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9
The above Table shows what relatively very low rates of mortality
can be made to prevail in Block Dwellings so well constructed and so
ably administered as those belonging to the Chelsea Borough Council.
Only one death occurred in Onslow Dwellings, although the average of
the previous ten years is seven deaths annually.
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
During the year 1910 there was a still further reduction on the low
rate of infantile mortality (deaths of infants under one year to 1,000
births) prevailing in 1909. In 1909 the rate was 107, and it fell in 1910
to 102.

The year 1910, like the year 1909, was on the whole favourable to a
low rate of infantile mortality, there being no great prevalence of measles,
whooping cough, diarrhœa, or other complaints which tend to raise the
infantile death-rate.
The rates of infantile mortality prevailing amongst different sections
of the working classes vary enormously according to habits and modes of
life (see Table VIII.). In well-housed communities, where the population
is practically one selected for steadiness, thrift, and sobriety, over 95
per cent. of the infants born may survive the first year of life; whereas
in the streets inhabited by the more improvident and less steady grades
of working people only 85 per cent. survive the first year of life.