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36
INQUESTS.
Two hundred and thirty-five inquests were held on parishioners, including 34 at places
without the parish, mostly at public institutions to which the deceased persons had been removed
for treatment. The cause of death is stated to have been ascertained by post-mortem examination
in 100 cases. Thirty-three inquests were held on the bodies of non-parishioners who had died in
Kensington. All inquests in the parish were held at the coroner's court at the Town Hall.

Of the 16 suicidal deaths, 4 belong to the Brompton sub-district and 12 to the Town
sub-district.
The inquests on Kensington parishioners were in the proportion of 8.7 per cent. on total
deaths, the rate in the metropolis being 9.4 per cent.: in England and Wales the rate was 6.3 per
cent. The relative percentages in 1899 were 8.8, 9.2, and 6.3 respectively.
The deaths from violence (106) were equal to 0.61 per 1,000 of the population in Kensington
; 0'81 per 1,000 in London, as a whole, and 0.64 per 1,000 in England and Wales.
VACCINATION.
The table at page 37 is a return respecting vaccination in Kensington in 1899 (the complete
return for 1900 not being yet due) compiled by Mr. Shattock, the vaccination officer, whose diligent
discharge of the onerous duties of his office under the new Act, and previously, deserves recognition.
It appears that of 3,584 infants whose births were returned in " Birth List Sheets " (col. 2) during
the year, 2,804 were successfully vaccinated, and 38 were returned as " insusceptible of vaccination."
In 23 cases vaccination was postponed by medical certificate : 376 infants died before attaining the
age for vaccination ; in 38 cases infants were removed to other districts, the vaccination officers of
which were duly notified of the fact; whilst some 260 cases from " removal to places out of the
parish unknown, or which cannot be reached, and cases not having been found," were unaccounted
for. These cases are, with those of "conscientious objectors" (31, against 55 in 1898, and 5 in
1897), equivalent to a "loss" of 8.1 per cent., as compared with the number of births registered; the
losses in the preceding ten years having been 6.5, 6.7, 8.0, 8.7, 7.7, 8.4, 9.0, 10.1, 10.7, and 12.7 per
cent. Kensington occupies a position superior to that of the Metropolis, as a whole, for, as stated in
the annual report of the Local Government Board for 1898-99, the average of lost cases in the
metropolitan district so far back as 1896, was 26.4 per cent.*—a bad lookout, truly, as showing that
at that date more than one-fourth of the children born were without the protection against smallpox
afforded by vaccination; the proportion at the present time probably being higher. It is but
too probable, moreover, that a large proportion of the children not vaccinated prior to the new Act
coming into operation, will remain unvaccinated, and be liable to small-pox. Mr. Shattock states
that false registration, i.e., wrong addresses entered on the birth list sheets, is his greatest difficulty:
the children cannot be traced. But on the whole the tide appears to have turned, the " loss " of
cases, in Kensington, having been sensibly less in 1899 than in 1898. One good feature in the new
Act, apart from its relatively greater success in increasing the number of vaccinations, is that it
provides for the use of glycerinated calf-lymph, and so cuts the ground from under the feet of those
who objected to vaccination because of the possibility of enthetic disease being conveyed in humanised
lymph. Public vaccination stations have been abolished by the Act, which is entailing considerably
increased expenditure upon the ratepayers.