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decided increase on the rate of mortality of the previous year,
especially in its relation to children under 10 years of age, the
large number of 59 having died before reaching that period of life,
against only 27 in the year 1860. This increase of mortality
amongst children was chiefly due to the fatality of scarlet fever,
croup, and other zymotic diseases, the first of which prevailed with
unusual severity in almost every district of the metropolis.
To properly estimate the mortality of the year we have to take
into consideration the number of deaths (18) that have resulted
from age, premature birth, and violence, none of which, it should
be borne in mind, come strictly within the category of morbific
causes. If, then, these deaths are deducted from the general total
in the above table, the actual mortality from disease alone will
be 107.
The reception of strangers from all parts of the kingdom into
the Royal Hospital for Incurables—of such, indeed, as enter the
parish only to linger awhile and die—also tends to unduly swell the
mortality returns of the local registrar; but there is reason to
believe that the deaths which took place in this institution during
1861, and which were seven in number, are as nearly as possible
balanced by the deaths of inhabitants registered during the same
period out of the sub-district, viz., in the Union Workhouse and in
the London hospitals. If, however, the whole 124 deaths are
admitted into the calculation, there is the satisfaction of knowing
that the average mortality of the past ten years is still somewhat
under what is termed the "zero" of that eminent statist, Dr. Farr,
viz., 17 in every 1,000 living. Last year the estimated 10 years'
average was 16.19 per 1000 only. The death-rate of this parish
for the year under review is 1904 per 1,000 living,
which is 2.85 in excess of an average calculated last year
upon the numbers of the ten previous years, but the average will be
found to be still under 17 per 1,000 if the calculation bo
made to include the year 1860, since that year was remarkable
for its low rate of mortality. The birth-rate of the past
year was 25.95 per 1000, and the natural rate of increase
6.91 per 1,000.
In reviewing the mortality from zymotic diseases exclusively,
it may be remarked, that much as we have to deplore the unusual
number of deaths from scarlet fever, we have the gratifying fact to
place in the opposite scale, that but one case of that loathsome
disease, small pox—and that happily not a fatal one—was treated
in the parish during the entire year. This case, it should be stated,
was an unvaccinated one, and the patient a very young man
belonging to the labouring class—a circumstance that points to the
necessity of some more efficient measure being adopted than has