View report page

36
habited by noblemen and gentlemen solely. Their population
is 2,600. During the three years ending April 1st,
1859, the deaths in those streets were 45, or at the rate of
6 per 1,000 per annum; and of these deaths 3 or 6½
per cent, were of persons under 20. During the year
just past, the deaths in these streets were 22, of which
4, or 18 per cent., were under 20 years of age.
Let us next take a cluster of purely commercial streets
—New and Old Bond Streets, Oxford Street (south side,
west of Regent's Circus), Maddox Street, and North
Audley Street; the population 3,158. The deaths in the
foregoing three years were 119, of which 25 per cent,
were under 20. This year the deaths were 39, of which
13, or 33 per cent., were under 20.
Lastly, let us take a cluster of streets, inhabited by a
strictly artizan population, such as Brick Street, Brown
Street, Gilbert Street, George Street, (Grosvenor Square,)
Hart Street, Robert Street, South Molton Street, Thomas
Street, Union Street, Woodstock Street. Their united
population is 4,413; the deaths in the three foregoing
years added together equal 298, of which 151 were of
persons under 20. During this last year the deaths were
93, of which 50, i. e. more than 50 per cent, were under
20.
These figures show very conclusively that the older
parts of St. George, Hanover Square, are decidedly
healthy on paper-, the gross death-rate being that of
a country village. But when the facts come to be dissected,
it is found that the apparently low rate is got by
mixing up the mortality of the rich with that of the poor.
And it is found further, not only that the mortality of the
poor is double that of the rich; but that the deaths under
5 amount to one-half of it.