"No. 37 is occupied by 33 people living in six rooms; on the second floor the two rooms are tenanted by two families, respectively five and seven, and the third floor by two families of six each."
No. 41 was very similar. "These two houses may be taken as a type of the condition of the houses in Bedfordbury."
"Off this street were various Courts, one of them of six three-roomed houses; its width three feet five. Another Court--seven houses, 20 rooms in all--population 71. All of them apparently as bad, or worse, than those in the street--miserable hovels, the birthplace of disease and vice, and centres for infectious diseases, which are likely to spread through the whole community."
The births and deaths were almost equivalent. In 1872, there were 92 births and 95 deaths. In 1873, there were 108 births and 108 deaths.
"In 1874, there were 95 deaths and only 82 births. The deaths are exclusive of those people who have been removed from the neighbourhood and gone elsewhere to die, either in the hospital or the workhouse, where a great many people at the present time do go to die."
"Here legions of crimes and legions of vices unite, fostering diseases of body, weakened intellect, and utter destruction of the soul; leading inevitably to a career of wickedness and sin."
Confirmatory of the Medical Officer of Health's description, was that given in a memorial to the Metropolitan Board by 118 persons: "The Clergy, Medical Men, Bankers, Residents, Professional men, and Traders of the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in support of a scheme of improvement."
"Bedfordbury, with its swarming, ill-built, badly ventilated, rotten, inappropriate, unsavoury tenements, has seemed to us a very forcing pit of immorality."
"In it there are 797 people living on one acre of land."
"There is a very large number of interests to be paid for. There is first the freeholder; then there is the first lessee; then there are numbers of under-lessees, and all the trades of those little shops, and they ought all to get something."
And another area was the "Great Wild Street Scheme," in the parish of St. Giles'-in-the-Fields.[136]
"This area has long been a hot-bed of disease. It contains about 5-1/2 acres, and 227 houses stand upon it inhabited by 3,897 persons.