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7
It has been remarked in previous Reports that there
are disturbing circumstances which unduly exalt the
death-rates of some of the Sub-districts, by reason of their
containing a number of Public Institutions which, for the
most part, derive their inmates from without the parishes
in which they happen to be situated. The difference in
the ratio of deaths to population when the deaths in these
Institutions are excluded will be seen in the above table.
The disturbances of the death-rates referred to occur
almost entirely in the Wandsworth and Battersea Subdistricts,
and it is found that during the past year no
fewer than 266 deaths occurred in six of the principal
Public Establishments in these two townships, and in that
of Clapham, over and above the number that, so to speak,
is 'proper to those parishes.*
Zymotic Diseases.—The Table of Mortality (No. I.,
Appendix) gives, it will be seen, no less than 528 deaths
as occurring during the year in the entire district from
Zymotic diseases alone. In the previous year (1873) there
were but 411 fatal cases due to epidemic maladies, or 117
less than in the past year, showing that 1874 was a
period of exceptional severity in the propagation of
zymotic influences. The numerical preponderance of
deaths due to the seven principal epidemics over those
* The Public Institutions here referred to are all comprised in a list
furnished by the Registrar General, and includes the Workhouse and
Infirmary of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union, the Westminster
Union Industrial Schools (both situated at Battersea), the County
Prison, the Royal Hospital for Incurables, the Surrey County Lunatic
Asylum (which three are located in Wandsworth), and the British Home
for Incurables in Clapham. If to the deaths in these officially recognized
Public Institutions of the District are added those which have occurred
at Wandsworth in St. Peters Hospital (2), the Royal Patriotic School
(10), and the Reformatory for Boys (2), together with the deaths of
9 inmates of a large Lunatic Asylum (private) at Roehampton, it will
give a total of no less than 289 fatal cases amongst persons, the great
majority of whom had no claim, in the proper acceptation of the term,
to residential occupation within the District.