And he wrote:—
“We may well inquire how such gross indecency and want of self-respect can exist in this country, which is usually considered to be the centre of civilisation, and where so much money is spent in imparting religious and moral instruction to the people—yet such is the state in which many of the inhabitants of this district live, as is ascertained on a house-to-house visitation.”
And in the following year he wrote:—
“On visiting the houses in low neighbourhoods it is by no means of unfrequent occurrence to find an adult brother and sister, a father and adult daughter, a mother and adult son, occupying the same bed. What good citizenship can be expected to be manifested by a class in whom the moral feeling is so low?”
The Medical Officer of Health for St. James’, in his report (1862), wrote:—
“This close association of several families in one house is productive of immense evil; it prevents proper parental control; it encourages an association of the sexes which leads directly to one of our greatest social evils; and is one of the most fruitful causes of the spread and fatality of zymotic diseases of childhood, and lays the foundation of the scrofula and consumption which every year carry off a fifth of all who die amongst us….
“It is almost impossible, amidst the filth and stench of dirty houses and imperfect drains, that the working man’s family should be able to develop those moral and intellectual qualities which are, after all, more worth to the community than any saving of rates.”
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields, wrote (1865):—
“Rents have become so heavy that few labouring men can afford more than one room. Overcrowding in such rooms must increase, and with it the fearful results of men, women, girls, and boys, all sleeping in the same apartment. Neither religion nor morality can increase under the existing circumstances of our poorer classes. It is almost returning to the habits of our barbarous ancestors or the untutored savages of Africa and Australia.”
And the Medical Officer of Health for Holborn wrote:—