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tors may possibly escape. There is such a thing, you are
aware, as acclimatization; and persons, by a similar process,
may become accustomed to almost anything noxious, so as
to defy its worst influences. People may live, and do live,
in the midst of noisome stenches and foul accumulations of
miasm without perceptible danger to themselves, but such
stews and hovels are the pregnant centres of epidemic
disease. I need not ask you to agree with me in condemning
as absurd, the notion that, because individuals have lived
to old age while exposed hourly and daily to such baleful
influences, the influences themselves are innocuous; yet
similar remarks are frequently made by men who ought to,
and I am inclined to believe do, know better. We cannot
too persistently proclaim that dirt and disease are inseparable,
nor forget that cleanliness does not consist altogether in
drainage and public improvement of highways. The houses
and persons of the people must be kept under the wholesome
influence of that virtue which is truly said to be next to
godliness; then would be effected that comparative immunity
from preventible disease which the sanitary reformer
hopes in time to realize.
But to descend from generalities to particulars. It will
be seen from the following Table that the Hamlet is improving
with respect to its mortality. In 1863 there were 246
births more than in the previous year, while the deaths were
fewer by 90,—the excess of births over deaths being 1269,
or 336 more than in 1862.
The death rate for the whole metropolis in 1863 was
2.45 per cent., while for Mile End we see that it was 2.21
per cent. Our comparison with other districts is not, therefore,
unfavourable; for in the Western districts it was 2.32,