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256
five freezers and as many barrows. The financial arrangements
existing between the padrone and his assistants differ. In some
cases the men pay eighteenpence a week for sleeping accommodation,
&c., and work for the padrone. In other cases they enter into
an agreement that through the season the young men shall give
their services in return for board and lodging and a small allowance
of pocket-money.
Displacement of English by Aliens —We have about
3,000 aliens in the Borough. In the Italian Quarter English have
without question been displaced. There is marked congestion all
over the Borough, and it cannot be doubted that if every alien left
Finsbury tomorrow their places would be taken immediately by
English persons. The reverse proposition must therefore be true,
that these aliens have displaced English persons or have occupied
available space. In Finsbury we are overcrowded without aliens.
Therefore, with 3,000 aliens, we are more overcrowded. That is the
position in a sentence. But as the aliens are comparatively few
(3 per cent, of the entire population), the displacement, purely by
aliens, is comparatively small. The congestion in Finsbury is
primarily not due to aliens, but to contraction of the inhabitable
house property owing to commercial invasion. The congestion is
only aggravated by aliens.
During a midnight inspection in the Italian Quarter in 1902, we
visited 36 tenements (containing 154 persons) and found that
the percentage of tenements overcrowded was 58.4, as compared
with 22.4 in the neighbouring (English) district of Noble Street,
34.7 in an area in the Eastern Division of the Borough, and
43.6 in Bastwick Street. In 1903 we made another night
inspection of the Italian Quarter. We examined 95 tenements,
and found 48 overcrowded. This gives a percentage of overcrowding
of 50.5. On the same night we found 55.8 per cent,
of overcrowding in a district (English) of Pentonville, and 21.8 per
cent. in Bastwick Street.