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With regard to the water supplied to the houses in the district, it is exclusively
derived from the New River Company. It is less pure than the water supplied by
some companies, but is better than that of others, and is a very fair drinking water.
Though rather flat to the taste, it is infinitely preferable to the water of the surface
wells, either for drinking or economical purposes, but is not to be compared to the
chalk water. The analyses show the extreme importance of having all receptacles periodically
cleansed. I have seen large tanks in the district where actual mud has settled
to the depth of some inches. The simple remedy for this, is to empty the reservoir
once a month, and leave the tap turned, so that the incoming water may wash out the
sediment at the bottom. It is also very important that tanks for the supply of drinking
water, should, as a rule, be above ground, and be covered to keep out dirt ; if underground,
they are exposed in various ways to contamination by drainage, and they should
then always be of impermeable materials.
The sewerage of St. Giles is good, much I believe above the average of the
town. There are still some streets, and especially some mews, in which there is no
public sewer, but there is happily not that reluctance to construct new sewers in St.
Giles, which is operating against private sanitary improvements in other districts.
It is impossible to say what proportion of houses are drained directly into the
public sewers ; every week the sanitary inspector discovers cesspools in the houses he
visits, and upwards of 120 have been abolished since January, 1856, by the instructions
of the Board of Works. This represents, however, but a part of the whole
number that exist; and I have some grounds for believing that many houses of the
better class, into which the sanitary officers rarely enter, are as badly off in this
respect as those of poorer neighbourhoods.
Chapter II.—Social Peculiarities of St. Giles, compared with London, and with
Neighbouring Districts.
Section 1.—Density of Population.—At the census of 1851, St. Giles
contained 54,214 inhabitants : the population of London was 2,362,236, being 43 and
a half times that of St. Giles. Thus, while you have to deal with only one-300th
part of the area, you have seven-300ths of the population of the town. The inhabitants
of St. Giles form about one-seventh part of those living in the eight central
districts of the Registrar General.
From these facts only, it is evident that the district is thickly inhabited beyond
the average of London. In 1851, there were found 11.6 inhabitants per house in St.
Giles, and there were 221 persons to the acre.
The corresponding numbers for the central districts are, 9.5 and 203, and for
the town generally, 4.1 and 30. Some, however, of these central districts, as the
Strand and Holborn, have a larger number of houses to the acre than St. Giles. This
is due to the numerous open spaces of St. Giles, and not to the population being really
more sparse, for the number of persons per house is actually greater in St. Giles than
in the districts mentioned.
in the districts mentioned. As I shall have occasion to institute many comparisons
between St. Giles and the surrounding districts, I have thrown the chief facts which I
have been able to ascertain, concerning the social peculiarities of each, into a tabular
form.