The householders of London rightly view with alarm the rapid increase of the sum levied for rates. This sum has increased at the rate of more than 3 per cent. per annum during the twenty-five years I lived in the house I have been describing, and now amounts to rather more than 7_s._ 6_d._ per square yard occupied. The average householder is naturally nervous and apprehensive; he is getting unwilling to take a house for a long term, and is squeezing his household into 'flats,' in which (as the landlord pays the rates) the yearly expenditure on house accommodation is fairly calculable. The attractiveness of the flat is further enhanced by short-term leases, so that, should illness or a financial mishap befall him, he will be less heavily weighted than would be the case if he were the owner of a long, unmarketable lease. I think we may take it for granted that if the well-to-do classes are showing a tendency to overcrowd, this tendency will be found to get progressively more intense as we descend in the social scale. The well-to-do occupiers of flats have to be content with what may be called 'rather close quarters,' but their servants are often squeezed into rooms scarcely bigger than cupboards. It is not conceivable that those who are in a dependent position will have better accommodation than those whom they serve. REMEDIES FOR OVERCROWDING The final question is, What can be done to prevent overcrowding of houses and of persons in the house? I freely admit that very little can be done in big towns, and people must be left to judge for themselves as to whether they will allow their children to run the extra risk of death, crippling disease, or defective development, inseparable from life in a crowded city. The statistics of the Registrar-General (_i.e._ the Annual Summary and the Decennial Supplement) show clearly what these risks are, but it is necessary to add that some of the local statistics manifest at times an undue desire to minimise the mortality of the district from which they emanate. A great metropolitan city like London, concerning which we are educated from our cradles to utter big boasts, exercises an enormous influence on public opinion, but it is perfectly clear that she is a dangerous model to follow in the matter of house-construction. I call to mind the case of a great London builder who bought a country mansion in a park. He was a very able man, but when he carried out some alterations and additions to his new house he found it impossible to cast away his town-bred ideas, and accordingly built underground kitchens and coal cellars, and had the coals put into his cellar through a plate in the pavement just outside the drawing-room window. He had been so long accustomed to build houses with a minimum of area, that when he had an unlimited space at his disposal he failed to utilise or appreciate the advantages of such a boon.