View report page

64
inadequately housed, and where the parents are improvident, idle and
intemperate." The whole of the evidence given before the Commission
on this physical deterioration shows that the casual labour class of the
population are sadly defective in their mental, moral and physical conditions,
and that unless remedies are provided they will, in the future, be
a serious menace to the State.
The death rate of England and Wales during the last half century
has fallen six per thousand. The death rate for London, which was 24.8
in the censal period of 1841-50, declined in 1904 to 16.1, whilst the
birth rate in London was for the same periods, 1841-50, 33.6, and in
1904 27.4. The marriages, which were in 1851-60 20.6 per 1,000 living,
declined in 1904 to 17 per 1,000. The marriages have taken place
earlier in life in London and later in the country. Phthisis, which is
the scourge of slum populations, has declined in the whole of England
and Wales by 50 per cent., and in London 40 per cent, during the last
fifty years. These reductions in the death rates we may fairly assume
have been brought about by improved methods in private and public
health, the better feeding of the people attainable by higher wages, and,
let us hope, to the improvement in the habits, exercise and cleanliness of
the community generally. In the infant mortality rate there is not seen
to be any decline, for up to 1900 the rate was the same. In the years
since 1900 there has been a small decline due to exceptional circumstances.
Southwark, in regard to its infant rate, if not the worst in the
metropolis, is among the the three placed at the bottom of the scale.
One-third of the total infant deaths, that is deaths under one year of
age, occur under one month, and more than 65 per cent, of these die
within the first week of life. An illegitimate child in London has only half
the chance that a legitimate one has of seeing its first anniversary. The
percentage of illegitimate births to the total births for 1905 in Southwark
was 2 2. The causes which produce this high mortality in infants
are (1) hereditary taint; (2) employment of mothers late in pregnancy
and too soon after child birth ; (3) the decrease in breast feeding; (4)
defective milk supply; (5) parental ignorance and neglect; (6) the
drink habit in the parents ; (7) the overlaying of infants; (8) the overcrowding
in the dwelling; and (9) insanitary conditions. The remedies
are the better housing, the better feeding, and the moral and intellectual
elevation of the masses. To attain these desirable objects milk depots
and creches should be established. There is a great necessity in
London for the supply of clean country milk properly cooled whilst in
transit. It is also necessary that there should be great reforms in the
condition of the dairies and cowsheds of the country, the greater part of