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29
[1903
DEATHS.
There were 4,839 deaths registered in Islington during the fifty-two weeks
which constitute, for the purposes of this report, the year 1903. These are
equal to a death-rate of 14.2 per 1,000, which is the lowest rate that has been
recorded here since the institution of Civil Registration. The nearest approach
to it was in 1897, when the rate was 15.80 per 1,000. When the size of the
borough is considered, together with the great density of its population, its lack
of open spaces within its boundaries, the mixed character of its population, the
crowding of its houses, and the strenuous life of its citizens, such a low deathrate
must be considered almost phenomenal, and must cause the greatest gratification
to every person who takes an interest in its welfare, apart altogether
from those who are directly responsible for its Sanitary Administration.
Decades. Death-rates.
1841-50 19.28
1851-60 21.43
1861-70 24.64
Decades. Death-rates.
1871-80 20.40
1881-90 18.60
1891-1900 17.50
Decades. Death-rate.
1901 15.9 per 1,000
1902 16.39 „ „
1903 14.26,, „
There can be no doubt that when the complete mortality returns for the
country come to be made up that it will be found that the health of the people
during the year has been very satisfactory, and that the death-rate will prove to
have been very low.* Nevertheless, the death toll of this borough was so small
in 1903 that it would not be too much to assert that hardly any one
would venture to have predicted such a good return, no matter how favourable
the climatic conditions might have been, even coming as it did, after a series
of years which exhibited, as we have seen in the above-mentioned returns, a
steady and almost unbroken decline in the death-rate. Such a return, however,
can not be expected very often, for the life of toil lead by the majority of the
people living within our borders, even if no other circumstances were taken into
consideration, practically forbids it. Nevertheless that which has occurred
* It was only 15.4, the lowest death-rate on record.