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actions, though done for the best, are often risky and indiscreet.
Sometimes the mothers themselves are at fault. To cite an
example: A family, consisting of the father, mother, and five
children, lived in a two-roomed tenement. Two of the children
were taken ill with measles and removed to an institution ; one
child died. The coffin containing the body was brought home
by a private undertaker and deposited in the mother's bedroom.
Four days later the mother was confined. The coffin was in
the same room with the mother, and was partially covered by
a shawl and some clothes. When the risky nature of this proceeding
was pointed out to the friends and relatives they said:
“They thought the doctor did not notice the coffin as he did not
make any remarks about it.”
This case illustrates one of the difficulties in administrating the
Public Health Acts. When hygiene comes into conflict with
natural love or affection, often, too often, hygiene has to yield
place to the sentimental consideration.
As a general rule dead bodies retained in one- or two-roomed
tenements, or in crowded tenements, are taken, with the consent
of the relatives, by the Public Health Department, to the public
mortuary, there to await burial—in certain instances such a
removal can be compulsorily enforced.
The difficulty associated with this removal would be much
lessened in poor and densely populated areas by the provision of
a chapel of rest, distinct from the mortuary, to which bodies might
be removed until the time of the funeral.
The poor are reluctant to see the bodies of their children and
relatives taken to the public mortuary.
DEATHS AND DEATH RATES.
The number of Finsbury residents who died in 1910 was
1,636, equivalent to a crude death-rate for the whole Borough
of 17.3 per 1,000 inhabitants living. The death-rates for
previous years are given in the attached table. It will be seen
that the death-rate for the present year is the lowest since