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There are certain points in the foregoing Table that command our attention:—first,
the great difference between the death-rate to population (28.1)
and the death-rate to birth-rate (22.21) for the whole district. That difference
(5.89) is the indication of the amount of wasted life arising from sanitary evils
in the District. Secondly the difference, in the instance of Bloomsbury, between
the death-rate, as calculated upon population, and that calculated upon
the estimated ratio of deaths to births. In the former case it is 8.50 less than
London, in the latter it is 1.75 more than estimated. This is a wide discrepancy,
and it touches the fundamental question now agitated as to the
proper basis of a death-rate. Upon the surface of the matter the evidence is
clear against the birth-rate basis for the ordinary purposes of an estimate.
The calculation upon this basis makes it appear that Bloomsbury is relatively
less healthy by 1.75 than the average of London. Is this likely? Obviously
not. Bloomsbury is composed (with the exception of Coram Street and its
courts and two or three minor streets) of a very respectable, not to say
wealthy, class; whilst London is a statistical expression for a congeries of
rich and poor, well brought-up and neglected, stationary and migratory
population; it is the mean of all these, and represents the average standard
of their mortality. Besides, the birth-rate in Bloomsbury is very much lower
than the birth-rate for London; and as infants under one year die at the rate
of 16 per cent., whilst the population at all other ages die at the rate of
2 per cent, only; and as the young children in Bloomsbury would, as a rule,
be carefully nurtured, we must, necessarily, conclude on these grounds,
also, that the mortality of Bloomsbury should be less than that of London.
The Sub-district of St. Giles South shows nearly one - fourth more
births in relation to population than Bloomsbury; and yet the birth-rate
in St. Giles South is not equal to that of the Metropolis at large. This
slight deficiency in. St. Giles South, in relation to the Metropolis,
may be explained by the large number of single men who live in the
common lodging houses that abound in that part of the Parish; and,
consequently, the smaller proportion of women. The difference between the
death-rate, calculated on population, and that calculated on the estimated
ratios of births to deaths do not differ in an important degree in this Subdistrict
; and this would appear to be on account of the high mortality which
runs through every period of life.