In support of these views they could point to the results of inspection and supervision in the registered Common Lodging Houses. In the parish of Spitalfields (in Whitechapel, 1880) there were 109 of these houses containing 454 rooms registered to accommodate 3,992 lodgers. The class of persons occupying them were, notoriously, the very lowest. "We failed to learn that any respectable mechanic with his wife and family ever applied at these houses for lodging accommodation. Yet," reported the Sanitary Inspector (1880), "we discovered no case of overcrowding. The bedding was clean; the yards and closets were in a good sanitary condition; there was a good water supply, and the walls and ceilings of the houses were clean." If these results were obtainable in dealing with the worst classes, in the overcrowded parts of Whitechapel, _a fortiori_, inspection and supervision would have been productive of similar benefits among the general tenement population. The Medical Officer of Health for St. George-in-the-East referred to the low mortality in model lodging-houses, where also there was supervision. "There we find good sound dwellings, &c., &c. No overcrowding is permitted, only a certain number in family being accepted as tenants. Cleanliness on their part is expected--enforced if necessary--or a notice to quit is speedily given." While thus recommending inspection, supervision, and compulsory rules, another view was also expressed.[132] "As laws have been enacted for the abatement of overcrowding, it is easy to say: 'let those in authority put them in force'; but I much fear unless the question is taken up with a spirit of love towards the poorer and more ignorant classes by the upper and middle classes, and measures adopted to give instruction to the poor in matters concerning their physical well-being, the existing state of things will long continue." "No class will become civilised by being left to themselves, as unfortunately is the case in the numerous back slums of London, but improvement, physically and socially, can only be effected by a superior class mixing and associating with a class below them." The Medical Officer of Health for Poplar wrote:-- "The poor want more than model dwellings, more than warmth, food and clothing; they want humanity, and the knowledge of the laws governing health." Unfortunately those remedies were, at best, a matter of considerable time, and improvement could be but of slow growth. Immediate measures were required to cope with the appalling evils, and for the house-owners, even more than for the unfortunate tenants, were supervision and compulsory rules requisite. But not one tithe of the Vestries and District Boards would enforce against owners the regulations under the 35th Section of the Sanitary Act of 1866.