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15
Comparing the different Wards, the average number of persons
per acre at the Census varies from 13.6 in Hale End to 51.3 in St.
James' Street, and 67.3 in Hoe Street, with an average for the whole
area of 29.8 This compares with 1.5 for the County. The numbers
on the previous Table refer to the Wards as actually built upon.
The average density is not an index as to overcrowding as may be
seen from column 9. Hoe Street, with a population of 75 per acre,
has a greater room capacity per unit of its population than Hale
End with 59 persons per acre.
Of the six Wards the housing and general conditions favourable
to health are best in Hoe Street and Hale End Wards. The greater
portion of the unbuilt on land lies in the Higham Hill and Hale
End Wards or the Northern part of the District. All the other
Wards are built over and an amount of cheap, badly kept property,
is to be found in all the Wards.
Around or in close proximity to the Wood Street and St. James'
Street railway stations are mean streets, peopled largely by the
casual or unskilled type of worker.
Many of these tenants appear to have no interest in the houses
they occupy nor exhibit a desirable civic or domestic pride and are
largely to blame for the unwholesome conditions requiring the
constant supervision of the Sanitary Inspectors. In very many
instances the landlords are no less guilty by failing to expend on
their property even the proportion of rent exempted from taxation.
As a consequence there are hundreds of houses on or in which not
a pound of paint or a yard of paper has been used for the past twelve
years.
The Inland Revenue Authorities should insist that either this
money is spent on the property or it pays its proportion of taxation.
According to.the Census for the County of Essex for 1921 it appears
Walthamstow is, in population, the third largest District in the
County.
The increase of population over that in 1911 was 4,815 persons,
equal to 3.9 per cent, compared with 8.8. for the County as a whole.
Leyton excepted, our intercensal increase was less than that of
any of the other large areas in the County.
Between 1911 and 1921 our natural increase of population—
that is excess of births over deaths—was actually 14,630, showing