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It is to be observed in this Table—1°. That the increased death rate mainly took
effect in the 2nd and 3rd groups. If the true population of the Districts in Group I
could be known, it is not unlikely that the apparent increase would turn out altogether
deceptive. 2°. That in the first group, Duncan and Hornsey Road Districts alone presented
a death rate lower than that of the previous year. This is the more remarkable
in the latter instance, on account of the very great increase in the population in this
District during the past year. In the second group, Highbury Vale and Trinity Districts
were alone similarly favored. As respects Highbury Vale, it is important and
interesting to notice how steadily the death rate has been lessening since the abolition
of the open Hackney Brook Sewer, and the improvements which have been since carried
out in the house drainage. In 1860, the deaths in that District were 23; in 1861, 19 ;
in 1862, 17; and last year, 16. The Table shows that Highbury Yale, which used to
be a favorite haunt of fevers, stood last year as the most healthy District of the second
group, and was on a level with the best Districts of the first group. 3°. That the
District of the Irish Courts, the death rate of which has always been the highest or
next to the highest of all, exhibited last year a death rate which no other has yet
attained, viz., 42 per 1,000 living. Contrast the deaths in'this District for a moment
with those of the District immediately adjoining—Duncan District; The latter contains
a population of about 800, while the population of the Irish Courts District
is only about 200 more. Yet in the Duncan District there were but 5 deaths, and
not one of those under 5 years of age, while in the Irish Courts District there were
nine times as maDy deaths, and more than half of these were of young children.
5. The Irish Courts constitute a typical District. They exhibit, in a small, circumscribed
area, the fatal operation of those causes of disease which it is the province of a
local Sanitary Board to see removed—of conditions which operate with equal certainty
in other parts of Islington, as well as elsewhere, and only less demonstrably because
the instances of their occurrence are more scattered, and because the conditions themselves
are not always combined in the same manner. The opportunity of tracing out
the relation between premature death from what is clearly avoidable disease and the
local conditions referred to, as presented by the fearful death rate of these Courts
during the year, is one which ought not to be passed by. I propose, however, to consider
the mortality in these courts as it has occurred during a period of four years,
(in one instance only during two years), during which the local conditions and the
character of the population have been pretty much the same. When it is said that
these courts are inhabited mainly by low Irish, it will at once be understood that
the people are dirty in their habits, that personal and domestic proprieties have no
place in their system of life, and that social irregularities of all kinds abound. Still
there are grades even among the low Irish, and it is obvious to any one visiting
these courts that, on the whole, a superior grade of persons occupy Smith's Buildings
(or at any rate a part of them), to those which have taken up their abode in Rose
and Crown Court, and that these again are not nearly so filthy in their habits as
the inhabitants of Waters Court. Great improvements have taken place in these
courts since I first knew them and visited the poor in them 26 or 27 years ago, and
still further improvements have been made, although at the expenditure of an
infinity of trouble, during the period of my tenure of office; but it will be seen that
much, very much, still remains to be accomplished. I believe all that is requisite
may be accomplished by the exercise of patience and determination.