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DEATHS FROM VIOLENCE.
One hundred and four deaths, including 32 under five years of age, and 23 under one year,
were caused by violence ; 82 belong to the Town sub-district, 22 to Brompton.
Accident or Negligence occasioned 79 deaths: 68 in the Town sub-district, 11 in Brompton;
32 of them under five years of age, and 23 under one year. Fractures and Contusions were responsible
for 44 deaths, Burn, Scald for 6, and Suffocation for 23—of which 20 were of infants under one year.
Suicide accounted for 25 deaths, 14 and 11 in the Town and Brompton sub-districts
respectively; viz., from Gun Shot Wounds 2, Cut, Stab 3, Poison 8, Drowning 2, Flanging 5, "Otherwise
" 5.
Ill-defined and Not specified Causes of death were returned in 55 cases, 52 in the Town subdistrict
and 3 in Brompton: 51 were certified due to Debility, Atrophy, Inanition, all of them of
infants under one year.
DEATHS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The only large public institution in which we are directly interested is the borough infirmary
and workhouse, situated in the Town sub-district. There are several minor public or quasi-public
institutions, but, with one exception, they do not furnish occasion for special remark. The excepted
institution is St. Joseph's House, Portobello Road, Notting Hill—a Roman Catholic Home foraged
poor persons of both sexes, brought from various parts, largely from Ireland—but this is not classed
by the Registrar-General as a public institution. The deaths of non-parishioners at the Marylebone
Infirmary, Notting Hill (526), at the Brompton Consumption Hospital (77), and at
St. Joseph's House (16) are excluded from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for a few remarks
later on. The deaths of parishioners at the Infirmary and Workhouse (460), at the Consumption
Hospital (2), at St. Marylebone Infirmary (5), at St. Joseph's House (3), and at outlying
institutions, etc. (318), were 788, or 32·1 per cent. on total deaths; the percentage proportion of
deaths in public institutions in the Metropolis generally being 35·4; viz., 18·3 in workhouses and
workhouse infirmaries; 1·6 in Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals; 12·4 in other hospitals,
and 3·1 in public lunatic and imbecile asylums. The Registrar-General in his Annual Summary
states that "about one in every five deaths occurred in a workhouse or workhouse infirmary, one in
every 63 in a Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital, one in every 8 in some other hospital, and one
in every 33 in a public lunatic or imbecile asylum." The increase in the number of deaths in public
institutions has been great and continuous for many years.
The Borough Infirmary and Workhouse.— I am indebted to Dr. H. Percy Potter, the
medical superintendent, for the statistics of mortality at these important institutions. The deaths,
the causes of which are set out in the table below, were 460, compared with 476, 497 and 528, in the
three preceding years respectively, and were equal to 18·7 per cent., not far short of one-fifth of all
the deaths recorded in the borough. The quarterly numbers were 149, 94, 114 and 103; 252
deaths, therefore, occurred in the first and fourth or colder quarters, and 208 in the second and
third or warmer quarters of the year. The deaths included 232 of males and 228 of females. The
ages at death were:—Under one year, 65 (compared with 58, 66 and 61, in the three preceding
years respectively); between one and sixty, 218 (compared with 213, 234 and 254, in the three
preceding years), and at sixty and upwards 177 (compared with 205, 197 and 213, in the three
preceding vears).