, Chicago 162,000, Philadelphia
35,000, Baltimore 25,000. In Baltimore 530 families, consisting of
1648 persons, were living in single rooms with an average of 3.15
persons to a room; in Philadelphia 401 families were so living with an
average of 3.11 persons to a room. The proportion of 1-room dwellings
was less in New York and Chicago. In New York 44.55% or nearly half
the families investigated were found living in 2-roomed dwellings, in
Baltimore 27.88%, in Philadelphia 19.41% and in Chicago 19.14%. These
figures conclusively prove that European conditions reproduce
themselves in American cities. Poverty was not the cause, as the
average earnings per family ranged from L3, 4s. a week in Baltimore to
L4, 6s. a week in Chicago. Another official investigation in New York
was carried out in 1895 by the Tenement House Commission appointed by
the State of New York. It reported "many houses in the city in an
insanitary condition which absolutely unfits them for habitation."
Further details have been compiled from the census by the New York
Federation of Churches, chiefly relating to density of population in
the city. In 1900, out of a total of nearly 250,000 dwellings, 95,433
(38.2%) contained from 2 to 6 persons, 60,672 (24.2%) from 7 to 10
persons and 89,654 (35.9%) 11 persons or more. The density of
population for the whole city as now constituted was 19 persons to the
acre, in Manhattan 149; in the south-eastern district of Manhattan 382
and in one ward 735. Between 1900 and 1905 the density increased in
every district, and in the latter year there were 12 blocks with from
1000 to 1400 persons to the acre. The number of persons to the acre in
London (1901) is 60.6; in the most densely populated borough 182, and
in the most densely populated district (a very small one) 396. This
will give a measure of comparison. The large tenement blocks in New
York have been constructed with far less regard to health than those
in Berlin, and reproduce in an aggravated form the same evil of
insufficient light and air. In place of the inadequate courts round
which many are built in Berlin, the New York tenements have merely
narrow air shafts. In 1904 there were reported to be 362,000 dark
interior rooms, that is with no outside windows.
If American cities have nothing to learn from other countries in
regard to bad housing, they have nothing to teach in the way of
reform. They are following Europe slowly and a long distance behind.
There is no serious attempt to deal with insanitary areas as they have
been dealt with in England, or to prevent the creation of new ones by
regulation and planning of extensions as in Germany, or to promote the
provision of superior houses by organized public effort as in several
countries. A little has been done in New York to improve the worst
housing. A Tenement House Act was passed after the report of the
Commission of 1895 and a Department formed to give effect to it. Some
cleansing and repairing and insertion of windows is carried out every
year, but more attention seems to be paid to fire escapes. Societies
for providing improved dwellings exist in New York, Boston, Chicago
and Philadelphia. The oldest is one formed in Boston in 1871, called
the Co-operative Building Company; it was followed in 1876 by an
Improved Dwellings Company in Brooklyn, and in 1879 by a similar
society in Manhattan, and in 1885 by another in Boston. The largest
concern of the kind is the City and Suburban Houses Company in New
York, formed in 1896 under the guidance of Dr E. R. L. Gould; it has
built four groups of tenements housing 1238 families in the city and
112 houses on a suburban estate at Brooklyn; in all it has housed some
6000 persons. More recently Mr Henry Phipps has given L200,000 for the
provision of model dwellings in New York, and a building has been
erected on the plan of the Maison des Enfants in Paris. In Chicago the
City Houses Association works at housing reforms in various ways.
There are some other institutions of a like kind, but the aggregate
results are inconsiderable. Two other building agencies have done far
more in the United States than philanthropic societies; these are the
building and loan associations and private employers. The former are
co-operative provident societies; they are widely diffused throughout
the United States and their operations are on a very large scale. They
date from 1831, when the Oxford Provident Building Association was
formed at Frankfort, near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania has still the
largest number of associations, but from 1843 onwards the movement
spread rapidly and continuously in other states. The high-water mark
appears to have been reached in 1897, when the total assets of the
associations amounted to about L133,000,000. In 1905 there were 5326
associations with an aggregate membership of 1,686,611 and assets of
about L130,000,000. The states of Pennsylvania and Ohio head the list,
but the movement is very strong in many others. It accounts for the
comparatively large number of houses owned by working-class families
in the United States. With regard to housing by employers, no
comprehensive information is available, but the total amount is
certainly considerable though probably not so large as in Germany or
in France. Some of the better-known instances are the Pelzer
Manufacturing Company at Pelzer in South Carolina, which has built
about 1000 dwellings; the Maryland Steel Company at Sparrows Point,
Maryland, 800 dwellings; Ludlow Manufacturing Associates at Ludlow,
Mass., 500 dwellings; Whitin Machine Works at Whitinsville, Mass., 600
dwellings; Westinghouse Air Brake Co. at Wilmerding, Penn., 360
dwellings; Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass., 250 dwellings. These are all
more or less "model" settlements, not in cities, but in outlying or
country places, where works have been established, and that is
generally true of housing by employers in the United States, whereas
in Germany much has been provided by them in the large towns. Rents
are very much higher in American cities than in European towns of
comparable size and character.
