| DR | MF | ||
| Hampstead | 14·2 | 657 | |
| Lewisham | } | 15·7 | 727 |
| Plumstead | } | ||
| Wandsworth | 16·8 | 778 | |
| Hackney | 18·1 | 838 | |
| England and Wales | 19·0 | 880 | |
| Paddington | } | 19·3 | 894 |
| St. George's, Hanover Square | } | ||
| Battersea | } | 19·4 | 898 |
| Kensington | } | ||
| Greenwich | 19·7 | 912 | |
| Camberwell | 19·9 | 921 | |
| Islington | 20·1 | 931 | |
| St. James's, W. | 20·2 | 935 | |
| Lambeth | 20·7 | 958 | |
| Hammersmith | 20·8 | 963 | |
| Fulham | 20·9 | 968 | |
| London (entire) | 21·6 | 1000 | |
| Chelsea | 22·0 | 1019 | |
| Rotherhithe | 22·2 | 1028 | |
| Woolwich | 22·8 | 1056 | |
| Poplar | 23·2 | 1074 | |
| St. Marylebone | 23·4 | 1083 | |
| St. Pancras | 23·5 | 1088 | |
| Mile End | 23·8 | 1102 | |
| Shoreditch | 23·9 | 1106 | |
| Bethnal Green | 24·1 | 1115 | |
| Bermondsey | 24·3 | 1125 | |
| City of London | 25·3 | 1171 | |
| Newington | 25·5 | 1181 | |
| St. Giles | 26·2 | 1213 | |
| Westminster | 26·6 | 1231 | |
| St. Saviour, Southwark | 26·7 | 1236 | |
| Whitechapel | 26·8 | 1241 | |
| Clerkenwell | } | 27·5 | 1273 |
| St. George's, Southwark | } | ||
| Limehouse | 27·8 | 1287 | |
| St. Martin's in the Fields | 27·9 | 1292 | |
| St. Olave's | 28·1 | 1301 | |
| St. Luke's | 28·2 | 1306 | |
| St. George's East | 28·8 | 1333 | |
| Holborn | 29·7 | 1375 | |
| Strand | 33·4 | 1546 |
Fig. [36] represents part of the Asylums Board Map, in which each case of notified small-pox is shown by a black dot. This map shows that the outbreak was limited to two spots, one in Portland Town and one round Nightingale Street, Edgware Road, where the density of population, according to Mr. Charles Booth, is over 300 persons to the acre.
Fig. 36.
Other maps published by the Asylums Board show that whereas the air-borne contagium, diphtheria, was confined more or less to the crowded districts, enteric fever, which is a water-borne contagium, was evenly spread over the whole parish. It need hardly be said that the enforcement of vaccination, notification, and isolation, is important in proportion to the density of population. The working of the sanitary laws is a great expense to the ratepayers. I find it stated, for instance, in the report of the Asylums Board, that for the removal of the 260 small-pox patients from Marylebone the ambulances travelled nearly twenty miles for each patient, and collectively 5,200 miles, or about the distance from here to Bombay. Overcrowding is not cheap, and I find, by a reference to the report of St. Marylebone, that whereas in 1871 that parish, of about 1,500 acres, and with a diminishing population, could be 'run' for about 660l. a day, it now costs about 1,100l. per day. It is right to add that the parish has no control over a great part of the expenditure, but, nevertheless, 440l. per diem is a fair sum to place upon the shrine of progressive municipalism.
If infectious disease occurs in our houses we have only to notify, and the parish does the rest. We have put a premium on fever, and the lucky man whose house is visited by a mild scarlatina is rewarded by having his family maintained for six weeks at the public expense, and his whitewashing done by the parish. If, on the return of a child from the hospital, another child catches the disease, he can recover damages.
The Asylums Board is probably the most pauperising institution ever conceived, but we are such cowards in the presence of disease that financial and moral considerations have but little weight, provided the unclean be removed.
Another great drawback to the water-carriage system of sewage is the increasing difficulty with regard to water supply. Our needs per head per diem in the matter of water have gradually increased to something like forty gallons, which many experts consider to be none too much. In London the air is so foul that rain-water is valueless for domestic use, and the water of the surface wells is too poisonous to drink, because we have neglected what I believe to be the most important of the principles of sanitation, viz. the keeping of organic refuse, whether solid or liquid, on the surface. The humus is the most perfect purifier and the best of filters, in virtue of its physical conditions and the life that is in it. We deliberately take our filth to the under side of the filter, and then complain because our surface wells are foul. The water companies are masters of the situation. Water is not paid for, as a rule, in proportion to the quantity used, because Parliament in its wisdom has decided that thriftiness in the use of water is wicked. The grossly overburdened ratepayer is now pricking up his ears to listen to the prattle about Welsh water schemes at the cost of 38,000,000l., and is congratulating himself that he is only a leaseholder, and that his bondage is terminable in seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years at most. Water carriage, in which the carrier is some sixty times more heavy and twenty times more bulky than the thing to be carried, is economically ridiculous (except in places where Nature has provided enormous quantities of water), and involves everyplace where it is tried in ruinous debt. Let us take an illustration.