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46
Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
It is thus seen that 126 infected tenements, occupied by 521 infected person
still remain infected. 521 new ceutres of infection, with infected persons an
clothes, continue a danger to themselves and to their fellows throughout the
Metropolis.
With a Reception House, notified cases, arriving late in the day, would b ???
immediately removed to Hospital, and the relatives invited to the Shelter.
The Shelter might, therefore, put a stop to an important channel of infectio ???
caused by the custom, very constant amongst the poor, of sympathising friends (ofte ???
accompanied by children) calling to cheer up and assist, when possible, the patient.
A summary of occupations and businesses, in which persons residing i ???
infected premises were engaged elsewhere, as well as on the premises, at the time c ???
my enquiry, would take up too much of your valuable time.
Suffice it to say, I find amongst the number:—hairdresser, box-maker, tram
car driver, carmen, brush and various hawkers, tailors, seamstresses, hotel porters
waiters, charwomen, general dealer, rag sorters, and collectors, staymaker, marke
porters, basket-binders, book-binders, hop-pickers, boot machinists, cellarman
messengers, railway policeman, brush makers, costermongers, baker, potman, an ???
aerated bread attendant, and—on the premises—a small general store, a laundry,
sweetstuff and a tailor's shops.
Were it necessary—I could also adduce instances, from my Infectious Diseas
Inquiry Note Book, where infection has been spread in tenements to as many a
five and seven in one household, which catastrophe might have been prevented ha ???
the unfortunate tenants a temporary shelter to receive them during the time that a ???
their belongirgs were being thoroughly disinfected.
The infected tenements of three rooms—mentioned in the return—are situate ???
in the large model dwellings built on the block system. These apartments ar ???
without an entrance passage, and an entry is directly made, from the landing, in to
the living room, which is also used as a sick chamber. The bedrooms approached
from the infected room, are cut off when the latter is fumigated.
Fumigation is also inpracticable in 327 houses in Inspector Edward's, and 29 ???
houses in Inspector Anscombe's districts, making a total of 626 two-roomed self
contained houses, mostly inhabited by the costermonger, hawker, and fish-curer class
In about two-thirds of these houses there is either no door—or only an apology fo ???
one—separating the two rooms—so that when sulphur is burnt in the bedroom i ???
quickly renders the single dwelling room uninhabitable.
This class may be seen in full muster—particularly on a Friday or Saturday
evening—after their daily tramp throughout London—ranged along the crowded
Long Lane, Bermondsey New Road, Tabard Street, Old Kent Road, East Street
and London Road. At this mart the "Dutch Auction" holds sway as a medium
of exchange, and cast-off garments, huddled and stored together, are brought from
insanitary and fever-stricken houses to operate disastrously, as a channel of infectio ???
and aider towards filling our workhouses and infectious hospitals.
Not only has Charles Booth—the statitician—proved that the greates ???
amount of poverty in the metropolis exists in the South of London, within the
Borough—but it is also a fact that the Parish of St. George, Southwark, is the mos ???
overcrowded sanitary area in the whole of London.
According to the population estimated to the middle of 1892, 210.6 persons
lived on every acre, and 7.9 persons was the proportion for each house.
This density of population is increased when we consider the five great
London bridges converging towards the Obelisk and the Elephant and Castleleadiug
to the vegetable, fruit, and flower-producing counties of Kent, Surrey, and
Sussex.