raise the ceiling or demolish the building, so that such cramped sleeping rooms are being done away with. ELIMINATION OF INSANITARY HOUSES. As has been intimated, the demolition of houses unfit for human habitation has gone on steadily since July 1, 1906, and in addition to the 545 up to June 30 last, 127 were torn down in the next five months, making 672 demolished in all, of which 245 were in alleys and 427 in streets. The proportion is due partly to the fact that the streets contain more houses, and partly to the fact that because no more dwellings can be built in alleys owners repair alley houses which they would destroy if they could substitute new ones for them. Up to this time the houses acted on have been mostly one or twostory buildings, but there are larger ones which need attention, some of them residences converted into flats which accommodate several families. These are being taken up and one of them in Georgetown, a three-story brick, built in 1834 and known as Foxhall Mansions, is now being torn down. The Committee has kept in touch with this work and there has seemed to be no occasion, in view of all the circumstances, to criticize the rate at which it is being carried on. In certain cases the inspector has been obliged to extend the time for the vacation of buildings to be demolished on account of the inability of the tenants to find other dwellings within their means, and while there should be no cessation of the activity of the board the absorption of displaced tenants can not be effected with much greater rapidity. The persons compelled to vacate the dwellings removed were as follows: Table No. 2. Year ending Persons Displaced. Houses. The small average is due to the fact that many of the houses were vacant, especially in the first year. Counting only those actually occupied the average number in the families turned out would probably be 5. Some effort was made to determine definitely what became of these people, but it has been difficult to do this because they quit the premises at any time after notice is served, leaving the house vacant, and no record is made of them. Of the 1,056 persons displaced in the last year 13 were white, 1 was a Chinaman, and 1,042 were colored. The report for the year says: "A small portion of these tenants is going to the suburbs and renting or purchasing cheap houses, but the large majority are remaining within the city. A great many are renting the ordinary two-story brick and subletting rooms, or two families rent one house between them, one taking the upstairs and the other the downstairs, converting it practically into a two-family flat, but with none of the accommodations usually found in a building of that character. There is, at the present time, an unquestionable demand for the cheaper class of houses to take the place of those being destroyed." A further analysis of the facts shows that the houses removed during the year ending June 30, 1908, were assessed for taxation at $40,800, and that they had a rental value of $16,502.40. The average of property in an alley which was investigated as to its assessed value recently showed the land to be 35 per cent of the total, and assuming that it was 40 per cent for that from which the above houses were removed, and that the actual value of the property is 50 per cent more than the assessed valuation, the rentals indicate a gross return of 16 per cent on the investment. The rental value figures out $4.03 per month per house; but the report of the Committee on Building of Model Houses (p. 63) says that not one dwelling has been erected in Washington in the last 5 years which could be rented as low as $12.00 per month, and not more than fifteen which could be rented as low as from $14.00 to $16.50 per month. The demolition of the houses in question, therefore, was not offset, so far as these people were concerned, by any new provision of which they could avail themselves, and sharing with others houses too expensive for one such family, with all the disadvantages such an arrangement in houses not built for the purpose involves, afforded about the only means of shelter in the city. There are a few vacant houses in alleys which rent from $8.00 per month up, but even one of these requires a considerable readjustment of the family budget for a tenant who has been paying but $4.00, and most of the cheapest houses which are vacant, even in alleys, rent for $10 per month or more. It is evident that such conditions, in connection with the inclination to demand more rent from colored people who desire to occupy decent houses, tend to keep rents high and render living properly on the wages. of a day laborer still more difficult. THE ELIMINATION OF ALLEY HOUSES. By far the best way to do away with alley houses is to do away with the alleys by converting them into minor streets. So much has been said and written about the disadvantages of the alleys of Washington, and the evils of having scattered through the heart of the city a population discredited by the very location of their dwellings, and the difficulty of caring for and supervising them although really in very close contact with the best residences of the city, that the problem seemed to be one requiring action rather than argument; and as "the rearrangement of the building space within the larger squares of the District of Columbia" was stated by Mr. Reynolds to be one of the purposes of the Commission recommended in his report, and as the work of improving existing houses and eliminating other insanitary houses has been progressing satisfactorily, as described above, this Committee has devoted its chief energy to assisting in the conversion of the undesirable alleys into minor streets. Under the law of July 22, 1892, as amended on August 24, 1894, the Commissioners at the time of the appointment of the Commission had taken action in 12 cases upon the advice of a board consisting of the Chief of Police, the Secretary of the Board of Charities, and the Surveyor of the District, which had been appointed by the Commissioners for the purpose of investigating and advising them in regard to the alleys which most needed to be opened up because the conditions in them were detrimental to the general welfare of the city. As was stated in the preliminary report, the progress of this work had been interrupted by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Brandenburg case on March 11, 1907, which declared it illegal to assess all the damages on certain property as provided by the existing law unless the property was found to be benefited to that extent. The Commissioners at the time expressed the intention of having the law amended at the coming session of Congress so as to remove this obstacle and anticipated no difficulty in doing this; and as nothing further could be done in such cases without this further authority the Committee kept in touch with the situation and waited for the necessary action to be taken. In the first days of January last, before Congress convened after the holiday recess, it was stated in one of the papers that the Engineer Commissioner, who had succeeded to the office after the proceedings had been begun, had recommended that the cases in three of the alleys be dropped because he had inspected them and was of the opinion that the expenditure of the sums necessary to pay the damages which would be incurred in opening them up as proposed would not be justified. One of these cases is Blagden's alley, Square 368, concerning which the chief of police and his associates on the board stated in the recommendation for its conversion into a minor street that: "Blagden's alley, located between 9th and 10th and M and N streets, contains fifty-four houses inhabited by a negro element who live in poverty and are a source of constant trouble. The dwellings are insanitary and dilapidated and afford shelter to ten or twelve persons each." Another is Square 620, as to which the board reported: "Logan's place contains thirty-five insanitary dwellings, which are very much overcrowded and the inhabitants, being of a vicious character, give the police more or less trouble." Every one familiar with these and other such labyrinths realizes the security from police supervision which they afford, to say nothing of other disadvantages which fully justified the recommendation of the board. There was no suggestion of any other plan, and the only reason given was that it was not worth while to spend the money required to do away with the wretched conditions by which the city has been for so long disgraced, and as this objection, if sustained, would make permanent such conditions in these three alleys, which are among the worst in the city, and put the whole matter upon a different basis, the Committee took the subject up with the Commissioners and strongly urged that no effort be spared to pursue the original plan of the Commissioners, and to provide some way by which they could proceed to open up such alleys as they might after investigation think it worth while to convert into minor streets. These suggestions were cordially received by the other two Commissioners, and it was understood that the subject would be discussed with the Corporation Counsel with a view to arriving at the best way of accomplishing this object, and that any assistance which the Committee. could give would be welcomed. The Committee therefore consulted with the Corporation Counsel and looked up the law in other places, but as one of the Commissioners was compelled to go to the hospital for a considerable stay, not long after this, further action was delayed. The situation, which was fully reported to the Commission at a meeting held January 17, 1908, seemed so serious that the Commission adopted a resolution urging that the District Commissioners "take all possible steps toward opening alleys into minor streets in each case recommended by the Committee appointed for the purpose, and that such changes in the present law be recommended by the Commissioners as will permit the conversion of these alleys or any others into minor streets, to the end that all such alleys may within a reasonable time be done away with;" and the report of the Committee, |