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9
In the Whitechapel district, the number of houses does not increase with the
increase of population. In 1841, the population of the Whitechapel district, exclu
sive of those living on board of ship in the Docks, and the garrison in the Tower,
was 71,765 who were living in 8834 houses, giving a population of 8.1 to a house.
Ill 1851, the population had increased to 79,759, and the inhabited houses numbered
8,775, which gives rather more than 9 to each house ; and in 1856, the total number
of houses (as taken from the rate-books in the several parishes in the district,
including those uninhabited with the inhabited, allowing for a few errors) was 8934,
which at the estimated population of 84,000, is at the rate of 9.4 to each house. But
as the houses occupied by the more wealthy classes have not become more crowded,
it is manifest, that the excess of the population is located in the poorer districts.
Such being the case, it behoves all of us to exert ourselves to the utmost to remedy,
as far as practicable, the sanitary evils which surround the poorer localities in this
district, for we shall find that if the abodes of the poor are improved, we shall have
less sickness, less widowhood and orphanage to provide for, the working classes
would lose less time, which, to them, is money, and the happiness and comfort of all
greatly promoted.
From Table 17, in the appendix, it will be seen that the average age at death
of males above 20 in the Whiteehapel district, is 50.2 years, while in more
healthy districts, the average age at death of males above 20, is about 60 years;
of, in other words, a man aged 20, may expect to live 40 years; whereas in the
most healthy sub-district in Whiteehapel, for this class of persons, the expectation
of life is only 33'6 years, and in the most unhealthy 24.5.
The progressive improvement of the value of life in the Whiteehapel district
from the year 1837, will be seen on referring to Table No. 16. In the years 1837
and 1838, the rate of mortality was 4.5 percent., whereas in 1857, it was reduced
to 2.4 percent., or nearly one half. In London, during the 16th century, the
mortality was 5 percent., or 50 out of every 1000 living.
I have to draw the attention of the Board to a nuisance of considerable magnitude,
which is observed in several of the principal thoroughfares in the district.
I allude to the steam which is almost constantly escaping, in a greater or less degree,
from the ventilating shafts of the sewers. This nuisance is not only of a dangerous
character to the health of those persons who reside in the immediate vicinity of these
gratings, by the fetid gases of the sewers becoming diffused with the hot steam, but
immediate danger to life, or injury to the person, is to be dreaded by those who travel
in two-wheel vehicles, in consequence of the horse taking fright and upsetting the
carriage. Accidents have occurred, and in proportion to the increase of the ventilating
gratings, so will the number of accidents become more numerous. The attention
of the manufacturers who let off, at different times, large quantities of hot water,
should be drawn to this subject, and they might probably be able to adopt some
means to obviate this dangerous nuisance.
I have also to direct attention to the nuisance arising from the escape of large
volumes of dense smoke from the chimnies of several factories in the district, and as