Thursday, July 20, 2017

The Greatest City in the Capitalist World (1937)

From the March 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

What it is to be a Worker in London
The following is taken from a review of “Metropolitan Man," by Robert Sinclair (Allen & Unwin, 10s. 6d.). The review is by Francis lles and was published in the Daily Telegraph on February 18th, 1937.
   It is a startling book, but for every startling statement official authority is given. . . . One in every three Londoners dies in a workhouse or a rate-aided hospital. The proportion of tuberculous milk is still as great as a quarter of a century ago. Five out of six London children are not adequately nourished; one in seven is verminous. Consumption deaths among young London women have increased by a quarter in 20 years. Some Londoners are certified every year as dying of starvation. The rapidly increasing rate of suicide—in every group of 13 dwellings in inner London there is someone who will kill himself.

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