Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

—
i6
REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
468*7 acres and have a population of 73,309 souls. This gives a density of 99,840
persons per square mile, or nearly double that of Liverpool (the most crowded
town of the United Kingdom) as a whole. It is not for a moment to be supposed
that there are not areas of an equal if not of larger size in Europe and America
which are more thickly peopled than this portion of the city, but it must be borne
in mind that climate, sanitation and the prevailing type of architecture are all points
that have to be taken into consideration. A density of 1 00,000 souls per square mile
would be nothing alarming in an area covered with trans-Atiantic " sky-scrapers," but
where the distribution strata are on the whole less than three in number, matters
assume a different complexion. As it is the figures given are quite sufficient to show
that any substantial increase in the density of the population of these particular
quarters of Rangoon would be a standing menace to the health of the community.
This fact has already been recognized by the muni-
Measures taken to obviate conc
;pa i
authorities, who, with a view mainly to minimizing
the danger from fire, but with an eye, no doubt, also to
the obviation of further congestion, have prescribed special building rules for the area
above referred to, the exact boundaries of which are given in the schedule to the
Local Government's Municipal and Local Department Notification No. 182, dated
the 31st October 1899. Expansion outwards is practically impossible within the
narrow limits, and such further building as is undertaken will have in the future to
be for the most part upwards, i.e., will have to take the form of additional storeys,
and the Municipal Committee have taken power to cope with this form of expansion
by regulating the number of storeys in houses built within the scheduled area.
No
building is allowed to have more than four storeys or be more than seventy feet
high ; no building abutting on a street less than fifty feet wide may have more
than two storeys without special sanction from the Committee ; the minimum
height of the roof above the uppermost floor has been prescribed. The operation
of these rules ought certainly to be beneficial. If it were merely a question of the
better housing of the existing population on the existing area, there would be every
reason for encouraging the erection of many-storeyed houses, but it would be useless
to expect that the provision of additional accommodation would not mean an
influx from less congested, but more unpopular, quarters and a further increase in
density.
28. The total number of houses within the scheduled area is 1 2,000, so that the
Average nmnber of inhabitants * V **& nUmber of P^SOUS inhabiting each house is
per house in the scheduled area. ° - l. for census purposes the tenement was regarded
as a house and numbered accordingly. Rule
4 of a special manual for Charge Superintendents and Supervisors, based on the
provincial manual, which was issued by the Municipal authorities before the preliminary
enumeration, runs as follows :
" A house in this manual means any house or apartment to which a census number is
given. A cooly-barrack having twenty separate apartments will probably have twenty
census numbers and forms twenty census houses."
From the President's report it would seem that during the operation of housenumbering
the tendency of the Rangoon census officers was, if anything, in the
direction of over minute subdivision, so that often " house " must have meant
nothing more than " apartment." This being so, there can hardly be any question
that the census house in the city was often of exceedingly restricted dimensions
and that its average capacity was in all probability frequently far below the
provincial mean. If this assumption is correct the average of inhabitants per
house in Rangoon cannot be regarded as in any way low.
29. It is in cooly-barracks of the kind alluded to in the rule quoted above
Registered buildings.
that
.
the temptation to overcrowd is greatest. Here
a g air > the Municipal Committee have not been slow
to recognize that a danger exists and have taken certain steps to meet it.
Their rules for the registration of registered buildings are specially designed
to give the authorities responsible for the health of the town full control of all
those collections of tenements in which numbers of the poorest classes of natives
live herded together, often amid the most insanitary conditions of life. They provide
titter aha thai, in registered buildings each lodger shall have not less than 24