p. 470 | CONDITIONS IN LONDON

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 24, 1900

CONDITIONS IN LONDON.

“In 1891 there were nine hundred thousand persons living in London whose condition amounted to illegal overcrowding as defined by act of Parliament. Since then the population of London is computed to have increased three hundred thousand, and a great part of this increase is in the overcrowded areas. Such a pitch of overcrowding has been reached. In many districts, after the legal number of occupants of a room have been stowed in or upon the beds, another equal number lie underneath the beds. Beds which used to be let on a ‘Box and Cox’ arrangement to a day and a night tenant, are now let in eight-hour shifts, three occupants getting the use of them in the twenty-four hours. One of the most appalling facts is that it is becoming more and more common for workingmen to be unable to find any kind of lodging at all, and they are actually driven to take their wives and children to the workhouse, while they themselves find shelter in a common lodging house. You may go on piling up wealth; your trade returns may expand and expand; you may add province after province to the empire, but unless this evil is cured, your empire has a canker at its heart, which will grow and grow until the whole fabric comes to the ground with a crash.”

And the New York Times says that New York City “is worse” than this extract shows London to be.