View report page

23
Ages at Death—Social Position of the Deceased, &c.—
The mortality amongst children, it will be seen, has
exceeded that of 1865 by 22 deaths, the respective numbers
of deaths between birth and 10 years of age having been
in the two years 179 and 201.
It will be seen, however, that most of the deaths due to
Zymotic diseases were of very young children, amounting
to the large number of 81 under 10 years of age. The
table also exhibits a rather unusual circumstance, namely,
that of the persons who succumbed to the late epidemic,
whether of Cholera or Diarrhœa, only 2 adults, one between
40 and 60, and the other between 60 and 80 years of age,
are to be found on the register of the year I am speaking
of. At the opposite extreme of life, the number registered
as having sunk from pure infirmity of age, without the
mention of any other important cause tending to shorten
existence, was 35, or one more than was recorded in 1865.
Of those who died between 60 and 90 years, of some well
marked disease, and whose deaths were so certified by
their medical attendants, there are recorded as many as 63,
thus making up in the aggregate a somewhat large mortality
of persons in advanced life. A winter so severe and
changeable as was that of 1866, has seldom been witnessed,
and, as a consequence, many elderly persons succumbed to
bronchial and lung affections, of an intensity which a milder
season would not have rendered nearly so distressing, or
so fatal.
The social positions of the persons whose deaths are
recorded in the register of 1866, are thus defined:—280
industrial or labouring class, 118 middle or trading class,
27 professional or merchant class, but not one of the
nobility, by reason perhaps of their not being resident in
this Sub-district in sufficient numbers to influence the
death rate to any appreciable extent.
Seeing how greatly the working classes outnumber the
other sections of the community, and that they nearly
double the other classes combined, it can hardly be expected
that other than a very high death rate amongst them must
always mark the mortuary records of this densely populated
town.