Page:Dwellings of working-people in London.djvu/42

 &apos;Slums' though over-crowded, a Waste of Space.

so-called 'slums' of London, though generally over-crowded, occupy vast spaces, on which the same or a larger population might be living without crowding or discomfort. The waste of space arises partly from want of arrangement, and partly from the too small height of most of the buildings—often only two stories, sometimes but one story, high. To illustrate this, I reprint, from Dr. Whitmore's Report to the Vestry of St. Marylebone on the health of the parish during March, extracts from a 'description of a number of old dilapidated tenements known as Beaumont's Buildings, situated on the south side of Linton Place, Edgware Road. These consist of twenty cottages, placed in four parallel rows; the two inner rows, being attached at their backs, have no thorough ventilation. &hellip; None of these cottages have rooms above the ground-floor; in eighteen of them there are two rooms, and in two only one room; the front-room of each two-roomed cottage has an average cubic space of about 850 feet, and the back room about 750 feet; from the floor to the ceiling the height is only 7 feet; but inasmuch as the flooring is some 6 inches below the level of the forecourt, the height of the eaves of the roof from the ground is but little more than 6 feet. These cottages are all, without exception, damp, some of them exceedingly so. Many of them are very dirty, and throughout in a state of great dilapidation; the system of patching and repairing their roofs, walls, ceilings, floors, &c., having now been going on for upwards of half a century, it will be obvious that work of this kind can by no possibility be made any longer available to the health or comfort of their occupants. &hellip; The number of families at present occupying these cottages is 17, comprising 85 persons, of whom 30 are adults and 55 children; they are all of the poorest class, and some of them in very indigent circumstances. The sanitary state of these cottages, owing to their dampness, is far worse in winter than in summer. Then rheumatism and bronchitis are very prevalent amongst the aged occupants.'

In the Lancet of May 16, 1874, the Lancet Sanitary Commission on the Dwellings of the Poor give an account of the district of Soho, selecting it as the subject of their first inquiry because it is 'the most crowded division of the metropolis.' This description applies particularly to the Berwick Street Sub-district. The report paints a terrible but doubtless faithful picture of houses in Marlborough Row, Bentinck Street, &c., and of the miserable mode of life of the men, women, and children who inhabit these portions of a city that nevertheless we call the capital of the most civilised empire of the world.