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5
In 1900 St. George's had a population density of rather over 213 to
the acre—that is to say, about four times that of London, and four hundred
times that of the United Kingdom. Its number of tenements is
almost exactly double that of its inhabited houses. Of the tenement
occupiers, one third live in two rooms, and another third in a single room.
There is no reason to alter the statement advanced for several years past
that about one in every fourteen of your population is born, grows up,
lives, works, and often dies within the four walls of a one-roomed
tenement.
From Table I. it will be seen that the number of males in the parish
is some 200 in excess of the females. This uuusual feature may, I think,
be explained by the following facts:—(a) The presence of a number of
factories where men are employed either exclusively or mainly ; (b) the
comparatively small number of domestic servants employed in the parish ;
(c) and the presence of the Salvation Army Shelter, which attracts in the
parish a daily average of several hundred men—(in 1895 the Senior
District Magistrate estimated the Salvation Army accommodation at 500
per night. Another point brought strongly into relief by Table I. is the
fact that the division of the parish into sub-districts affords a more equal
grouping of inhabitants than a division by wards.
Thus the greatest difference between the individual sub-district
population is 6,796, whereas in the Wards the extreme difference is
9,304.
This disproportion has a somewhat important bearing on various
matters of administration.
Population.—The number of inhabitants for the whole parish, according
to the census of 29th March, 1896, was 60,278, as against 59,712
in the census of 1891. In the middle of 1900, the figures, estimated on
the foregoing census, reached 60,883. The rate of increase was extrrmely
low compared with that of London generally.
Births and Birth-rate.
Table II. gives the birth-rate per 1,000 per annum for the years 1896,
1897, 1898, 1899, and 1900 in each sub-district of the parish, in London,
and in the 33 large English towns.