AUTHORITIES.--Board of Trade _Reports_--"Cost of Living of the Working
Classes (England)" (1908); "Cost of Living in German Towns" (1908);
"Cost of Living in French Towns" (1909). _Proceedings of International
Housing Congress_ (London, 1907); _The New Encyclopaedia of Social
Reform_; E. R. Dewsnup, _The Housing Problem in England_; T. C.
Horsfall, _The Example of Germany_; J. S. Nettlefold, _Practical
Housing Reform_; A. Shadwell, _Industrial Efficiency_, ch. xi. on
"Housing"; W. Thompson, _The Housing Handbook, Housing up to Date_.
(A. Sl.)
HOUSMAN, LAURENCE (1867- ), English writer and artist, was born on the
18th of June 1867. Having studied at South Kensington, he first made a
reputation as a book-illustrator. Some of his best pictorial work may be
seen in the editions of Meredith's _Jump to Glory Jane_ (1892), the
_Weird Tales of Jonas Lie_ (1892), Jane Barlow's _Land of Elfintoun_
(1894), Christina Rossetti's _Goblin Market_ (1893), _Werewolf_ (1896),
by his sister, Miss Clemence Housman, Shelley's _Sensitive Plant_
(1898), and his own _Farm in Fairyland_ (1894). His designs were
engraved on wood by Miss Housman. His volumes of verse include _Green
Arras_ (1896), _Rue_ (1899), _Spikenard_ (1898) and _Mendicant Rhymes_
(1906); and the mysticism which characterizes the devotional poems in
_Spikenard_ recurs in his half-allegorical tales, _All Fellows_ (1896),
_The Blue Moon_ (1904) and _The Cloak of Friendship_ (1906). His
nativity play, _Bethlehem_, was presented in the Great Hall of London
University at South Kensington for a week in December 1902. In 1900 he
published anonymously _An Englishwoman's Love Letters_, which created a
temporary sensation; and he followed this essay in popular fiction by
the novels _A Modem Antaeus_ (1901) and _Sabrina Warham_ (1904). On the
23rd of December 1904 his fantastic play _Prunella_, written in
collaboration with Mr Granville Barker, was produced at the Court
Theatre.
His brother, Alfred Edward Housman (b. 1859), an accomplished scholar,
professor of Latin at University College, London, is known as a poet by
his striking lyrical series, _A Shropshire Lad_ (1896).
HOUSSAYE, ARSENE (1815-1896), French novelist, poet and man of letters,
was born at Bruyeres (Aisne), near Laon, on the 28th of March 1815. His
real surname was Housset. In 1832 he found his way to Paris, and in 1836
he published two novels, _La Couronne de bluets_ and _La Pecheresse_. He
had many friends in Paris, among them Jules Janin and Theophile Gautier,
and he wrote in collaboration with Jules Sandeau. He produced art
criticism in _L'Histoire de la peinture flamande et hollandaise_ (1846);
semi-historical sketches In _Mlle de la Valliere et Mme de Montespan_
(1860) and _Galerie de portraits du XVII^e siecle_ (1844); literary
criticism in _Le Roi Voltaire_ (1858) and his famous satirical _Histoire
du quarante et unieme fauteuil de l'academie francaise_ (1855); drama in
his _Comediennes_ (1857); poetry in his _Symphonie des vingt ans_
(1867), _Cent et un sonnets_ (1873), &c.; and novels, _Les Filles
d'Eve_ (1852) and many others. In 1849, through the influence of Rachel,
he was entrusted with the administration of the Theatre Francais, a
position he filled with unfailing tact and success until 1859, when he
was made inspector-general of works of art. He died on the 26th of
February 1896.
His _Confessions, souvenir; d'un demi-siecle_ appeared in 1885-1891.
See also J. Lemaitre, _Arsene Houssaye_ (1897), with a bibliography.
