AN EVIL TO AVOID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9090, 15 May 1908, Page 4

AN EVIL TO AVOID.

In New Zealand, with the exception of a few odd cases, overcrowding in the citie3 is practically unknown. Nevertheless, it is an evil that works its way with a very stealthy hand, and when once it takes a hold rapid demoralisation follows in itsvwake. Although New Zealand is a young country it is always well to look ahead. With our steadily increasing population it is not unlikely that at some future dato the cry of overcrowding will be beard, and it can only be prevented by constant watchfulness and supervision on the part of the authorities in charge. Congestion is naturally intensified by a period of depression, as in the case of New York at the present time. The terrible congestion in that city ha 3 been brought prominently before the American public by means of an exhibition in the Natural History Museum, in which the conditions of life in the crowded quarters are realistically reproduced. In many cases the actual contents of the rooms have been transferred from the tenements to the exhibition. There are models of tenement blocks containing 2,781 persons, and not a single bath. Of 1,588 rooms 441 are dark, and have no ventilation to the outer air, and 635 are dependent for light and air upon a dark and narrow air shaft. Sweating shops by day and night are illustrated, and arc pitiable in uncleaniiness and wrelchedness as those in East London. In parts of the city human beings are crowded to the extent of 3,000 or more to the acre, and are living in conditions that we in New Zealand cannot imagine. Numerous organisations as well as the legislative are attempting to grapple with the problem of ameliorating this awful state of affairs. Even if success should crown their efforts, it will be many years before the demoralising influences of the congestion will disappear. Faulty legislation and corrupt administration are, however, at the bottom of tho trouble.