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TO THE VESTRY OF
SAINT MARY, ISLINGTON.
Gentlemen,
The year 1868, to which this my Thirteenth Annual Report relates, has been a
remarkable and will be a memorable year, in respect of three conditions which have
important bearings upon public health. It has been a year of depressed trade, of
high prices of provisions, especially of bread, and of unusual heat and dryness.
Pauperism has been excessive; the average price of wheat, prior to the harvest,
reached 72s.; the temperature in August rose to 93° in the shade (at Greenwich
to 96 6°), and the land was universally parched up for lack of rain. In the regions
of the globe, most liable to such convulsions, devastating earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, and marine inundations have been the order of the day.
How have these unfavourable conditions affected us here ? I may reply in brief,
that they resulted in an amount of general sickness among the poor, which,
measured by the records which I keep, has been unprecedented during the thirteen
years that I have held my present office; but that the mortality of our population
has not been by any means excessive. The contrast between the sickness and
mortality tables, as presented by their totals, is striking. Had I merely the latter
to guide me, I should have called 1868, notwithstanding its meterological characters,
a healthy year. It was a year in which fewer people died than has been customary
with us, but the general health of the mass of the population, of that part of it which
is most open to the operation of the influences I have mentioned, was depressed.
MORTALITY AND SICKNESS.
Four thousand two hundred and ten deaths of residents in the parish were
registered during the 53 weeks ending January 2nd, 1869. To this number we
may add 247 deaths as our share of those occurring in various prisons, hospitals, &c.
in the metropolis. The total 4457 being reduced for comparison with former
years, will give us 4373 deaths. 1 estimate our population, in the middle of 1868,
(at the ordinary rate of increase) at 210,568 persons. Hence our death-rate for the
year may be stated at 207 per 10,000 living. The death-rate in London at large
was 235.