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1. Accident or Negligence.—Total deaths, 93, including 18 in Brompton, and 41 under five
years of age ; viz., from Fractures and Contusions, 44 ; Burn, Scald, 14 ; Poison, 1 ; Gun-shot Wounds, 1;
Suffocation, mostly of infants overlaid, 30; Otherwise, 3. Thirty-three of these " accidents " occurred
to children of less than one year old. Twenty-eight of the deaths from suffocation were registered in
the Town sub-district.
3. Suicide.—Total deaths, 17 ; including 2 in Brompton ; viz., by Gun-shot Wounds, 3 ; Cut,
Stab, 3 ; Poison, 2 ; Browning, 4; Ranging, 3 ; Otherwise, 2.
Class VIII.—Deaths from Ill-Defined and not Specified Causes.
This Class includes the causes of 106 deaths, 89 of them under one year of age; 91 and 15 in the
Town and Brompton sub-districts respectively. The causes named were : Dropsy, 1; Debility, Atrophy,
Inanition, 87 deaths (all under one year) ; Mortification, 9; Tumour, 3 ; and Abscess, 3. To Causes not
Specified or Ill-defined, 3 deaths were ascribed.
DEATHS IX PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The only large public institution in which we are directly interested, is the borough
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, Portobello-road, Notting-hill—a Roman Catholic
Home for aged poor persons of both sexes, brought from various parts, largely from Ireland—but
this is not classed by the Registrar-General as a public institution. The deaths of non-parishioners
at the Marylebone Infirmary, Notting-hill (468), at the Brompton Consumption Hospital (108),
and at St. Joseph's House (32), are excluded from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for a few
remarks later on. The deaths of parishioners at the Parish Infirmary and Workhouse (497), at the
Consumption Hospital (4), at St. Marylebone Infirmary (2), at St. Joseph's House (1), and at outlying
institutions, &c. (321), were 823, or 31.1 per cent on total deaths ; the percentage proportion
of deaths in public institutions in the Metropolis, generally, being 32.5, viz., 16.5 in workhouses
and workhouse infirmaries ; 2.4 in Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals ; 11.3 in other hospitals,
and 2.3 in public lunatic and imbecile asylums. The Registrar-General in his Annual
Summary states that " about one in every six deaths occurred in a workhouse or workhouse
infirmary, one in 42 in a Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital, one in nine in some other hospital,
and one in 43 in a public lunatic or imbecile asylum." The increase in the number of
deaths in public institutions has been great and continuous for many years.
The Parish Infirmary and Workhouse.—I am indebted to Dr. II. Percy Potter, the
medical superintendent, for the statistics of mortality at these important institutions. The
deaths, set out in the table below, were 497, compared with 497, 003, and 476, in the three preceding
years respectively, and were equal to 18-8 per cent., not far short of one-fifth of the deaths
in the borough. The quarterly numbers were 138, 110, 100, and 149: 248 deaths, therefore,
occurred in the first and fourth or colder quarters, and 249 in the second and third or warmer
quarters of the year. The deaths included 242 of males, and 255 of females. The ages at death
were:—Under one year, 66 (compared with 64, 73, and 58, in the three preceding years respectively)
; between one and sixty, 234 (compared with 221, 309, and 213, in the three preceding
years), and at sixty and upwards, 197 (compared with 212, 221, and 205, in the three preceding
years).