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of healthy adults than any other part of the parish; and
that these not only go to swell the population of the
entire district as ascertained at the census, but also largely
augment the area (so to speak) over which the Dulwich
deaths are spread, and so largely reduce the death-rate.
Moreover, it is to be noted, that not only do servants, as a
rule, die away from the houses in which they have been living,
and that their deaths are hence more likely to be referred
to the localities in which their families reside than to those
in which they have lived as servants, but also that places such
as the poor parts of St. George's and Peckham are just the
localities which are most likely to provide servants for their
richer neighbours, and that thus such localities are
specially apt to be robbed of their healthy adults, and consequently
to have an augmented death-rate. It might
naturally be assumed that the deaths due to zymotic
diseases would be far fewer in Dulwich than in St. George's
and in Peckham ; and, on the whole, I am inclined to
believe that it is so. Put on the other hand, it must be
recollected that most persons suffer in the course of their
lives from scarlet fever, and especially from measles and
hooping cough; and that if they fail to take them when
they are young, they are likely to take them at some later
period of life. It is a curious fact, however, that on comparing
the numbers of deaths due to zymotic diseases in the
different sub-districts of the parish with the numbers of
births, the proportion of such deaths to births is larger in
Dulwich than anywhere else. I may here add that I have
no doubt that Dulwich is a healthy place, and that its
healthiness is in no small degree due to the comparative
sparseness of the population, and absence of overcrowding,