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14
William Harcourt, Home Secretary, at the Local Government
Board, on the question of the improvement of the
Dwellings of the Poor, urging an amendment of the law so
as to enable the local authorities to more efficiently provide
house accommodation for the Poor, and in the course of his
reply to the Deputation, Sir Charles Dilke said:—"Taking
London as a whole, that [the declining condition of the
town] is probably not the case, because in my recent visits
to various parts of London I have compared the present
state of things with the case of Mr. George Godwin, when
he wrote 'London Shadows' in 1854, and there has generally
been an improvement since that time. But in the central
portion of the town, in the districts of Clerkenwell, St.
Luke's, Holborn, and Bermondsey, the contrary is the case,
and the state of things is now probably worse than it has
ever been before."
To this the Medical Officer replied as follows :—
To the Vestry of St. James and St. John, Clerkenwell.
Gentlemen,
I noticed in the issue of the Times for January 20th the
report of a speech made by Sir Charles Dilke, in which the Parish of
Clerkenwell is denounced us one of the retrograde Metropolitan
Parishes. I beg to remark that if this statement is intended to apply
to the sanitary condition of the Parish it is not founded upon fact. In
1878 I reported that the mortality was lower than it had ever been
since the establishment of the Vestry. In subsequent years it fell
still lower, and I have now to report that the mortality of the past
year has been again less than in any previous year, amounting to only
18 per 1000, and this notwithstanding an increase of population;
while the mortality of all London is 21, that of the North district 19,
the West district 19, the South 20, the Central 23, and the East
districts 25.
At the same time, it must be recollected that for some years past
many of the well-to-do residents of the Parish have been gradually
leaving their houses, which become occupied by a poorer class of
people, many of the houses being formerly held by one family, being
now let to several. When these poorer people, especially the labourers,
enter a house, at once begins a course of dirt and destruction. The
locks and handles of doors become toys for the children, and are soon
demolished. The drain traps are soid at the bone and bottle shops