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96.
Council alone cannot solve the overcrowding problem.
Factories are being built outside the London area and
many families will probably have to migrate to other
places where there is more space to secure sufficient and
suitable dwellings.
The main difficulty in dealing with overcrowding
is the poverty of the class who suffer most acutely from
this disability. Overcrowding seriously affects the health
and is also liable to affect the morals of the community.
When overcrowding exists and even in many cases where
the shortage of accommodation does not amount to
actual overcrowding, it is impossible to secure separate
bedrooms for members of the two sexes. It is very
difficult for young people under such conditions to keep
themselves clean and to acquire decent habits. Skin
diseases such as impetigo and other forms of eczema as
well as verminous conditions often result. The health
of infants and young children is especially liable to
suffer, and tuberculosis and infectious diseases such as
diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough
spread more rapidly, often leaving chronic ill-health in
their train. The administrative measures and the
hospital treatment of these diseases cost the rate-payer
an immense amount of money. Other evil effects of
overcrowding and drab and cheerless home conditions
are social discontent, industrial strife, incapacity for
work and inefficiency.
Most of these people would be quite normal and
healthy if they were living under good conditions but
a small proportion of them are mentally or physically
incapable of earning a living wage. In connection with
tehese questions the practical application of eugenics
(which deals with influences that improve the native
qualities of a race) is deserving of special attention.
A type of overcrowding which is very general in
Fulham is that in which houses were originally built
for one family but are occupied by two or more. Lists
of many streets are recorded in the Public Health
Department where houses only suitable for one family