In the course of a book review in the current number of the Local Self-Government Gazette , Mr. J.C. Malony examines the results of the recent census figures of the City from the point of view of housing. He refers to the deplorably slow rate of growth in the population in the City, 0.8 per cent, and in his characteristic manner suggests so at least it seems to us, that even that small increase may not after all be a welcome increase! He examines the increase of population, division by division, and remarks: “The greatest increase (18.6 per cent) in division 14 is apt to provoke a smile: for the main residential building in that division is the lunatic asylum!” The upshot of his study is that “Madras is becoming either less healthy or less attractive as a place of residence, a conclusion which leads us abruptly back to the ‘housing problem’.” That the problem is becoming more and more acute he does not doubt. “I have recently been compiling statistics as to rent actually paid by Indian clerks,” he writes, “and having enquired into 526 cases, I find that very few clerks pay away as rent 10 per cent or less of their salaries, a larger number pay between 10 per cent and 20 per cent.”
