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37
the Hospital for examination, but do not return for treatment, whereas in point
of fact, owing to the strictness of the definition of cure, a very large percentage of
cases, which have been under treatment for considerable periods, and which formerly
would have been recorded as satisfactorily treated, are now classified in the same
category as persons who make but one attendance. This method of classification
has undoubtedly given rise to quite an erroneous impression in the minds of both
the public and the medical profession as to the extent to which defaulting occurs and
in consequence the work of the clinics has been severely criticised, and as a result
a demand has been made in some quarters for the introduction of compulsory notification
and treatment on the same lines as exist in some of the colonies. This matter
will, no doubt, be dealt with in detail in the forthcoming report of the Trevethin
Committee of Enquiry, and in the meantime it is sufficient to say that there are good
grounds for believing that the record of work done at the V.D. clinics in London
will compare very favourably with that obtaining in those colonies where the system
of compulsory notification and attendance is in operation.
In order to minimise the risk ot the introduction and spread of infectious diseases,
the attention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department was called
to the action of certain shipping companies in directing transmigrants on their arrival
in London to premises where no suitable provision was made for bathing and disinfecting.
Housing of
transmigrants.
Details of the progress made with the several represented insanitary areas and
the housing schemes undertaken by the Council are specially dealt with in Chapter
XXVII.
Housing
Acts.
The table on page 38 shows the houses in each borough in 1922; the number
repaired under section 28 of the Housing Act of 1919; certain other particulars as
to conditions in 1922; and the action taken by the metropolitan borough councils
under the provisions of section 17 of the Housing and Town Planning Act with
regard to the making of representations and closing orders—the figures for the
years 1914,1915 to 1919, and 1920-1, are included for comparison.
In Part I. of the 1921 census volume for the County of London statistics
are given bearing upon the question of overcrowding. The figures, relating
to size of family, number of rooms occupied, etc., are similar to those in the 1911
census, but details are not given as to the number of children under ten years of age
in each family, and while the definition of a room for the purpose of the census
remains the same, rooms in joint occupation, which in 1911 were ignored, are counted
as a room in each tenement sharing them. The total number of rooms jointly occupied
was very small and does not materially affect comparison of the two
censuses.
Overcrowding.

The increase in the number of families is almost entirely confined to tenements
of 1-4 rooms, the families occupying this class of tenement having increased by
130,831 or 18 per cent. The decrease in the number of persons living in tenements
occupied by more than two per room between 1911 and 1921 amounted to 74,940:
during the same period the number of children under 10 years of age fell by 125,158,
and it is to the decrease in the child population that the decline in the proportion
of the population living more than two per room is, apart from war losses,
mostly due.