Science in Public Affairs 



total income of the family. We believe that this 

 total was under-estimated by Mr. Booth in London 

 and by Mr. Rowntree in York, and we do not 

 think that dietetic science is yet far enough 

 advanced to justify Mr. Rowntree's estimate of 

 the minimum cost of living ; but we must not 

 be supposed for a moment to depreciate the 

 enormous value of the work of these two in- 

 quirers, and it is only from their own high 

 standard that we can presume to criticise them. 



URBANISATION AND ITS RESULTS 



In fifty years the urban population has risen 

 from 50 per cent, to 77 per cent, of the whole, 

 but it must be remembered that towns have now 

 a death-rate lower than that of rural districts fifty 

 years ago, and " that a large portion of the urban 

 population is living under conditions as healthy 

 as any that obtain in rural districts, and, indeed, 

 enjoys superior advantages owing to the greater 

 completeness of sanitary legislation for such areas, 

 and the higher conception of duty that governs 

 their administration." It is, however, the slum 

 population to which we must attend, and here 

 we find overcrowding with its attendant evils of 

 uncleanliness, foul air, and bad sanitation. 



Readers of this book require no statistics to 

 prove the evils of overcrowding. Let it suffice 

 that in 1903 in Finsbury the death-rate in one- 

 roomed tenements was 38.9 per 1000 ; in tene- 

 ments of four or more rooms -only 5.6 per 1000. 



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