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7
and Wandsworth), should never be lost sight of in instituting
any comparisons between those localities and others
which happen to be without public institutions. Such
institutions as County Asylums, Prisons, Hospitals, Union
Infirmaries and the like, will be found throughout the
kingdom to derive their inmates, with a few exceptions,
from without the parishes in which they happen to be
located, consequently the deaths of what are termed "nonparishioners"
should always be excluded when it is desired
to show the true mortuary rate or the rate proper to any
particular locality. This is explained more fully in the
Local Summaries relating to the two Sub-districts mentioned
above, and it will not, therefore, be necessary to refer to
this matter in this place at any greater length than to remark
that, if this consideration be not fairly made to apply to the
usual calculations in respect to the ratio of deaths to populations,
great injustice might be done in some instances, by
making certain localities wear the appearance of unhealthiness
when at the same time they may be justly entitled to
be considered the very reverse of insalubrious. The above
table, therefore, should be alone read as simply giving the
total deaths in the entire District by a comparison of two
years, and as showing how and in what ratio these deaths
were distributed over the large area under the jurisdiction
of the Board.
There is another circumstance it is desirable to notice,
viz., the necessity which appeared to exist of making the
year's tabulation to embrace the death registrations of 53
weeks, in accordance with the plan pursued by the Registrar
General. This, in some of the larger Sub-districts,
may be looked upon by many as a most disturbing element
in estimating the death-rates, but in the long run, and taking
one year with the other, such disturbance must be considered
as more apparent than real, seeing that the increase
or decrease of deaths, as the case may be, of any one year
will be duly balanced by a corresponding decrease or
increase in the next.