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117
Report on the Sanitary Condition of
St. John's Ward,
To the
Public Health Committee.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,
The condition of St. John's Ward has engaged the attention of the
Public Health Committee on many occasions during the last seven years.
Questions have arisen in connection with its high death-rate, the
insanitary condition of the property in certain parts, the dilatory
carrying into execution of schemes of improvement, the demolition of
dwellings and the displacement of population dependent thereon, and the
remaining vacant of considerable areas cleared of their inhabitants,
compensated to some extent by the blocks of buildings erected by the
City Council, and lately by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In
1904, in a report on the distribution of consumption in the City,
attention was given to this Ward in particular, and there was included
in my annual report for 1905 an abstract of a special report on St.
John's, based on a careful examination of each street, and an analysis
of the statistics of the years 1901-04 It was shown that the death-rate
during these four years had fallen from 23.3 to 191, giving an average
of 211 per 1,000 inhabitants, while the average rate for the whole City
during the same period was 14.6.
Certain facts having an important bearing on the cause of this high
rate were disclosed: (1) that there were a number of common lodginghouses
in the Ward which contributed very largely to the number of
deaths; (2) that an equally large number of deaths were assigned to
St. John's Ward without any definite address being recorded ; these are
deaths of persons who were inmates of the workhouse and infirmary
(44 out of 60 in 1907 were of persons over 65 years of age), and
were doubtless admitted from the poorest districts, from the common
lodging-houses and the casual ward; these two classes contribute
together about 4 per 1,000 to the Ward rate; (3) that when figures