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19
Taking the present average of 9.3 persons in each house, there
must now be 2560 more inhabitants in the same number of houses,
than in 1851.
The death-rate for the entire district was 2.2 per cent of the
population. For the separate sub-districts, the comparative rate in
the preceding year was as follows: St. James's, 2.4; Amwell, 1.8;
Pentonville, 2.0; and Goswell, 1.9.
Having shown that the number of Inhabitants in the District
has increased in the last ten years by 903 only, it might appear that
my previous remarks upon the existence of overcrowding were not
correct; they are so however, in consequence of the very unequal
distribution of the Inhabitants through the houses. Very few of the
families living in single or even two rooms, so very common an
occurrence in the District, have their 300 cubic feet of air-space for
each person, as should be the case; hence their health is in danger,
more or less according to the extent of time they are confined within
the apartments. But should any Zymotic disease make its appearance,
then comes a hard struggle for life. This may be illustrated by a
case which occurred in the year, although similar ones are common.
Five children lived with their parents in a room having only 180
cubic feet of air space each; one child taken suddenly ill, became
insensible and died. An inquest was held, as there was nothing
apparently to account for death. Shortly, however, the other four
and an adult became ill, one after the other, with malignant Scarlet
Fever. Two died, and it became evident that the first death had
arisen from the overpowering or malignant influence of the morbid
poison upon the body preventing the natural signs of the disease from
manifesting themselves ; or perhaps more truly, from the influence of
the morbid poison upon a malignant state of the body, rendered so by
living in an atmosphere loaded with impurity.
Water-supply.—I regret that I cannot announce any improvement
in the water-supply, many of the Courts have the old standpipes,
with the water turned on for half or three quarters of an hour
daily, and the underground cisterns; the Inhabitants, who cannot
possibly be clean, having to fetch the water at stated and often inconvenient
times, and to store it in their miserable dwelling rooms. It is
to be hoped that the Local Management Act Amendment may soon
pass, when this evil will be remedied.
Neither can I congratulate the Vestry upon the erection of
Baths and Wash houses ; in fact, the idea seems quite abandoned.
All who are in the habit of visiting the dwellings of the poor, must
have observed the great deficiency in accommodation for washing and
drying linen ; this being mostly effected in very small living rooms,
which are thus rendered damp and unhealthy, in addition to the
operation being very imperfectly done.
One drinking fountain has been erected by the New River
Company, at the end of Garnault Place.