"The area is inhabited by about 800 people, and the death-rate is about 36 per 1,000." In another of these schemes, in one Court (Sugar Loaf Court) the death-rate was 105·2 per 1,000. The Medical Officer of Health for the Strand gave a report on the sanitary state of Bedfordbury:-- "Bedfordbury is the black spot of this parish. It and the contiguous courts are a little over three acres. Population census of 1871 = 2,163. It is a long narrow street of 47 houses with courts leading out of it on either side. Some of the courts are blind and very narrow, thus rendering light and air difficult of access. "These 47 houses are so old and dilapidated that it is quite impossible to make them fit and proper habitation for the poor to live in. * * * * * "Even this bright and sunny morning the staircases were so dark that you could not see a single stair--there was not a scrap of ventilation, and no means of getting light or air to them. "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." Of the overcrowded rooms he says:-- "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."