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sanitary conveniences, the water supply, the cooking arrangements,
the washing accommodation, the provision for refuse collection,
ventilation, light, &c., were all designed for one family but now
have to serve for, perhaps, four, or six, or even eight, families. The
house and its tenants have, therefore, lost caste together. The
result is uncleanliness, ill-ventilation, lack of light in certain
tenements, insufficient cooking apparatus, and general domestic
insanitation.
The above conditions are concerned broadly with housing accommodation
and "urbanization" which obviously exerts primary
influence upon health. But there are other matters to consider.
There are Conditions of Employment. Finsbury is an industrial
Borough, upwards of 70 per cent, of the people being employed in
industrial work. The occupations which engage the largest number
of persons in Finsbury are—(a) conveyance of men and goods; (b)
printing; (c) the making of wearing apparel; (d) servants, porters
and charwomen; and (e) work in food, tobacco and at restaurants.
These five lines of occupation employ upwards of 28,000 persons,
and each occupation has its own perils to health and life. In some
it is exposure and accident, in others it is sedentary employment.
Only second to this latter influence comes the strain and resulting
fatigue of "piece work.'' A somewhat exceptional proportion of the
occupation in which women and girls in Finsbury are engaged
(wearing apparel, book-binding, linen-ironers, &c.), is carried on
under this condition, and I do not doubt that it exerts considerable
influence on the health of persons physically weak or unfit. A
study of the occupation of 10,000 persons dying in Finsbury in five
years brings vividly to mind the intimate relationship which exists
between occupation unhealthily carried on and disease.
Then, lastly, there is Poverty. Absolute poverty is a difficult,
if not impossible, thing accurately to measure. Relative poverty,
on the other hand, is so evident in Finsbury that it needs no
measurement to emphasise its existence. Mr. Rowntree has
divided families living in poverty into two clases: (a) "families
whose total earnings are insufficient to obtain the minimum