A great subject, which for years journalists and philanthropists have been vainly endeavouring to interest the general public in, has suddenly by leaps and bounds assumed the front rank in the great army of social and political problems. The housing of the poor has long been a smouldering question; dozens of willing hands have sought to fan it into a flame, but hitherto with small results. At the last moment a little pamphlet laid modestly on the dying embers has done what all the bellows-blowing of the Press failed to accomplish, and the smouldering question has become a brightly-burning one. It is while the flames are still at their height, and everyone is suggesting a remedy, that I should like to say a few words on a subject with which I have been practically and intimately acquainted for many years.