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and £114 fine for breach of contract, a new Contractor has
recently been appointed at £2660 a year, compared with £1100
which was paid to the late Contractor.
89. Reidhaven Road District.—The statistics of the Reidhaven
Road District show again a great improvement. The
birth-rate, death-rate, infantile death-rate, and deaths from
diphtheria, enteric fever, diarrhcea, and phthisis, are all lower
than in the two preceding years.
The very great diminuation in the birth-rate strongly
suggests, what there are positive reasons for believing, that
there has been a considerable diminution in the population,
from the abatement of overcrowding. So that in all probability
the improvement in sanitary condition is not so great as the
diminished death-rate indicates. But the number of deaths
under 1 year per 1,000 births, which is independent of population,
may be taken as a fair index of the improved sanitary
condition ; this rate is 150 compared with 124 in Plumstead,
i.e., twenty per cent. more, whereas in 1898, it was sixty per
cent. more. The notifications of Diphtheria are this time much
less in the Reidhaven Road district than in Plumstead, and the
deaths from Phthisis slightly less in proportion, but the deaths
from Diarrhoea and the notifications of Enteric Fever are still
much more numerous, though in Diarrhaea there is an improvement
compared with the preceding years.
The improvement in this district, following so quickly the
measures described in my last report, is highly satisfactory.