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103
Under the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1890 (Sect. 26),
3 certificates for exemption from Inhabited House Duty have been
granted for Albany House (144, King's Cross Road), the flats in
Mitchell Street (24-26 and 26-28), and Chadworth Buildings.
Conclusion.—No one can study the extraordinary changes
which have been taking place in Finsbury since 1901 without
arriving at two fairly definite conclusions. In the first place there
has been a decline in population, due to various reasons. An immense
improvement in the means of transit * is fast revolutionising
Finsbury and Central London generally; th : vigorous reduction of
overcrowding and the displacement of persons from insanitary
property is reducing the population ; and more than all else probably
the invasion of Finsbury by commerce is profoundly altering its
constitution in regard to the number and character of the
population, and in that way profoundly modifying the problems of
local government, which must now be faced. In the second place,
there has been a substantial improvement, from a sanitary point of view,
in the house accommodation of the people. Many old slums have
vanished altogether, many others have been improved, and gross
overcrowding has been reduced. In 1905 and 1906 vacant
accommodation was found to exist in Finsbury for not less than 5,000
persons (2,196 empty rooms in 1906, 2,284 in 1905), which means
definite relief to the densely congested areas of ten years ago.
These changes are, on the whole, of good import and cannot fail
to exert a direct and indirect effect upon vitality and mortality in
Finsbury. They are due, in the main, to the invasion of commerce,
the improved transit, and the action of the Borough Council in
regard to its housing policy.
* One of the most hopeful signs in Finsbury during the last five years has
been the marked improvement in means of transit (e.g. the Tube Railway
from South London to the "Angel," which is now extended to King's Cross;
the new tramways down Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell Road, Old Street,
Goswell Road, St. John Street and Pentonville; the various extensions of the
District Railway connecting with the Metropolitan Railway at Farringdon
Road; the new services from King's Cross; and the Tube Railway from
Finsbury Park to the Bank).