Crowding in many London districts was almost unimaginable. In St. Giles, the worst of London's rookeries-scene of William Hogarth's famous engraving Gin Lane-fifty-four thousand people crowded into just a few streets. By one count, eleven hundred people lived in twenty-seven houses along one alley; that is more than forty people per dwelling. In Spitalfields, farther east, inspectors found sixty-three people living in a single house. The house had nine beds-one for every seven occupants. A new word, of unknown provenance, sprang into being to describe such neighborhoods: slums.
( Bill Bryson )
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