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9
open space, are daily piled enormous mounds of London
refuse; "to the sight, disgusting; to the olfactory sense,
sickening;" to the health, poisoning! Hence this region is, in
a sanitary and social sense, our darkest spot, and imperatively
calls for—Regeneration.
Mortality.
Gentlemen, these differential circumstances influence materially
the death returns. It is our lot to live in the least
healthy* of the five great London Divisions—to have an
early average age at deathf—and consequently to lose several
of the best years of life. In the Eastern Division, there were,
in 1855, 37 persons living; and in the Northern, 44 to every
death; and "the rate of mortality varied from 23 in 1000,
in the Western and Northern Divisions; to 25 in 1000 in
the Eastern Division." Last year we lost 2143 persons, of
whom, 284 died in the Workhouse, and 57 in Bethnal House
Asylum. During the previous 9 years, the subjoined were
the several variations:—

* Excepting the Southern Division in Cholera years. (Registrar-General).
† Our mean age at death, in the decennium 1841-50 was about 26 years, and
the corresponding average duration of life 34 years.