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28
I have preferred to make these remarks in an Annual Report
rather than in a mere ephemeral paper, because the reader will have
brought before him all the facts of which the mortality is made up, and
will be able to learn from them, even apart from any observations that
I may deem necessary to make about them, the diseases that are more
or less amenable to sanitary control by the adoption of efficient hygienic
measures, and are, therefore, so much to be considered preventable, and
being preventable, they will, I feel certain, come to the conclusion that
it would be the greatest wisdom to spend money for their prevention.
And in this connection I would remind the Vestry that the amount
spent in Islington on the Health Department for the preservation of
the Public Health only amounts to ½d in the £. This is truly an
insignificant sum compared with the large amounts that are spent by
the public in the cure of preventable diseases, and on the education of
the people. If we educate our children, and then let them die, the
money spent on them has been fruitlessly spent. Better far to educate
and keep them healthy, so that by their labour they may help to swell
the wealth of the community, or by their genius render benefits to
humanity.
But to return to Tables XIX. and XX. From these Tables two facts
are deducible (1) that the age distribution of the Parish is favourable to
a low death-rate which is proved by columns 4, 5 and 6 of Table XX.,
and also by Table XX., columns 5, 6, 7 and 8, which show that the
death-rate in the healthy districts would have been only 15•36 instead
of 16•75, and in England and Wales only 19•64 instead of 21•27 if
similarly favoured; and (2) that the death-rates at the several ages,
while not so good as those of the healthy districts, are better than
those of England and Wales (Table XXI., columns 6 and 8). In these
it is seen that the aggregate deaths would have been 5,044 if the
death-rates had been the same as in the former district, and 6,451 as in
the latter.
I have already given a Table, which shows the rates for males
and females at the different groups of ages, to enable any one
taking an interest in these matters to follow up this subject more
minutely, and to make comparisons for the distribution of the sexes.