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6
enumeration. The figures tabulated on the preceding
page show, by the numbers found in the various census
enumerations from 1831 to 1896, that the population of
St. James's has for a long period steadily decreased. This
decrease is due to the great value of land in the area of
St. James's, to the progressive conversion of tenement and
other dwelling houses into shops and warehouses—and
into workshops directly ancillary to the trade of St.
James's. Extrusion of the residential population follows.
This extrusion is progressive. At the same time there
are constant importations of foreign workmen, and
the pressure of the population upon the house accommodation
in St. James's is so great as to have raised,
continuously and largely, the cost of rent.
The allocation of valuable areas in St. James's for
the dwellings of the Working Classes, will become less
and less practicable if the commercial value of such sites
is to govern the rents paid for the tenements.
Suburban villages, properly supplied with air and
light and open spaces, and made accessible from
business centres by means of cheap trams and railways,
would enable the rental question to be met in the best way.
Block Dwellings in such an area as St. James's do not
provide the conditions in which healthy children can be
reared, nor in which there can be a family life comparable
with that possible in the open suburbs of London.
The following table shows the annual numbers of
deaths and the net death-rates for the year 1899 and the
25 preceding years—upon the basis of the several census
enumerations:—