View report page

9
these speculations, and it is a fact beyond question that all other competitors
have been cast into the shade by the preference given to the
Old Church, St. Dunstan's, Stepney.
To have deduced, therefore, the prosperity of the various parishes,
and its bearings on public health, by this test, would have been an
absurdity. In its absence, however, the births, from one year to
another, will give no inadequate representation of the truth, and they
stand thus—
Births in 1861, from Christmas to Christmas.
Limehouse. Ratcliff Shadwell Wapping.
984 520 256 109
Year 1862.
968 553 232 108
So that, on the average, to adopt another mode of illustration,
there will be to each 1,000 persons in
Limehouse. Ratcliff. Shadwell Wapping.
34 births 30 „ 29 „ 27 „
Wapping, therefore, in the absence of a more correct datum,
stands lowest in the social scale, whilst Limehouse, as in population also,
takes the pre-eminence.
I am particular about this statement, as it has an important relation
to the sanitary influences in operation. Its truth is further
corroborated by the published account of the Stepney Union, concerning
the numbers receiving relief.
The In and Out-door Poor Relief, to Lady Day, 1863.
Limehouse, 905, or 32 in each 1,000 persons
Ratcliff, 762, „ 44 „
Shadwell, 567, „ 70 „
Wapping, 269, „ 67 „
I have hitherto boon in the habit of giving the death-rate in each
parish, but as this is attended with inaccuracies quite unavoidable, I
shall omit this calculation. This will bo readily seen on referring to
the 15th class of deaths in the Appendix, where 50 cases of drowning
will be found,—and when I announce that of these 41 occurred in
Shadwell and Wapping, from their larger proportion of water—no small
number of these casualties occurring to strangers, and others floating
from a distance.