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65
blocks), containing 17,130 persons, or 186 persons per house (or
separate block). It is obvious that in a district like Finsbury such
figures very greatly raise the average of persons per house, and
indeed, this method of enumerating "separate blocks" as houses,
introduces a serious fallacy into all the returns dealing with inhabited
house property, e.g., the estimation of the decrease of inhabited
houses by 34 per cent, becomes only a relative figure. However,
that being as it may, if these figures, 92 and 17,130, be deducted
from the total returns of houses and persons for 1901, we get 9,195
houses and 84,346 persons, or an average of 91 persons to the house.
Even with this re-adjustment the persons per house are above the
London average.
Of course, no such deductions can be made in that part of the
table dealing with persons per acre, as to whether or not the population
is housed in "model dwellings" or otherwise. Yet here again
it is obvious that very numerous model dwellings in a comparatively
small district greatly raises the average of persons per acre, although
the persons in question are fairly well housed. It should be added
that the slight changes in acreage in each district at each census
have been taken into account in calculating the persons per
acre.*
The following table dealing only with the Clerkenwell and St.
Luke constituent parts of the Borough, may be added for the
sake of reference, though it is based upon the census returns for
1891, the figures for 1901 not being yet available :—
* The persons per acre in London, as a whole, in [8oi, numbered 13 ; in
1811, 15 ; in 1821, 18 ; in 1831, 22 ; and in 1841, 26.
IS