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Charles Booth’s celebrated survey of poverty in London indirectly deals with the sanitary problem caused by overcrowded housing (slums). Noting the failure of an approach towards insanitary housing which presupposed the rehousing of deserving workers and the dispersion of the undeserving following demolition, Booth signalled the risks for the standard of life which resulted from the close proximity of irregular workers with casual labourers. This proximity which was displayed in Booth’s poverty maps was caused by the immobilisation of workers around catchment areas for irregular work. In the final analysis Booth mobilised the same moralistic conceptual apparatus to deal with the problems of the labour market as that which was used by the sanitary reformers. In fact in both cases the problem was identical: the low standard of life of casual labourers.