Note 9 — III. The Housing Problem

The Board of Health, in their report for 1900, (p. 40) say: “A tenement house in Massachusetts is one occupied by four or more families, while in New York it is one occupied by three families which was the law in Massachusetts until the statute was amended in 1894.” This sentence is rich in blunders. No amendment was made in 1894. The Health Act of 1885, chapter 382, section 4, defined a tenement house as one with “more than three families.” The Act of 1889, chapter 450, section 4, changed this to “more than two families.” But the whole thing was repealed by 1892, chapter 419, section 138, so that since 1892 there has been no definition at all of a tenement house in the health code of Boston.