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It seems to me, then, very desirable that some systematic efforts
should be made in this district to improve the dwellings of the
labouring classes, or to erect, on the plan of the "model lodging
houses" and the "healthy homes," which have elsewhere proved
such great successes, buildings which would secure to the
poor the means of bringing up their children in greater comfort
and decency than it seems possible for them now to do under the
existing system of sub-letting, which in numerous instances secures
but single apartments for whole families in which to pass a most
miserable and immoral existence. In this age of improvement and
philanthropy it is difficult to account for any buildings, charitable
or otherwise, being erected after designs which seek to keep at their
very minimum, rather than increase and extend the comforts of the
poor inhabitants in the direction in which the linger of science is
now so continualy pointing. "When, however," as an eminent
physiologist has observed, "people shall be deeply convinced that
the eternal laws of nature have connected pain and decrepitude
with one mode of life, and health and vigour with another, they
will surely avoid the former and adhere to the latter." My sincere
hope is the day is not far distant when this improved understanding
of the sanitary requirements of the poor and helpless
creep into life in the midst of foes. Wo hear often of the impoverished or poisoned
air of close alloys and rooms unfit for habitation, and now the coroners have just
told us in their official returns that 67 infants under two years of age were murdered
last year in the metropolis. 150 more were 'found dead,' a large proportion
of them left exposed in the streets; how many of these were 'persuaded not
to live' must remain a secret till the disclosure of all secrets. Of above 50 others
we learn that they either lost their lives through the misconduct of those who
should have tended them, or that their deaths are attributable, wholly or in part,
to neglect, want, cold, or exposure; the mother of one was only 13½ years old.
More than 250 infants were suffocated, very generally in bed, and in upwards of
half these cases there was no evidence how the suffocation was caused, or the juries
did not state in their verdict that it was accidental. 1,104 deaths of infants in
London in 1861 under two years old were such as to demand a coroner's inquest
upon them. The age is the same as in the massacre which Christendom annually
remembers, but the size of this great metropolis causes it to out-Herod Herod."
In this sub-district (Putney) three deaths appear to have been registered during
the year without medical certificates, the deceased persons not having been professionally
attended, but the information as to the cause of death received by the local
registrar from friends or relatives. Although this is permitted by the RegistrarGeneral,
it can scarcely be considered to afford that amount of protection against
crime which it is desirable society should possess. Six inquests took place during
the year; in all those at which medical evidence was received the verdicts of tho
juries were satisfactory enough, but in one or two, in which such evidence was dispensed
with, especially in cases of infants found dead, the returns are so vague as to
render the inquiries apparently worthless as a means of ascertaining the "cause of
death," which is, of course, the sole object sought by the holding of inquests. Surely
it were better to incur the expense of hundreds of pounds than that one murderous
deed should escape detection. A medical inquiry without, as in many instances, a
single medical element in it, appears to be an anomaly standing greatly in need of
correction.