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38
with its accompanying vitiation of the atmosphere bears a close relation
to a high infantile mortality, but it is a common experience to
find the overcrowding more marked in three-roomed tenements than
in those of one and two rooms. At the Census, only a small percentage
of the latter were occupied by families having children, and
this fact accounts for the excessive mortality in three-roomed tenements
as compared with those containing one and two rooms.
Inquiries were directed as to the number of rooms occupied
by the family where an infant death had occurred, and of 135 deaths
inquired into it was found that
15 families occupied 1 room.
14 families occupied 2 rooms.
81 families occupied 3 rooms.
17 families occupied 4 rooms.
8 families occupied 5 or more rooms.
These figures do not represent the true relation which overcrowding
bears to infantile mortality. Fifty-eight infant deaths were not
specially inquired into, and of these the majority occurred in families
occupying more than 5 rooms. For our present purpose, it is taken
for granted that in all cases not inquired into, the family occupied
more than five rooms. With this correction, the percentages work
out as follows:—
7.8 per cent, of infant deaths occurred in one-roomed tenements.
7.3 „ „ „ two-romed tenements.
42 „ „ „ three-roomed tenements.
8.8 „ „ „ four-roomed tenements.
34.1 „ „ „ five-roomed tenements
and over.
At the census of 1901, there were 8.326 separate tenements in
the parish, and the number of rooms occupied by each family was as
follows:—
612 families occupied 1 room each.
716 families occupied 2 rooms each.
1,512 families occupied 3 rooms each.
1,277 families occupied 4 rooms each.
4.209 families occupied 5 rooms and over.
4.209 families occupied 5 rooms each and over.