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(22.4)* of those estimated as having occurred during four
years in the second and third-rate business streets, and the
dwellings of the artizan population in the Hanover and Mayfair
Sub-Districts. This high rate of mortality in the first
year of occupation naturally induced me to enquire further into
the subject, and it appears, from the reports of the directors
of the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings
of the Industrious Classes—copies of which have been kindly
sent to me by Mr. Gatliff—that the mortality in the entire
property of the Association has in the year [1867] been 47
out of an average population of 2,681; 26 of these deaths
were of children under ten years of age. It appears,
therefore, that the average rate of mortality in the buildings
of the Association has been rather over 17 per 1,000, while
that of the metropolis generally has been 26½ per 1,000.
On reference to the reports it will be found that the rate of
17 per 1,000 in the dwellings of the Association has now
been maintained for seven successive years.
What, then, produced the high rate of mortality in
these new buildings ? Mr. Gatliff supposes "that it might
possibly arise from the state of health of the families, at the
time they became tenants, coming from close and confined
neighbourhoods." It has been observed in houses newly
erected that, either from dampness of the walls, or from
disturbance of the ground in the neighbourhood, a somewhat
high rate of mortality prevailed. The site, originally swampy,
and of low elevation, formed a part of the parish shoot, and
children in the vicinity often suffered formerly from gastric
fever. Children encountered strong gusts of wind, during
winter, in the galleries and passages of these buildings, so that
parents should attend more to their thermal comfort than
they do at present. I have often seen the youngest infants
carried about there with bare arms and necks in the coldest
* Report No. 14, page 27,