SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



MIDDLESEX EXPENDITURE ON POOR IM 



Arerige per Head 

 Expended on Poor of Population 



' d. 



1 80 1 . 349,200 8 6 



502,900 10 6 



582,000 IO 2 



681,500 10 o 



. . 476,200 6 o 



1811 . 

 1821 . 

 1831 . 

 1841 . 



The general history of the county during the latter half of the nine- 

 teenth century is simply the record of the suburban expansion of London, 

 effacing all local distinctions and characteristics under an undistinguished 

 chaos of villas and streets. The ' huge and growing wen,' which so 

 powerfully impressed the imagination of Cobbett, has almost absorbed 

 the entire county, so that it appears at the present day, not as it did to 

 Middleton, as ' the demesne of the Metropolis,' but almost as a part of 

 that Metropolis itself. 



161 From Porter's Progress of the Nation, 1851, p. 96. 



tOI 



