PUBLIC HOUSE IMPROVEMENT 103 
social instincts of the people are exploited in the 
interests of drink sellers. Public houses, generally 
speaking, are in size and structure most unsatisfactory, 
and consequently are often unpleasantly congested. 
Only in a small proportion of houses is there any 
attempt to provide decent amenities.” 
IMPROVED PuBLIC HOUSES. 
The criticism made by Selley that the majority of 
public houses are simply drink shops, which are 
generally unsatisfactory both in size, structure, and the 
provision of decent amenities, is borne out by plenty 
of other evidence. For instance, we read* that the 
chairman of the Bristol Bench of licensing justices 
complained that his colleagues “had come to the 
conclusion, after the visits they had made, that the 
owners of properties might improve—considerably 
improve—the licensed houses, especially in the poorer 
districts. In these houses men and women spent hours 
of the day and evening in what he considered very 
unhealthy surroundings. Some were not kept as clean 
as they could be, and they were certainly not attended 
to as they should be. They had been very dissatisfied 
with what they had seen and with the conditions 
prevailing.” The writer of this “ True Temperance 
Note ”’ agrees that this reproach ‘should be wiped 
away with the greatest celerity and completeness; for 
regarded merely from a business standpoint, nothing 
is fraught with greater danger to the public house 
industry than the existence of dirty, unhealthy, and 
incommodious houses.” 
“True Temp. Notes,” True Temp. Assn., April, 1927.