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first-class business streets, of which Albemarle, Arlington,
North and South Audley, Bennett, Berkeley, New and
Old Bond, Bolton, Upper and Lower Brook, and Bruton
Streets are examples—all the first-class streets and squares
in fact. The deaths in these streets were 187 this year;
it was the same last year; the numbers for the foregoing
five years being 216, 209, 192, 201, and 187. We obtained
exact returns of the population of these streets
at the Census of 1851, which was as nearly as possible
20,000 in round numbers, and has not varied materially
since. The inhabitants of these houses, with their numerous
servants, consist of adults in greater proportion,
and fewer children than are to be found amongst the lower
classes. They have education, wealth, leisure, pure air at
home, and frequent change. The rate of death in these
houses this year per thousand inhabitants has been 9.3,
and during the last five years has fluctuated from 10 to 9,
with a downward tendency. The proportion of deaths
under 5 to deaths above that age is 43 to 144, or as about
2 to 7.
Secondly, we may take the mews, the second and thirdrate
business streets, and those occupied by the dwellings of
the artisan population, of which we estimate the population
at 13,000. Here are houses, every room of which contains
a family of children, and whose inhabitants are too often
without the intelligence, the money, the self-denial, the appreciation
of the value of life, and the natural affection requisite
for the preservation of their children's lives. This is
the part of the population which sends one sixth or ninth
or twelfth to die in workhouses and charitable institutions.
Yet, if we take the deaths at home in the houses, they
were last year 303, exclusive of all deaths in hospitals or
elsewhere. The proportion of deaths of children under 5
in these houses, is as nearly as possible one-half, i.e., 154.