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From this table it will be seen that out of a total of 8,505 oneroomed
tenements there were 3,360 occupied by three or more
persons per tenement; that out of a total of 8,074 two-roomed
tenements there were 3,308 occupied by five or more persons per
tenement; that out of 4,047 three-roomed tenements there were
1,111 each having seven occupants or more; and out of 1,806 fourroomed
tenements there were 398 tenements each having eight or
more persons. There is no available evidence to show that these
figures would be less in 1901 than in 1891. There is every
probability that the reverse has occurred, and that the congestion of
tenements has increased. To obtain evidence on this point a house
to house enumeration would be necessary, and for that we must
await the returns of the recent census.
Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be remarked that
with an average of nine, ten, or nearly eleven persons per house,
making allowance for families, it is evident there must be cases of
marked over-crowding, accompanied, as such conditions must
inevitably be, by other evils. Undoubtedly such cases exist, and,
from time to time, receive attention. But it should be understood
that the discovery of marked degrees of over-crowding is not
evidence, as so often it appears to be supposed, of similar conditions
being the rule or even wide-spread.
2. The Conditions affecting House Property,
1901.—There are, as we have seen, some 10,000 inhabited houses
in Finsbury at the present time. The character of these houses, of
course, varies widely, and it is not feasible, in a report of this nature,
to discuss house property otherwise than generally.
A large part of the population in Finsbury is made up of the
industrial and artizan classes. There are, of course, a small proportion
of people much better off, living in good houses. Though
most of such houses are not particularly large in size, they are in
nearly all cases well provided for as regards air space in the front
and in the rear. The residential houses in the Amwell district, in
certain parts of Pentonville, and in Finsbury Square, are examples
of such houses, though even in these districts there are many good
houses which are not now used as family residences.
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