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79
Healthiness of Block Dwellings.
In order to ascertain the relative healthiness of dwellings erected in
Mocks, I have extracted from the Registrar.s Weekly Returns the deaths
of persons residing therein, and have compared the figures with the officials
of nearly all the companies owning such buildings in the City, to whom
I am indebted for the trouble they have taken.
The population at the time of the Census has now been obtained
from the Registrar-General for each block of industrial dwellings in the
City, from which it appears that at that date 16,526 persons lived in
such dwellings. This has been considerably i ncreased by the opening of
additional dwellings at Millbank and Drury Lane, so that the present
population is probably about 20,000.
The accompanying Table XXII. shows the population at the Census,
the number of births and deaths in 1902, with the causes of death, and
the number of deaths of infants and persons over 65.
I have calculated the rates on the larger populations, and I find
that:—
The Peabody Buildings have a birth-rate of 30.4, but this varies in
the different groups of buildings, Old Pye Street having 17.6,
Orchard Street 48.2. The total death-rate is 15.7, the lowest being
10.7, the highest 20.0.
The Industrial Dwellings Company have a birth-rate of 15.4, the
extremes being as low as 4.1 and as high as 75.3. The death-rate is 8-0,
varying from 0 to 17.5.
Some of the London County Council Buildings have not been occupied
during the whole year; but, calculated proportionately, the birth-rate
on the Millbank Estate works out at about 50, the death-rate about 15
per 1,000.
The Soho, Clerkenwell and General Industrial Dwellings Company had
a birth-rate of 29.5 and a death-rate of 12.6.
The Metropolitan Association.s birth-rate is 39 6, the death-rate 11.8.
Common Lodging-houses.
101 deaths occurred in 1902 in the common lodging-houses in the
City. 59 of these were attributed to St. John.s Ward and 22 to the
Strand Ward, thereby raising the death-rate of these wards; the
remaining 20 deaths were distributed to—Regent Ward 6, St. Margaret
4, Covent Garden 7, and St. Anne.s 3. 87 were men, and the causes of
death were—consumption 28, respiratory diseases 24, heart, &c., diseases
9, kidney diseases 4, small-pox 14, and other complaints 8. 11 were
women, and death was due to—consumption 4, respiratory disease 4,