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38
1856. There is one other fact which I feel bound to mention in connection
with the subject now under notice, quite as gratifying as any to which I
have yet alluded, and that is the decreasing proportion of industrial and
labouring persons who yearly succumb to disease in this sub-district.
Some few years ago, with a view to the completion of a popular lecture on
the subject of Sanitary Reform, which I have since published and presented
to the Board of Works, I carefully analysed the register of mortality
of this parish for 1844, at which time I found the number of deaths to be
89. In the subjoined table is shown the relative proportions of the three
classes of deceased persons in the year referred to, contrasted with those
who died in 1856.
Classes.
Amongst the families of the Gentry
and Professional Men
Amongst Tradespeople
Amongst the Labouring Classes
Deaths in 1844.
11
12
66
89
Deaths in 1856.
11
25
56
92
It will be perceived by the foregoing table that, although the majority
of deaths in 1856 is still on the side of the poor, it is not by any means
so great a one as it was in 1844. In making allowances for the increase
of population in the interval between 1844 and 1856, we may, I think,
with safety assume that the industrious poor and the pauper classes have
increased to a much greater extent than have the classes above them. If
this be the case, the decrease of deaths amongst the poor, from 66 to 56,
as shown in the above table, must be looked upon as being much more
favourable to that class than at first sight appears.
If we duly estimate the amount of sickness and the rate of mortality
for 1856, amongst our pauper population exclusively, a state of things
very favourable to this parish will be made manifest. Out of 520 cases of
sickness amongst the Union poor which came under my treatment in this
parish during the year, only 22, or slightly above 4 per cent., terminated
fatally.
These statistical calculations and comments could of course be greatly
extended did space permit; but since I have in my preliminary report and
accompanying printed address, "On the Moral and Physical Evils resulting
from a Neglect of Sanitary Measures," entered at some length into
the discussion of similar topics, it will, I trust, be considered that I have
here advanced sufficient to give an affirmative to the question—Has the
health of this sub-district been improved, and its mortality in any degree
lessened, by the measures which have been carried out during the past
year, under the authority of your honourable Board? That some good
influences have been at work to produce the state of things to which I
have here referred, apart from the accidental ones of genial seasons and
seasons of general prosperity, I cannot entertain the slightest doubt.
What those influences have really been will perhaps become more apparent
as I proceed in my review of the sanitary operations and events of the
past year.