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140
Homerton District the population is 59,612, and the deaths
under one year were 304. These are the average rates for
the ten years 1898-1907."
The intention of this comparison of districts is to spread
abroad the view (entirely erroneous) that the infant mortality
rate in the poor districts is nearly three times that in the higher
class districts. Any doubt which might be raised as to this
being the intended view, is set at rest by the following unqualified
statement, which appeared in the Social Democratic
Party's organ, 2nd October, 1909:—"For every child who dies
under the age of twelve months in Upper Clapton nearly three
children die in Homerton and Hackney Wick."
This is a most unwarranted statement. The fact is, on
comparing the infant mortality of the two districts that where
one infant under twelve months of age dies in Stamford Hill
1.67 die in Homerton and Hackney Wick. This is altogether
different to the statement of one to nearly three, above quoted.
It cannot be doubted that the above mis-statements
obtained a large number of the signatures appended to the
petition. We would like here to point out that if the figures
quoted from the Report of the Medical Officer of Health had
been seriously studied, it would have been seen that the infantile
death rate had fallen 14 per 1,000 births in Stamford Hill
during the ten years quoted, as against a fall of 26 per 1,000
births in Homerton and Hackney Wick. If infant mortality is
to be regarded as reduceable by inspections, this would indicate
really much more attention had been given in this respect to
the poorer district than to the richer district; but it is well
known, and it has been explained in the Annual Report of the
Medical Officer of Health quoted by the petitioners that the
high infant mortality is chiefly dependent upon the three factors,
want of knowledge in the proper principles of infant feeding,
carelessness and poverty.