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6
The Urban District Council of Barnes is in the greater part of its
extent riverain, flat, low-lying, with an alluvial soil, and a gravelly
subsoil of varying depth based upon the London Clay. The
most southerly portions are the most elevated, and in them the
clay, as a rule, is nearer to the surface.
The incidence of disease is, in general terms, similar to
that met with throughout the Thames Valley.
The geographical position of the district is peculiar and
not unimportant, for its component parishes, Barnes and
Mortlake, are separated on the north and east by a long stretch of
river, and on the south by a broad belt of wood and common land,
from neighbouring suburbs. The greater part of Barnes proper
is cut off from Putney on the east by Barnes Common, and
market gardens still prevent the continuity of Mortlake with
Richmond on the west. So long as this curiously insulated
position is preserved, infectious disease will be found, as at
present, to be introduced mainly from two sources:—from
London by railroad, and from Hammersmith by local communication
across Hammersmith Bridge.
At the recent census of 1901, 3,403 inhabited houses were
enumerated, and the average number of persons per house was
estimated at. 5.23. Although there is some reason to doubt the
accuracy of the population returns from the poorer localities,
it must be admitted that there is no great numerical
overcrowding. The number of houses of all grades that are
empty shews that in one sense at least house accommodation
is ample. In another sense it is not so ample, for the size
of living and bedrooms in the cheaper houses recently erected is
small, and in a sanitarian's opinion overcrowding exists
whenever one person sleeps in an inadequately ventilated room
of small size.