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69
filtration through beds of sand and gravel but the supply was so
little that hundreds of people were dependent on one tap in the yard
with a supply lasting for less than an hour in the morning. The only
other supply was from a few wells but the pump water was invariably
contaminated with the contents of the sewers which had escaped into
them. Dr. Pavey observed that "cholera has violently attacked those
who have drunk pump water. Moreover the shallow well water receives
the drainage water of Highgate cemetry, numerous burial grounds and
innumerable cesspools in the district".
In 1862 the population of the Vestry of St* Lukes was assessed as
57,073 and that of Clerkenwell as 69,960 and it was said that instead
of a house to a family it is several families to a house they are so
congested that it is a wonder that they can cling to life so long as
they ever do". It is not surprising then to find that in 1863 there
were 1765 deaths in the Parish and Workhouse of St. Lukes alone and
of these 51.2 per cent were among infants and children under 5 years.
In the Whitecross Street district which was particularly overcrowded
there were 60.8 per cent deaths in children under five years. It was
"lamentable how frequently deaths from suffocation under bedclothes in
infants were recorded-also there was a painful significance in the
words "illegitimate child" so often appended". The low proportion of
9.8 per cent of the mortality consisting of deaths over 60 years leads
to the conclusion that a comparatively small population of aged people
managed to exist.
With the construction of warehouses and railways in the centre of
London the evil of overcrowding increased as people driven out of a
house that had to be pulled down added to the number of inhabitants a
little further on. The substitution of warehouses and other business
premises for dwelling houses gradually brought about a decrease and
change of character of the population of Finsbury, During 1868 the
Artizan's and Labourer's Dwellings Act came into force and made provision
for taking down or improving dwellings occupied by working men
and their families which were unfit for human habitation and "for the
building and maintenance of better dwellings for such persons instead
thereof". The Vestry then was empowered, after considering a report
by the Medical Officer and Engineer to close the premises cause them
to be pulled down and execute the works required in the event of non
compliance with its order. This legislation was soon put to good use
and several blocks of "miserable tenements" which had been condemned
because "their condition is so deplorable that many of you would
scarcely credit that human beings could exist in them" were pulled
down and "model dwellings" for the working class were erected.
Dr. Pavey, in a paper read to the Metropolitan Sanitary Association
in 1865 about the current epidemic of typhoid fever said We must
have better and healthier homes for the poorest classes not the