Here is a typical example of a room on the more respectable two-relay system.It is occupied in the daytime by a young woman employed all night in a hotel.At seven o'clock in the evening she vacates the room, and a bricklayer's laborer comes in.At seven in the morning he vacates, and goes to his work, at which time she returns from hers.
The Rev.W.N.Davies, rector of Spitalfields, took a census of some of the alleys in his parish.He says:
In one alley there are 10 houses- 51 rooms, nearly all about 8feet by 9 feet- and 254 people.In six instances only do 2 people occupy one room; and in others the number varied from 3 to 9.In another court with 6 houses and 22 rooms were 84 people- again, 6, 7, 8, and 9 being the number living in one room, in several instances.
In one house with 8 rooms are 45 people- one room containing 9persons, one 8, two 7, and another 6.
This Ghetto crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion.
Nearly fifty per cent of the workers pay from one-fourth to one-half of their earnings for rent.The average rent in the larger part of the East End is from $1.00 to $1.50 per week for one room, while skilled mechanics, earning $8.75 per week, are forced to part with $3.75 of it for two or three pokey little dens, in which they strive desperately to obtain some semblance of home life.And rents are going up all the time.In one street in Stepney the increase in only two years has been from $3.25 to $4.50; in another street from $2.75 to $4;and in another street, from $2.75 to $3.75; while in Whitechapel, two-room houses that recently rented for $2.50 are now costing $5.25.East, west, north, and south, the rents are going up.When land is worth from $100,000 to $150,000 an acre, some one must pay the landlord.
Mr.W.C.Steadman, in the House of Commons, in a speech concerning his constituency in Stepney, related the following: