View report page

NINTH ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
To the Board of Works, Fulham District.
Gentlemen,
The Registrar General, in his Annual Report for 1864, whilst speakin
of the five great groups of districts into which he has divided the Metropolis
area, i.e., East, Central, North, West, and South Districts, shews the natur;
influence of density of population on the death rate of a people ; for whilst ???
mortality of the two former groups in 1864 was 2.9 percent, that in the th???.
latter was about 2.5 per cent., and again, in a further subdivision of the
three latter, he says "but the first (West) of these groups was the healthies
perhaps because the people who live in it may enjoy on the whole the ample
provision of food, fuel, clothing, and house shelter against inclement seasons
These distinctive features are, however, I fear, in much danger of serio???
modification for the future. In watching the enormous accession of popul
tion to the Fulham district for instance, one cannot otherwise than observe t???
constant tendency to over crowding amongst the labouring people, whilst then
seems every probability of this human tide increasing. The tremendo???
demolition of the houses hitherto occupied by the working classes more in
mediately in London itself, has dislodged thousands of families, whilst n
systematized provision, except of a most infinitesimal character, has been mad
for their reception. Railways and their approaches, Joint-stock Hotels an
Banks, enormous Warehouses and Emporiums of trade, fine buildings of ever
kind both public and private, street improvements, and a hundred other
undertakings are each carrying on a levelling process in the heart of th
Metropolis, and the inhabitants seek shelter necessarily in the suburb???
From these causes and railway facilities, the parishes of Hammersmith an
Fulham have both received a flood of immigrants of a character too likely ???
add, not only to our sickness and death rate, but also too surely to the loca
poor rate. Burthens then both sanitary and financial will more than probably
fall to our lot, for, whilst the labour of "the million" is devoted to the
enrichment of others, the task of housing and that of providing for the sick
and needy will be ours. The question therefore of an equalization of the
Metropolitan Poor Rate stands out in strong relation to its sanitary bearings.
The close connection between poverty and over crowding with typhus fever
and other pestilences, is now too well known to require more than reference
to it, and hence, unless some general provision be made for such contingencies
by a common Metropolitan charge, the amount of our local taxation for the
proper maintenance of the poor, must become manifestly unjust, or prove, as
is most likely, totally inadequate. But though financially we may be lukewarm
in our action upon this subject, its sanitary features demand imperatively
most watchful care. We must not, indeed we dare not look at it with indiflerence.
The evils of insufficient house accommodation for the lower classes,