of local departments of Health or other departments to enforce further regulations not inconsistent with the te nement house law.

Chicago. Chicago's tenement house regulations being comprised in the building and health laws of the city are administered and enforced by those two departments in the execution of their respective duties.

Boston. In Boston the tenement house regulations and the building law, of which they are a part, are administered and enforced by the building department which is under the charge of a building commissioner, who is appointed by the mayor for a period of five years, and whose salary is fixed by the city council subject to the mayor's approval. He appoints a deputy inspector as his assistant, and such other inspectors, employees and assistants as are necessary, and as the council determines, but all inspectors must be builders, civil engineers, architects, superintendents or mechanics of at least five years experience. There is a supervisor of plans and all plans and specifications must be approved by him before work is begun. The various inspectors inspect the work as it proceeds.

Baltimore. The Inspector of Buildings in Baltimore receives all applications, examines all plans and grants all permits for the erection, construction, alteration, repair and removal of buildings, inspects the same during construction, alteration, repair or removal and determines the application and interpretation of the Building Code. Every tenement house must be inspected immediately after its completion, alteration or repair, and at least once every year thereafter, by the Inspector or someone acting under his direction, and

a record kept of such inspection, and it cannot be occupied until after this inspection has been made and a certificate issued that the same conforms to the requirements of the law.

San Francisco. The Board of Public Works, the Board of Health, the Chief of Police, the Chief Engineer of the Fire Department and the Fire Marshal are charged with the duty of enforcing the provisions of the Tenement House Law, in so far as the same relate to or concern the respective duties imposed upon them by law. Building plans are filed with the Board of Public Works, and duplicates with the Board of Health and the respective inspectors are supposed to see that the plans are properly complied with if approved.

Other Cities. Practically all other cities having special tenement house regulations, leave the administration and the enforcement of the same to the building and health departments respectively, the building department enforcing construction requirements and the health department, the sanitary requirements. So far as known to the writer at the present time no other cities employ special tenement house inspectors.

REGULATIONS IN FORCE IN FOREIGN CITIES

The tenement house problem as found in New York is quite uncommon in most of the larger cities of Europe. With a few exceptions the high and narrow type of tenement dwelling with the narrow air shaft does not exist. In England, for instance, the poorer population lives for the most part in two and three story houses, old and insanitary, but sheltering fewer people on a limited space. This is true of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham as well as other cities. In the Scotch cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as in Paris and Vienna to a certain extent, there are tenements of the New York type although not built on such narrow lots. In the main, however, overcrowding in foreign cities is one-room over-crowding and the congestion of population in small houses.

The method of meeting this condition in England has been by legislation directed toward the clearing out of large slum districts, the condemnation and destruction of insanitary areas, and the building of model tenements. This method was made possible by the "Housing of the Working Classes Act" of 1890. Under this act large areas in nearly all the large cities

have been condemned, the old insanitary houses demolished, and new model tenements erected in their place. Millions of dollars have been expended in this way. The law requires that housing facilities for at least one-half the population thus displaced must be provided by the city. The operation of the law has resulted in greatly improving a large number of districts, but as housing facilities have not always been provided for all the population displaced, it has not only sometimes failed to relieve overcrowding in some locations, but by driving people from one overcrowded district to another, has frequently intensified and concentrated the evil in others.

In Paris and Vienna during the last twenty-five years the work of demolition and reconstruction has also been carried on on a large scale, but it has been for beautifying the city and not for the better housing of the poor.

There are many features of the building and sanitary regulations in foreign cities, however, which merit consideration. There are no distinct codes of tenement house regulations, but the building and sanitary laws are framed to apply to all dwelling houses alike. Even in the Scotch cities where the tenement house problem is the most acute, there has been no attempt to formulate a special tenement house code. The only exception is that there has been provided a more rigid. system of inspection to prevent overcrowding in this class of dwellings. In general, however, it may be said that foreign cities have gone to a far greater length in restricting the height of buildings and en

larging the requirement for open spaces than has been attempted in most American cities.

It is the testimony of all authorities that in both English and Continental cities a marked degree of efficiency is attained in enforcing both building and sanitary laws. The local authorities are provided with adequate corps of inspectors and in general the work is greatly subdivded.

BUILDING REGULATIONS

London

The building and sanitary regulations of London are contained in the Public Health (London) Act 1891, 54 and 55 Vict. Chap: 76, and the London Building Act, 1894, 57 and 58 Vict. Chap. 213, together with the Rules and Regulations of the London County Council.

Heights of Buildings. The height of dwelling houses (any building used for human habitation) must not exceed 80 ft., exclusive of two stories in the roof, without consent of the council. If a dwelling house is erected on a street less than 50 ft. wide, its height must not exceed the distance from the front wall to the opposite side of the street.

With reference to the height of such buildings in relation to the space at the rear, London employs the following novel plan:

An imaginary line called "the horizontal line" is drawn at right angles to the roadway through the middle of the building to intersect the boundary of the open space at the rear of the house farthest from the roadway. Then a second imaginary line called "the