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main effect of these changes has been to make St. Marylebone, with a rateable value
of 2i millions, one of the richest and busiest of the London Boroughs; to bring down
the night population by something like 50,000 in the last 15 years or so, and to raise
the day population to probably something near half a million. Curiously enough,
the industries that have inevitably had to come to St. Marylebone, though they have
increased her prosperity, have not done much in the way of providing employment
for her residents. Apart from a few hundreds who work on the Great Central Railway,
at or about the terminus or possibly on the Metropolitan Railway, or are employed
by the Council, the bulk of the inhabitants are not engaged in St. Marylebone.
To a considerable extent, indeed, and in all its residential quarters, rich, middleclass
and poor, the Borough is a dormitory and only to a very limited extent is it
suitable for dormitory purposes. From the point of view of accessibility and
convenience, the view point of the worker, it is admirably situated. It is central :
it is on or near the main routes to anywhere. These reasons, which, of course,
inevitably have made it a business borough, tempt also to make it a residential
borough: tend to keep it to an extent both. No district, however, can satisfactorily
be both. The demands of commerce are too insistent, its pressure so great that
crowding and overcrowding result. In the case of St. Marylebone this is what has
happened and is happening, and the effects are all the more marked because, to
begin with, the Borough, besides having only a comparatively small area—14,278 acres,
exclusive of area covered by water—is absolutely hemmed in. It is this limitation
of space and the continued encroachment of business upon the area available for
housing purposes that makes the Borough, in respect of a large part, unsuitable,
as already said, for dormitory purposes.
Overcrowding on space, as a matter of fact, is very marked, especially in the
southern portion of the Borough and in the Lisson Grove area, where, in addition to
space overcrowding, there is house overcrowding as well; few of the houses being
occupied by only one family. The only area where there is not overcrowding on
space is in St. John's Wood, but even here, since leases are falling in, single houses
with gardens are becoming fewer and large blocks of flats are arising in their place.
Because of the limitation of space St. Marylebone, in relation to the housing
problem of to-day, is in a worse position than perhaps any other district. It is no
new problem, however, and because there was no space to solve it on, it never has
been solved. Unable to find space to house properly anything like the population
already within the Borough, and with claims upon them, the Council, though most
anxious and willing to help in the solution of the national problem owing to lack of
space, have been able up to the present to make no contribution. Any attempt to
deal with the local problem or to assist with the national problem can only be by way
of removing small houses and erecting "dwellings." In this way the overcrowding
will be increased, even if it is given an upward direction.
Despite the fact that a fairly considerable part of the Borough is overcrowded,
even congested, and that a considerable percentage of the population is poor, and of the
labouring rather than the working class, employed casually or engaged as costers,
rather than steadily in recognized trades, the Borough, as will be seen from what
follows, is by no means unhealthy and compares not unfavourably with other districts
in the metropolis.
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Under this heading the Ministry of Health calls for a report with regard to
such matters as Water, Drainage and Sewerage, Closet Accommodation, Scavenging,
Sanitary Inspection, Premises and Occupations controlled by By-Laws or