His son, HENRY HOUSSAYE (1848- ), the historian, was born in Paris. His
early writings were devoted to classical antiquity, studied not only in
books but on the actual Greek sites which he visited in 1868. He
published successively _Histoire d'Apelles_ (1867), a study on Greek
art; _L'Armee dans la Grece antique_ (1867); _Histoire d'Alcibiade et de
la republique athenienne depuis la mort de Pericles jusqu'a l'avenement
des trente tyrans_ (1873); Papers on _Le Nombre des citoyens d'Athenes
au V^eme siecle avant l'ere chretienne_ (1882); _La Loi agraire a
Sparte_ (1884); _Le Premier Siege de Paris en 52 av. J.-C._ (1876); and
two volumes of miscellanies, _Athenes, Rome, Paris, l'histoire et les
moeurs_ (1879), and _Aspasie, Cleopatre, Theodora_ (6th ed. 1889). The
military history of Napoleon I. then attracted him. His first volume on
this subject, called _1814_ (1888), went through no fewer than forty-six
editions. It was followed by _1815_, the first part of which comprises
the first Restoration, the return from Elba and the Hundred Days (1893);
the second part, Waterloo (1899); and the third part, the second
abdication and the White Terror (1905). He was elected a member of the
French Academy in 1895.
HOUSTON, SAM, or SAMUEL (1793-1863), American general and statesman, of
Scotch-Irish descent, was born near Lexington, Virginia, on the 2nd of
March 1793. His father, who had fought in the War of Independence, died
in 1806, and soon afterward Samuel removed with his mother to the
frontier in Blount county, Tennessee. When he was about fifteen his
elder brothers obtained for him a place as clerk in a trader's store,
but he ran away and lived with the Cherokee Indians of East Tennessee
for nearly three years. On his return he opened a country school, and
later attended a session or two of the Academy at Maryville. During the
War of 1812 he served under Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians,
and his bravery at the battle of Tohopeka, in which he was disabled by
several wounds, won promotion to a lieutenancy. In 1817 he was appointed
sub-agent in managing the business relating to the removal of the
Cherokees from East Tennessee to a reservation in what is now Arkansas,
but he was offended at a rebuke from John C. Calhoun, then secretary of
war, for appearing before him in Indian garments, as well as at an
inquiry into charges affecting his official integrity, and he resigned
in 1818. He entered a law office in Nashville, and was admitted to the
bar, and was soon elected a district attorney. From 1823 to 1827 Houston
represented the ninth district of Tennessee in Congress, and in 1827 was
elected governor of the state by the Jackson Democrats. He married Eliza
Allen in January 1829; his wife left him three months later, and he
resigned his office of governor, again took up his residence among the
Cherokees, who were at this time about to remove to Indian Territory,
and was formally adopted a member of their nation.
In 1830 and again in 1832 he visited Washington to expose the frauds
practised upon the Cherokees by government agents, and attracted
national attention by an encounter on the 13th of April 1832 with
William Stanberry, a Congressman from Ohio, who intimated that Houston
himself was seeking to defraud them. Commissioned by President Jackson,
Houston went to Texas in December 1832 to negotiate treaties with the
Indian tribes there for the protection of American traders on the
border. He decided to remain in Texas, and was elected a delegate to the
constitutional convention which met at San Felipe on the 1st of April
1833 to draw up a memorial to the Mexican Congress asking for the
separation of Texas from Coahuila, in which the anti-American party was
in control, as well as to frame a constitution for the commonwealth as a
new member of the Mexican Republic, and he served as chairman of the
drafting committee, and took a prominent part in the preparations for
war when next year the petition was refused. In October 1835, soon after
the outbreak of the War for Texan Independence, the committees of the
township of Nacogdoches chose Houston as commander-in-chief of the
forces in eastern Texas, and after the San Felipe convention in November
he was chosen commander-in-chief of the Texan army. On the 21st of April
1836, while in command of 743 raw troops, he met on the bank of the San
Jacinto about 1600 Mexican veterans led by Santa Anna and completely
routed them; on the next day Santa Anna was taken prisoner.
