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4 Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
Boundaries.—The parish, in shape somewhat like a hatchet, is surrounded by no
less than six other Sanitary Districts. It is bounded on the north by St. Saviour and
St. Olave, on the west by Lambeth, on the south by Newington and Camberwell, and
on the east by Bermondsey.
Geological Formation.—The sub-soil of Southwark consists of porous " made "
earth, sand, and gravel, of a depth of fifteen to twenty-five feet, overlying the London
clay. Saline springs rise at times to the surface, and in certain excavated parts of the
parish—e.g., Theatre and Music Hall, necessitate the constant use of pumps.
Elevation.—The district is low-lying and flat, and is situate at an average of half
a foot below the Trinity high water mark of the Thames, as against a mean elevation
for London of 47.5 feet above the same mark.
Houses.—I am indebted to the Medical Officer of the Administrative County for a
copy of the Superintendent Registrar's Summary, giving the numbers resident in the
district on the 29th March, 1896. This Summary—given under Table I.—shows also
there were 5,512 inhabited and 657 uninhabited houses which makes an average of
10.9 persons to a house.

St. George's has a population density of 212 to the acre—that is to say, about
four times that of London, and four hundred times that of the United Kingdom. Its
number of tenements is almost exactly double that of its inhabited houses. Of the
tenement occupiers, one-third live in two rooms, and another third in a single room.
There is no reason to alter the statement advanced for several years past that about
one in every fourteen of your population is born, grows up, lives, works, and often
dies within the four walls of a one-roomed tenement.