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11
Since my tables were compiled, and the report written, a
table showing the death-rates from deaths from all causes and
from certain specified diseases has appeared in the "British
Medical Journal," compiled, I believe, by a member of the
staff of the Registrar General of Births and Deaths. The
table gives the calculated population in the Hackney District
on July 1st, 1889, to have been 244,109, whilst I state it to
have been in my opinion 246,114. This, considering the
census was taken in 1881, is a singularly close agreement.
The death-rate assigned in the " British Medical Journal" is
13 7, whilst I have calculated it at 136. The number of
deaths from diphtheria in Hackney is given at 97; in
Kensington 111 (population calculated at 196,226); in Bethnal
Green 102, out of a population calculated 132,079; and in
Shoreditch 69, in a calculated population of 125,340. I
mention this as it has been supposed, which is not the case,
that Hackney has suffered more from diphtheria than any
other district or parish in London. As regards the deathrates
in other districts, the four smallest are Kensington, 12.4
Hampstead, 13.1; Lewisham, 13.3; and Hackney 13.7 per
1,000 inhabitants. Now, considering the much smaller
proportion of servants in Hackney as compared with these
districts, and the larger proportion of poor, I think we may be
congratulated on these figures. Islington is returned at 150;
Bethnal Green 20.6; Shoreditch 19 6; City of London 223;
Stepney 23.1; and St. George's-in-the-East 26.5; Whitechapel
being only 22.9 per 1,000 population. As regards the deaths
of children under one year old to 1,000 births, Plumstead is returned
at 112, Hackney 114, Kensington 134, Hampstead 122,
and Lewisham 131; in St. James', Westminster, there were 183,
in St. George's, East, 181, and in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields as
as many as 212. These show that the chance of a newly-born
child living to about one year old is greater here than in any
other metropolitan district with the exception of Plumstead,
This is considered to be one of the best tests of the salubrity of a