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9
These numbers are full of meaning, for in the
first place they show that the sanitary condition of
every district of the City has been greatly improved
during the last ten years,—the average death-rate
having been reduced to the extent of about 11 per
cent.; and secondly, they show that the aggregate
mortality in the City (22.2) is much less than the
common death-rate of the Metropolis and the large
towns of England (24.3). It stands, indeed, exactly
at the average proportion (22.2) for the whole of
England during the last ten years. Thirdly, it will
be seen that it is less than the proportion in England
(23.4) for the year which has just expired, for having
been an unhealthy year, the death-rate has been
almost everywhere excessive. In London it has
risen from 24.0 per 1,000 to 26.2, and in the chief
towns of England from 24.3 to 26.7; but here,
notwithstanding the existence of cholera, the
death-rate has improved from an average of 24.8 to
22.2 per 1,000 of the population. It is true that
there are dark spots in the western districts of the
City, where the death-rate still stands at a high
proportion; but even there the mortality is being
gradually reduced, for in ten years it has declined
from an average of 28.2 per 1,000 to 26.8.
In the classification of deaths according to
age, it will be noticed that the number of deaths
among infants is becoming gradually less, for in