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8
registering cases of sickness as well as deaths. By recording a disease during life we
approach more to the time of invasion, and touch more closely the cause which produced
it.
I wish, however, to submit one observation upon the meteorological column.
I have given the direction of the wind, and the weekly sum of its horizontal movement
in order to aid in illustrating and testing hereafter the accuracy of an opinion I have
formed as to the influence of ventilation in diluting and rendering comparatively
harmless, the poisonous miasms which, in their concentrated state, lurking in stagnant
courts and the stifling dwellings of the poor, generate low fevers and add to the
virulence of ordinary Epidemics.
It may be useful to append here, some facts exhibiting the amount of Pauperism
in Shoreditch, extracted from the printed Weekly return made to the Trustees of
the Poor. On the 21st June last, there were 745 Inmates in the Workhouse; 291 Children
at Brentwood; 185 Lunatics in Asylums; and 2882 persons receiving Out-door
relief. Thus, out of 125,000 inhabitants, 4103 or about 1 in 30, were maintained at
the public cost.
Some facts published in my Preliminary Report clearly prove that a large proportion
of this burden has been unjustly cast upon Shoreditch, by other and wealthier
parishes.