View report page

20
It is a curious fact that more than one-third of
the workmen have wives older than themselves.
Pauperism in the Parish.
The valuable returns issued by the Board of
Guardians in October, 1870, and in January, 1872,
enable me to study more closely the condition of
people living in the various streets and districts,
and the relation in which they stand towards
pauperism and destitution. It is scarcely necessary
to show how essential it is in any investigation
concerning public health and sanitary work, to
observe the close connexion between sickness, a
high death rate, widowhood, pauperism.
In newly built parts of this Parish there are
congregated into a comparatively small space a
population without any open places for recreation
sufficiently near to be practically available
for mothers with young children to get fresh air.
A sickly tenant-house population is now threatening
to inundate some of these streets, the overcrowding
invites disease, and a class of destitute
persons become a costly burden, which, I venture
to remark, must be checked, if possible, by the
timely interference of local authority. The rapid increase
of population without corresponding means of
securing to young and growing offspring an enlarged
area for breathing space, and salubrious domestic
accommodation so essential to health, brings about a
high death rate, and manifest itself in a sickly and
puny race of people, in which the seeds of debilty