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10. Among infants, and especially the offspring of the poor, the case is
different. "Whilst their parents are out on business or pleasure, they are
usually left at home exposed to the debilitating influences of dirty, close and
fetid rooms, foul drains, irregular feeding—or perhaps no food at all—cold and
damp, imperfect clothing and the varied consequences of maternal neglect.
Hence their tender strength withers early, and the homes of the indigent and
careless are unblessed with healthy offspring.
11. The registered number of deaths of infants under one year of age,
for the year 1870, was 332. The proportion for each sub-district, after correction
made for the deaths in the Workhouse duly referable to each subdistrict,
was St. George Bloomsbury 89, St. Giles South 139, St. Giles North
104.
12. The following is the proportion of deaths to births.
Whole District 1 death to every 5 Births = 20 per cent.
St. George Bloomsbury 1 „ 5.7 ,, = 17.4 ,,
St. Giles South 1 ,, 4.1 ,, = 24.2 ,,
St. Giles North 1 „ 5.8 „ =17.2 „
13. The death-rate of infants under one-year compared with the births
for the entire District is about the same as last year; but the rate for the
several sub-districts materially differs; St. George Bloomsbury and St. Giles
South being higher, and St. Giles North being lower. The ordinary infantile
death-rate is 15.9 per cent. of children born; and as we see in the Table, all
our sub-districts are above it.
14. The infantile mortality in St. Giles South has been very heavy, that
sub-district having lost 8.3 per cent. more children in relation to the births
than it ought, or more than one half of its share calculated upon the mean
mortality of the country.
15. The death-rate among infants in relation to the population is thus
expressed: —
Whole District 1 death in every 163 population = 6.1 per 1000.
St. Geo. Bloomsbury 1 ,, 195.4 ,, =5.1 ,,
St. Giles South 1 ,, 140 ,, =7.1 ,,
St. Giles North 1 ,, 165.4 ,, =6. ,,
The ratio of deaths of infants to Total Deaths in St. Giles District is 23.15
per cent. The ratio of the same for the whole Metropolis being 23.9 per cent.
We thus see that our infantile death-rate has been rather less than the
Metropolitan. This proportion, however, considerably varies in the three
sub-districts: thus, in St. George Bloomsbury it is 23.17 per cent., in St.
Giles South 21 per cent., in St. Giles North 24.3 per cent.
16. Some explanation is necessary in order to clear up what appears to
be, on the surface, anomalous and contradictory in these several summaries.
It may seem strange, for example, while St. George Bloomsbury is represented
to have the moderate death-rate among infants in relation to birthrate
of 17.4 yer cent., and St. Giles South the comparatively high one of
24.2 per cent., that the death-rate in the same sub-districts in relation to
total deaths should be reversed, viz., St. George Bloomsbury 23.17 per cent.,
St. Giles South 21 per cent.
17. The explanation, however, is that, a large number of children dying
in the first year of life in St. Giles South, there is an excess of adults in the
aggregate population, added to which there is a population of more than 2000
adult celibates who occupy the common lodging houses in that sub-district.
Hence the death-rate of infants to total deaths is relatively very low, whilst the
death-rate to births is high. The latter method is the correct one for ascertaining
the mortality of infants as determined by insanitary causes; but I
have thought it right to show the mortality in both relations, in order that
a comparison may be more readily made with other statistics calculated upon
the ratio of infant deaths to total deaths.