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This has necessarily led the occupants of these dwellings to seek
housing accommodation elsewhere, which I have reason to believe
many obtained in Hackney. It is necessarily a matter of speculation
to what extent demolition under these schemes aggravated the
housing tension of Hackney, but it is not insignificant on this
account.
CLASS OF POPULATION OVERCROWDED.
Mr. Chas. Booth, in his monumental work on the "Life and
Labour of the People (East London)," has divided the population into
the following classes :—
(a) The lowest class of occasional labourers, loafers, and semi.
criminals.
(b) Casual earners—"very poor."
(c) Intermittent earnings, ) „
. r together—" the poor.
(d) Small regular earnings, )
(e) Regular standard earnings—above the line of poverty.
(f) Higher class labour.
(g) Lower Middle class.
(h) Upper Middle class.
Mr. Booth applies the term "poor" to those who " have a
sufficiently regular though bare income, such as 18/. to 21/. per week
for a moderate family, and "very poor" to "those who from any
cause fall much below this standard." This was written in 1889,
but I am inclined at the present time to extend the term " poor "to
include those receiving, say, from 20/. to 25/. per week if a family is
dependent upon this income ; and my reason for this extension lies in
the fact of the rise in house rent, and in the price of other necessaries
of life, since the date quoted.
In Mr. Booth's enquiries the above classes were found to exist in
Hackney in the proportions of the annexed table, the population
having been estimated at 189,000 persons. This table gives an
analysis of 142,864 persons, the difference between this and the
former number being the persons unscheduled and in institutions.