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This Table may be read thus: to every 100 children who died, 131 were
born in Regent's Park Sub-district, 146 in Tottenham Court, 158 in Gray's Inn
Road, 149 in Somers Town, and so on; and to every 100 who died under five
years, 329 were born in Regent's Park, 245 in Tottenham Court, and so on.
According to Table A, the sub-districts arranged in their order of mortality
would stand thus, beginning with the one whose death-rate was lowest:—Gray's
Inn Road, Camden Town, Tottenham Court, Somers Town, Regent's Park, and
Kentish Town. It is a remarkable fact that Kentish Town, whose mortality
has hitherto been the lowest, appears on this Table to have had the highest
death-rate. There is reason to believe that the estimated population is not quite
equal to the actual population, and if this be so, that circumstance would unduly
raise the death-rate. It is not unlikely, too, that in the distribution of the
deaths in the "Workhouse, in the proportion of the population of the several
sub-districts, Kentish Town may have got more than its due share. However
this may be, there is no doubt about the fact, that whilst in 1859 every other
sub-district has had a lower mortality than in 1858, Kentish Town on the other
hand has had an increased mortality. In 1858 there were 713 deaths registered
in the Kentish Town Sub-district, and in 1859 there were 825, whilst in 1857
there were only 609. There was an increase in that sub-district in the number
of deaths from Small Pox, from 3 in 1858 to 19 in 1859; from Measles, from
14 to 39; from Scarlatina and Diphtheria, from 53 to 89; from Diarrhoea, from
20 to 56; and from Low Fever, from 26 to 29.
Looking at Table E, it will be seen that in the ratio of deaths to births,
Gray's Inn District stands lowest, Somers Town next, Camden Town and
Kentish Town come next, Regent's Park next, and Tottenham Court District
stands highest.
The mortality of Kentish Town appears to be undergoing an annual increase,
out of proportion to the increase of its population, which is increasing at a very
rapid rate. It is my duty to endeavour to discover the causes of this increase.
Kentish Town has natural advantages over the other districts of the Parish, in
being on a higher level, and very much on an inclined plane; it has also the
advantage of being less densely populated. To what then is to be ascribed its
increasing mortality ? Probably to a combination of causes. In the first place
must be mentioned the circumstances that the population is becoming more
dense, and that many of the new residents are newly married people, with
young and increasing families, so that there will be a large proportion of infants,
whose mortality is always high. In the next place there are several open
sewers, which are constantly becoming more and more offensive and noxious,
especially the old Fleet and its tributaries in the Gospel Oak Fields, which
ought long ago to have been covered in.
Another very important cause of insalubrity is to be found in a large number
of open undrained spaces, which become the receptacles for all kinds of vegetable
and animal refuse, and are constantly studded with pools of stagnant and
evaporating water; these places give rise to malarious emanations, which
exercise a very depressing and injurious influence on the health of those who
live near them. Another equally important cause is to be found in the character
of many of the newly built dwelling-houses in this 6ub-district. The houses are
built on a heavy clay soil, into which water sinks with great difficulty, frequently
the dwelling-rooms are down close upon this soil, without any or with but
little excavation, and with no compost or other impervious material to prevent the
constant evaporation and escape of emanations from the soil, so that the lower
rooms are generally damp, and the whole houses rendered unhealthy. The
walls are not generally of sufficient thickness to exclude cold, and it is very often
the case that the houses are occupied long before the walls have had time to dry.
In some instances the drains, although they are believed to lead from each