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9
social position of its inhabitants. The figures placed
under these heads in the foregoing table compared with
those of the several death-rates indicate in a very marked
manner the cause of the great disparity observable in
the latter. Thus Battersea with a death-rate of 18.72
per 1,000 has a population with a density of 46 persons
to the acre, and a labouring population of 84 per cent.;
Clapham, with 30 persons to the acre, has a death-rate
of 13.63 per 1,000, but a labouring population of only
49 per cent.; Putney and Streatham, with a rate somewhat
more than 1 per 1,000 lower than Clapham, have
6 and 7 persons to the acre respectively, and a labouring
population of 47 and 48 per cent. respectively; while
Wandsworth, with a rate of 17.43 per 1,000, has 11
persons to the acre, but a labouring population of 74 per
cent.; so that the sub-district with the greatest density,
and the proportionally largest labouring population, as
in Battersea, has the highest death-rate, and conversely,
those with the smallest labouring population and the
least density, as Putney and Streatham, have the lowest
death-rate, while intermediate death-rates, but widely
differing from each other, result in those sub-districts
the population of which is modified by density on the
one hand, as in Clapham, and by a large labouring
element on the other, as in Wandsworth, the death-rate
varying directly as the density of population, and inversely
as the height of the social scale of the inhabitants.
Under these circumstances it is evident, therefore, that
in contrasting the death-rates of different localities it is
essentially necessary to take into consideration the social
status and density of the populations to which they
relate.