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6
County of London and in the five Home Counties of Middlesex,
Hertford, Essex, Surrey and Kent.
While these figures are of value for transport purposes,
yet they are of considerable interest from the point of view of the
public health.
Our towns in general and Hornsey in particular are not places
which are self-contained. They are centres of activity out of
which and into which persons come and go daily. These daily
journeys, often in crowded conveyances, expose the travelling
population to repeated chances of infection; especially is this the
case with diseases of which the infection is spread from the
respiratory tract by sneezing and coughing. The common cold,
bronchitis, pneumonia, scarlet fever and small-pox are spread
from person to person in this manner, and the district is always
in danger of an outbreak of infectious disease imported by its
much-travelled population.
No less than 27,584 persons who are resident in Hornsey
leave the Borough day by day to work in other parts of England.
Of these 244 work in Essex; 104 in Hertfordshire; 36 in Kent;
8,709 in the City of London; 3,555 in the City of Westminster;
12,152 in other parts of the County of London; 2,248 in Middlesex
and 62 in Surrey. In addition, 424 others go still further
afield. It is obvious, with this vast movement of population
into all sorts of places, that the possibilities of acquiring infection
are greatly increased.
But apart from these who leave the Borough daily there
are others who come to the Borough and find employment here.
No less than 5,515 persons from London and the Home
Counties enter Hornsey daily for the purpose of earning a living.
Of these, 199 come from Essex, including a daily detachment
of 34 from Southend-on-Sea; 98 from Herts; 68 from Kent; 1,975
from London; 3,111 from the rest of Middlesex, and 64 from
Surrey.
Having regard to this active and perpetual flow of population,
an outbreak of small-pox or other disease anywhere in
England, and particularly in London or one of these five home
counties, is of peculiar significance to us in Hornsey; but, thanks
to the weekly figures of disease from the Ministry of Health and