Nor was there anything to prevent houses being built on uncovered spaces at the backs of existing buildings, thus taking up whatever air-space had been left between the previous buildings. Hence, great blocks of ground absolutely covered with buildings, back to back, side to side, any way so long as a building could by any ingenuity be fitted in. Hence the culs-de-sac, the small and stifling courts and alleys. Nor were there any regulations forbidding certain kinds of buildings which would be injurious to the health of their inhabitants. Hence the mean and flimsy and insanitary houses which were being erected in the outer circle of the metropolis, and which wrought havoc with the health and lives of the people. Hence, too, the erection, on areas and forecourts, of buildings which narrowed the streets, diminished the air-spaces and means of ventilation, and destroyed the appearance of the localities. And once up they had come to stay; for years were to pass before the Legislature created any effective means for securing their amelioration, and for generations they were permitted to exercise their evil and deadly sway over the people, and to scatter broadcast throughout the community the seeds of disease and death. The then existing actual state of the case was summed up by Dr. Southwood Smith in his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1840:-- "At present no more regard is paid in the construction of houses to the health of the inhabitants than is paid to the health of pigs in making sties for them. In point of fact there is not so much attention paid to it." Legislation against some of the evils which had already reached huge proportions, and which, as London grew, were spreading and developing, was not alone ineffective, but earlier legislation, in one notorious Act, had been the direct incentive to, and cause of evils. This was the Act which imposed a tax upon windows.[16] In effect this Act said to the builder, "Plan your houses with as few openings as possible. Let every house be ill-ventilated by shutting out the light and air, and as a reward for your ingenuity you shall be subject to a less amount of taxation."[17] The builder acted upon this counsel, and the tax operated as a premium upon the omission from a building of every window which could by any device be spared; with the result that passages, closets, cellars, and roofs--the very places where mephitic vapours were most apt to lodge--were left almost entirely without ventilation.[18] In effect, the window duties compelled multitudes to live and breathe in darkened rooms and poisoned air, and with a rapidly increasing population the evils resulting therefrom were being steadily intensified. Admirable was the comment passed upon the tax in 1843:--