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53
They must, therefore, have gone to the surrounding
parishes, to have increased the overcrowding there,
or have been expelled to suburban districts, where
it would have been impossible for them to carry on
their occupations. It is in this way, that I believe
a large amount of pauperism has been caused in
London, by persons being driven from the locality
in which they were capable of earning a maintenance,
to districts where they have no means of
employment. It seems then to me, that till the
time comes when it shall be seen necessary to erect
proper dwellings for the poor in this, and other
parishes of London, that we must submit to overcrowding
with all its physical degradation and
moral pollution as a lesser evil, than driving men
women, and children into the streets and to places
far away from their work, and the exercise of that
industry by which alone they can be kept from
destitution and pauperism,
I see no remedy for this state of things, but the
erection of dwelling places adapted for the working
classes to live in, in the districts where their labor
is required. Such places have been erected to a
limited extent in our Parish, and have succeded,
but it should be recollected that to render the
population of the Parish of St. James, Westminster,
as healthy as it might be, and as it ought to