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tolerably satisfactory, inasmuch as a decided decrease of
deaths is shown in the column relating to the "Industrial
and Labouring Classes,'' the numbers being 1,860 in 1871,
but for the past year 1,699. Amongst the "Middle and
Trading Classes " there is also observable a decline in the
number of deaths (from 791 to 518) and the same is found
to be the case amongst the " Nobility and Gentry " (from
107 to 43) but amongst the "Professional and Merchant
Class," it appears the deaths were more numerous than in
1871 by 52.
There were 4,095 cases of sickness, &c., treated during
the year by the Union Medical Officers, 206 of which, or
5 per cent., resulted in death. The per centage of deaths
to cases treated in the previous year was 3.7.
Uncertified Deaths, Inquests, &c.-The number of Inquests
held in the year throughout the District was 122, many
of them being exceedingly unsatisfactory as tests of the
actual causes of death. The number of deaths registered
unattested by medical certificates is found to be 47. In
the previous year there were as many as 116 such entries
in the returns which passed through the hands of the
Medical Officers of Health.
The Coroner of this division of the county, in a letter
addressed to your Board, having taken upon himself to
dispute the accuracy of the latter statement, it will not be
out of place to remark here that your Medical Officers of
Health are in a position to prove the correctness of their
published statistics in every particular; and they, moreover,
assert that to all the entries of unattested deaths in the
returns of the local registrars to which they have referred,
there can be seen attached, in the handwritings of such
registrars, the words "not certified," so that there cannot
exist the slightest doubt about the frequency with which
uncertified deaths have found a place in the civil register
books of this District. It was a remark made by your
Medical Officers of Health, in their last report, that many