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149
2. House to House Inspection is a second means for
attaining the ultimate object of sanitation in house property.
By this arrangement houses, whether registered or not, are
periodically inspected and a complete sanitary survey thus carried
out. Each inspector undertakes this work in his own sanitary
district. When sanitary defects are present notices are at once
served for their repair. The facts obtained are entered in the
House Record Book. In this register are particulars as to owner,
mode of occupation, cubic space, conditions of sanitation, drainage,
&c. This record is constantly of great service in the work
of the Department, and of considerable permanent value. During
1903 the systematic house inspections thus made numbered 1,447.
There are in the Borough about 9,000 residential houses.
3. Overcrowding.—In the third place, regular work is
being done in the reduction, as far as known and as far as
practicable, of any nuisances arising by reason of overcrowding.
The prevalence of overcrowding in Finsbury in 1901 was
considered in some detail in the Housing Report issued by the
Medical Officer during the year (see pp. 57-67), and it will
therefore be unnecessary to enter into the facts there set forth.
Since the publication of that Report the Census Report for 1901
has been issued (in 1902), and contains figures and facts
concerning the degree of overcrowding existent in Finsbury.
The chief facts respecting these returns are as follow:—
The total population of the Borough is 101,463. The number of
houses is 9,280, and hence the number of persons per house is 10.9.
This is only a relative figure on account of the "model dwellings,"
for which the census enumerators return "separate blocks" as houses.
But even with adjustments, the return of persons per house comes out
at 9, as compared with the London average of 7.8 per house. The
Borough of Finsbury unfortunately occupies the unenviable position
of being one of the most "overcrowded" districts of London. The
explanation of this will be found in relation to house property (the
increase of commercial premises over dwelling-houses) and the
transition stage in which Central Districts, and particularly
Finsbury, find themselves.