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DEATHS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The only " large public institution " within the parish in
which we are directly interested, is the parish infirmary and
workhouse, situated in the Town sub-district. There are
several minor public, or quasi-public institutions ; but, with
one exception, they do not furnish occasion for special remark.
The excepted institution is St. Joseph's House, Portobelloroad,
Notting Hill —a Roman Catholic Home for aged poor
persons, of both sexes, brought from various parts, largely from
Ireland ; but the Registrar-General does not class it as a" public
institution." The deaths of non-parishioners at the Marylebone
Infirmary, Notting Hill (487), at the Brompton Consumption
Hospital (90), and at St. Joseph's House (30), are excluded
from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for a few remarks
later on. The deaths of parishioners registered at the Parish
Infirmary and Workhouse (443), at the Consumption Hospital
(4), at the Marylebone Infirmary (2), at St. Joseph's House (5),
and at outlying institutions, &c. (308), were 762, or 27.7 per
cent, on total deaths ; the percentage proportion of deaths in
public institutions in the Metropolis, generally, being 26"8.
The Registrar-General in his Annual Summary states that
" About one in every seven deaths occurred in a workhouse or
workhouse infirmary, one in 53 in a Metropolitan Asylum
Hospital, one in 11 in some other hospital, and one in 49 in a
public lunatic or imbecile asylum." The increase in the number
of deaths in public institutions has been great and continuous
for some years past.
The Parish Infirmary and Workhouse.—I am
indebted to Dr. H. Percy Potter. Medical Superintendent of
the Infirmary and Medical Officer to the Workhouse, for the
statistics of mortality at these important institutions. The
deaths actually occurring in 1895 were 442, compared with 433,
423, and 440, in the preceding three years respectively, and were