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13
POPULATION.
Having obtained averages, it is a natural step to fix some standard as a measure by which
to arrive at an idea of the quality of accommodation available. From what has been already
written, it is manifest that any standard proposed can be nothing but an arbitrary one. In
adopting the standard of an average of two persons per room as a dividing line between " good "
and " bad " housing, it must be understood that it is not intended to convey any suggestion that
rooms with averages in excess of two persons are of necessity overcrowded or otherwise undesirable
or unfit for habitation. It is a matter of common experience that more than two persons
can, given sufficient air space, occupy a single room for all purposes without detriment to health,
but unless such persons are particularly accommodating individuals, their enforced association is
not always conducive to sweetness of temper and general comfort.
In Table 12 will be found the numbers of tenements of from one to four rooms in which
the average number of occupants exceeded two. As the table was drawn up to institute comparisons
between the data obtained in 1901 and 1911, it was necessarily limited to tenements of
those dimensions. The total number of such tenements in the Borough was slightly greater
in 1911 than in 1901, three Wards—Harrow Road, Maida Vale, and Westbourne—being responsible
for the increase (97). Looking at the question in another way, it will be seen that the
numbers of one and four room tenements in the Borough decreased, those of two and three
room increased. Evidence of changes in this direction were adduced in the report for 1912
in connection with certain inquiries made in the Borough on behalf of the Board of Trade.
The general run of the figures for the Wards is much the same as that of the figures for the
Borough, with one exception, viz., Church Ward, where the tenements of one and two rooms
will be seen to have fallen in numbers, while those of three and four rooms have increased.