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and to the comparative affluence of the population, and
the comfort and pleasant surroundings in which they live.
There is no doubt, however, that the Dulwich death-rate
is, mainly for reasons given above, largely misleading as a
mere proof of healthiness.
Next as to St. George's. I select this sub-district
because, according to my report, it shows the highest birthrate
and the highest death-rate of all the sub-districts of
the parish. There is no doubt that it is in proportion to its
area the most populous sub-district, and therefore the
most overcrowded. This is due mainly to the facts, that it
is largely occupied by a poor working population; that
many of its houses are small, and that, moreover, it is
studded much more largely than any other sub-district with
lodging-houses and tenement-houses —which latter (whatever
advantages they may present) largely promote overcrowding.
A crowded population is generally a poor
population, and the children mingle freely with one another
both in schools and in the streets, and hence infectious
diseases are more difficult to isolate, and more likely to
spread than under other conditions. Again, as I have
pointed out, the birth-rate is relatively very large. The
only explanation that can be given of this fact is that the
poor are, to a large extent, improvident ; they marry as a
rule early, and they have families and often large families,
while they are unable to support them in comfort, or even
to look after them as young children need to be looked
after. It is mainly due to these causes that the infantile
mortality is so enormous in these localities; and that so
many deaths are referred to premature birth, defective
vitality, to pulmonary affections (including pneumonia), and