Booth took an industrial census of East London. This district, which comprises Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Hackney, contains a population of 908,000; that is to say, less than one-fourth of the population of London. How do his statistics work out? If we estimate the number of the poorest class in the rest of London as being twice as numerous as those in the Eastern District, instead of being thrice as numerous, as they would be if they were calculated according to the population in the same proportion, the following is the result: PAUPERS Inmates of Workhouses, Asylums, and Hospitals .. .. .. 17,000 34,000 51,000 HOMELESS Loafers, Casuals, and some Criminals .. .. 11,000 22,000 33,000 STARVING Casual earnings between 18s. per week and chronic want 100,000 200,000 300,000 THE VERY POOR. Intermittent earnings 18s. to 21s. per week .. .. 74,000 148,000 222,000 Small regular earnings 18s.to 21s. per week .. .. 129,000 258,000 387,000 ------- ------- ------- 331,000 662,000 993,000 Regular wages, artizans, etc., 22s. to 30s. per week .. .. 337,000 Higher class labour, 30s. to 50s. per week .. .. 121,000 Lower middle class, shopkeepers, clerks, etc. .. 34,000 Upper middle class (servant keepers) .. .. .. 45,000 ------- 908,000 It may be admitted that East London affords an exceptionally bad district from which to generalise for the rest of the country. Wages are higher in London than elsewhere, but so is rent, and the number of the homeless and starving is greater in the human warren at the East End. There are 31 millions of people in Great Britain, exclusive of Ireland. If destitution existed everywhere in East London proportions, there would be 31 times as many homeless and starving people as there are in the district round Bethnal Green. But let us suppose that the East London rate is double the average for the rest of the country. That would bring out the following figures: HOUSELESS East London. United Kingdom. Loafers, Casuals, and some Criminals 11,000 165,500 STARVING Casual earnings or chronic want .. 100,000 1,550,000 Total Houseless and Starving .. 111,000 1,715,500 In Workhouses, Asylums, &c. .. 17,000 190,000 -------- ---------- 128,000 1,905,500