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27
DEATHS FROM VIOLENCE.
Ninety-eight deaths, including 31 under five years of age, and 24 under one year, were
caused by violence ; 77 belong to the Town sub-district, and 21 to Brompton.
Accident or Negligence occasioned 75 deaths; 58 in the Town sub-district, and 17 in Brompton;
29 of them under five years of age, and 22 under one year. Fractures and Contusions were responsible
for 37 deaths, Burn, Scald for 8, and Suffocation for 26—of which 22 were of infants under one year.
Suicide accounted for 21 deaths, 17 and 4 in the Town and Brompton sub-districts respectively;
viz., from Gun Shot Wounds 3, Cut, Stab 5, Poison 7, Drowning 3, and Hanging 3.
Ill-defined and Not specified Causes of death were returned in 54 cases; 50 in the Town subdistrict
and 4 in Brompton: 47 were certified due to Debility, Atrophy, Inanition, all of them of
infants under one year.
DEATHS IN 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 foraged
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 St. Marylebone
Infirmary, Notting Hill (536), at the Brompton Consumption Hospital (57), and at St. Joseph's
House (14) are excluded from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for a few remarks later on.
The deaths of parishioners registered at the Infirmary and Workhouse (463), at the Consumption
Hospital (2), at St. Marylebone Infirmary (1), at St. Joseph's House (2), and at outlying
institutions, etc. (339), were 807, or 31•8 per cent, on total deaths; the percentage proportion of
deaths in public institutions in the Metropolis generally being 35•0; viz., 18•1 in workhouses and
workhouse infirmaries; 1•4 in Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals; 12•7 in other hospitals,
and 2•8 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
every 70 in a Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital, one in every 8 in some other hospital, and one
in every 36 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 Borough Infirmary and Workhouse.—I am indebted to Dr. H. Percy Potter, the
medical superintendent, for the statistics of mortality at these important institutions. The deaths,
the causes of which are set out in the table below, were 471*, compared with 497, 528, and 460, in the
three preceding years respectively, and were equal to 18•5 per cent., not far short of one-fifth of all
the deaths recorded in the borough. The quarterly numbers were 130, 113, 102 and 126; 256
deaths, therefore, occurred in the first and fourth or colder quarters, and 215 in the second and
third or warmer quarters of the year. The deaths included 251 of males and 220 of females. The
ages at death were:—Under one year, 36 (compared with 66, 61, and 65, in the three preceding
years respectively); between one and sixty, 237 (compared with 234, 254, and 218, in the three
preceding years), and at sixty and upwards 198 (compared with 197, 213, and 177 in the three
preceding years).

* This figure represents the deaths actually occurring during the year. The number registered was 463.