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9
In considering how it would be possible to make a minute inquiry into
the question of how the people are housed, I came to the conclusion that the
best, and indeed, the only accurate method would be to take the sub-registration
districts as the starting point, that is to say those districts over each
of which there is a registrar of births and deaths, whose boundaries
and populations are well defined, and about which positive information was
obtained at the last census. These sub-districts are five in number and
are known as (1) Upper Holloway; (2) Lower Holloway; (3) Barnsbury;
(4) Islington South East; and (5) Highbury.
I do not intend to enter into every particular respecting these sub-districts,
but only such as are of immediate concern, and should be known so far as they
relate to the subject under consideration.
Their sizes are very unequal, varying from l,0243/5 acres, which is the
area of Upper Holloway (this sub-district has since been divided into three
sub-districts) to 3103/10 acres, the area of Barnsbury. Lower Holloway covers
4122/5 acres, Islington South-East 545 acres, and Highbury 79911/5 acres.
Their populations are also very unequal, fur whereas there are 99,895
people living in Upper Holloway, there are only 41,424 living in Lower
Holloway, while in Barnsbury there are 54,478, in Highbury 63,797, and in
Islington South East 75,397.
As these two factors, area and population, vary so much, it
follows that the densities of their populations also differ materially. Thus
in Barnsbury there are 176 persons living on each acre, while in Highbury
there are only 80. In Islington South-East there are 138 persons to each
acre, in Lower Holloway 100 and in Upper Holloway 98.
The number of inhabited houses, and the average number of persons
occupying them, naturally also differ materially, for in Upper Holloway there
are 12,149 houses containing on an average 8.2 persons; in Lower Holloway
4,118 houses with 10T persons per house; in Barnsbury, 5,558 houses with
9.8 persons per house; in Islington South-East, 8,034 houses with 9.4 persons
per house; and in Highbury, 8,786 houses, with 7.3 persons per house; while
the number of houses in the borough is 38,645, with an average of 8.7 persons
per house.
From these figures we learn that the houses in Lower Holloway contain
more people on the average than the houses in any of the other