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most unsatisfactory areas in the country so far as housing conditions
are concerned. As measured by the conventional "more than two
persons per room" index, the overcrowded element is at its maximum
in Finsbury, where 29.4 per cent. of the population fall within the
category. But the proportion has been reduced thereto from the
materially higher figure of 34.0 per cent. registered ten years ago. The
proportion is only slightly less in Shoreditch (29.1 per cent.), after
which come Bethnal Green and Stepney (23.6 per cent. each),
Bermondsey (21.8 per cent.), Southwark (21.6 per cent.), and Poplar
(20.1 per cent.). Kensington, owing to the presence of its notorious
Golborne Ward, ranks as the twelfth worst or the eighteenth best in
the series with 12.6 per cent. overcrowded; and at the favourable
end of the range come Hampstead and Lewisham (4.1 per cent. each),
Wandsworth (5.2 per cent.), the City (5.6 per cent.) and Woolwich
(5.7 per cent.).
INDUSTRIAL FEATURES.
As industrial features begin to assume prominence the populations
become younger, and the proportion of males increases, features
which are at their maximum effect in Bermondsey, Bethnal Green,
Deptford, Finsbury, Greenwich, Poplar, Shoreditch, Southwark and
Stepney. There the male population approaches the female in numbers,
and a high proportion of children and an under average proportion of
adults at ages over 40 renders the populations distinctly younger than
in other parts of the county.
The City of London and, to a lesser extent, Holborn, stand rather
apart from the other Boroughs owing to the general unsuitability of
their dwellings for private family occupation. The proportion of males
is above the average—there being an actual excess in the City itself;
there are few young children and the populations are above the normal
as regards average age. But, notwithstanding, the married are fewer
rather than higher, proportionately, than those of other Boroughs or
of the county as a whole.