Texan independence was won by this victory (although the Mexican
government repudiated the treaty negotiated by Santa Anna), and Houston
was elected president of Texas (1st of September) and was inaugurated on
the 22nd of October. His term expired in December 1838; he was elected
again in 1841 and served until 1844. During his first term a newly
founded city was named in his honour and this was the seat of government
in 1837-39 and in 1842-45. Texas having been admitted as a state of the
American Union in 1845, Houston was elected one of its first two United
States senators. He served as a stalwart Union Democrat from March 1846
until 1859; he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill in an able speech (3rd
March 1854), and spoke frequently in defence of the rights of the
Indians. In 1859 he was elected governor of Texas and tried to prevent
the secession of his state; upon his refusal, in March 1861, to swear
allegiance to the Confederacy he was declared deposed. He died at
Huntsville, Texas, on the 26th of July 1863. Houston was an able
soldier, wary, intrepid and resolute; and was a legislator of rare
foresight, cool discrimination and fearless candour.
See A. M. Williams, _Sam Houston and the War of Independence in Texas_
(Boston, 1893); Henry Bruce, _Life of General Houston_ (New York,
1891); and W. C. Crane, _Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam
Houston_ (Philadelphia, 1884).
HOUSTON, a city and the county-seat of Harris county, Texas, U.S.A., at
the head of deep-sea navigation on Buffalo Bayou, a tributary of
Galveston Bay, 50 m. N.W. of Galveston, and about 325 m. W. of New
Orleans. Pop. (1880) 16,513; (1890) 27,557; (1900) 44,633, of whom 4415
were foreign-born and 14,608 were negroes; (1910 census) 78,800. The
land area in 1906 was 16.02 sq. m.; in 1908, about 20 sq. m. It is
served by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (Southern Pacific),
the Galveston, Houston & Henderson, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, the
Houston & Texas Central (Southern Pacific), the Houston, East & West
Texas, the International & Great Northern, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas,
the San Antonio & Aransas Pass, the Trinity & Brazos Valley, the St
Louis, Brownsville & Mexico, the Texas & New Orleans, and the Houston
Belt & Terminal railways, several of which have their headquarters at
Houston. The Federal government has greatly improved the natural channel
from the city to the Gulf of Mexico, straightening, widening and
deepening it to a depth of 25 ft. for the entire distance from the
Galveston jetties to the Houston turning basin--where the municipality
has constructed free municipal wharves. The city occupies an unusually
fine site on both sides of the Buffalo Bayou. Among the principal
buildings are a Carnegie library, the Houston Lyceum, the Federal
building, the Masonic temple, the city high school, the city hall and
market house, the Harris County Court House, the Cotton Exchange, and
the First and Commercial National banks. Houston is the seat of the
Texas Dental College, of St Thomas College (1903), and of the Houston,
Annunciation and St Agnes academies; and the will (1901) of William
Marsh Rice provided an endowment (valued in 1908 at about $7,000,000)
for the William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature,
Science and Art, of which Dr Edgar Odell Lovett, formerly professor of
mathematics (1900-1905) and of astronomy (1905-1908) in Princeton
University, was made president in 1908. The city is the most important
railway and shipping centre of South Texas, and has a large trade in
cotton (the receipts for the year ending Aug. 31, 1907 being 2,967,535
bales), cotton-seed oil, sugar, rice,[1] lumber and citrus fruits.
Houston is important also as a manufacturing centre, its factory product
being valued at $13,564,019 in 1905, an increase of 81% over the factory
product in 1900. There are extensive railway car-shops, cotton-seed oil,
petroleum and sugar refineries, cotton gins and compresses, steel
rolling mills, car-wheel factories, boiler, pump and engine works, flour
mills, rice mills and a rice elevator, breweries, planing and saw-mills,
pencil factories, and brick and tile factories. Its proximity to the
Texas oil fields gives the city a cheap factory fuel. The assessed
valuation of taxable property in the city increased from $27,480,898 in
1900 to $51,513,615 in 1908. The No-Tsu Oh Carnival week each November
is a distinctive feature of the city. Houston, like Galveston, adopted
in 1905 a very successful system of municipal government by commission,
a commission of five (one of whom acts as mayor) being elected
biennially and having both executive and legislative powers. The
waterworks are owned and operated by the municipality, which greatly
improved them from the city's surplus under the first two years of
government by commission. In 1908 extensive improvements in paving,
drainage and sewerage were undertaken by the city. The payment of an
annual poll-tax of $2.50 is a prerequisite to voting. Houston was
settled and laid out in 1836, and was named in honour of General Sam
Houston, whose home in Caroline Street was standing in 1908. In
1837-1839 and in 1842-1845 Houston was the capital of the Republic of
Texas. About 15 m. E.S.E. of the city is the battleground of San
Jacinto, which was bought by the state in 1906 for a public memorial
park.