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1 estimate the population, which at the census of 1901 was
17,821, to have been at Midsummer, 1908, 28,500.
This estimate is arrived at by a computation of the number of
inhabited houses (see table, page 48) checked by careful consideration
of various factors.
It probably underestimates the actual number of persons
resident at Midsummer last, but still there is no doubt that the
average number of persons per house tends to fall. The population
of Mortlake is, undoubtedly, now considerably greater than
that of Barnes proper, and the population of one, if not two of
the Barnes Wards, has lately actually diminished.
Building operations are less active than a year or two ago, in
part, no doubt, because of general economic conditions, but in part,
no doubt, because the general population is increasing less rapidly
than formerly, and the two distinct social currents around London,
one centripetal, the other centrifugal, are tending to deplete, or at
any rate to check the repletion, of the suburbs immediately outside
the Metropolis. Although, as has been said, building operations
are in this district less active than was the case a few years
ago, there is a certain number of empty houses, and the inevitable
process of "house degradation" has, in one or two portions of the
district, set in.
Houses which a few years ago, when first erected, were let at
moderate yearly rentals to clerks, agents, and so forth, are nowlet
to two or more families of mechanics, labourers, and others.
Under these circumstances some difficulty arises as to closet
accommodation at times, but this is being gradually overcome. It
may be at once said that there is very little (if any) actual overcrowding
in the district, and the practical difficulties of the Sanitary