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cannot be a very increasing one; indeed, the improvements
in streets, the diminished number of occupants of
underground dwellings, and other sanitary measures,
must tend to diminish population, and for many years
there has not been so great a difference in the number
of births and deaths as in localities admitting of extension
by new buildings.
I have given a table of the births and deaths in the
two districts of Charing Cross and Long Acre, which
strikingly exhibits the different rate of mortality in open
well-ventilated streets, and in close and overcrowded
places. The number of deaths in the Charing Cross
district was 312, in Long Acre district, 291; but to
arrive at the death rate, we must deduct the deaths in
Charing Cross hospital, 70, and half the deaths in the
workhouse, 31, from 312, leaving 211 for the Charing
Cross district; we must then add 20 to each district,
40 being the number of parishioners of St. Martin's who
die in the various London hospitals, and giving 32 deaths
in the workhouse to the Long Acre district, we have
231 deaths in Charing Cross district,* and 343 in Long
Acre district,* making a death rate of 18.35 in 1000 for
Charing Cross, and 28.45 in 1000 for Long Acre, or
23.40 in 1000 for the whole parish. If the death rate
in the Long Acre district had been the same as that of
the Charing Cross d strict, the number of deaths in the
parish would have been 452, instead of 574; thus we
arrive at the conclusion, that by overcrowding, bad ventilation
of rooms, bad drainage of houses, and bad habits
of the people, 122 human beings are prematurely killed
annually in a population of 12,053. The death rate of
the Charing Cross district is very little in excess of that
which is laid down by the Registrar-General, as the
healthy death rate, 17 in 1000. We must, however,
*In my Report for 1859, the extent of these districts is shown.