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inmates to a house in these sub-divisions varies from less than 6 to as many
as 14. It would be very interesting to obtain the mortality in each enumeration
district, and compare it with the population of each, as well as with what
is known of the character of the population, as well as of the drainage and
other sanitary provisions. The labour attending such an investigation would,
however, be too great to allow of my undertaking it unassisted. The information
thus obtained would be of very great value in directing sanitary improvements,
and in indicating the conditions which operate most powerfully upon
the health of different parts of the Parish.
As I have not been able to calculate the death-rate in each of the enumeration
districts, as above indicated, I have taken a few streets as specimens,
and having ascertained from the General Census Office the population of these
streets, I have extracted from the detailed tables of mortality, supplied to me
weekly from Somerset House, the number of deaths that have occurred during
the last six years in those streets, and from these data have calculated the
death-rate. These particulars I have arranged in Table D.
INFANT MORTALITY.
Compared with the population at all ages, there were in the entire Parish
in 1861, out of every ten thousand, 107 deaths under 5 years of age; at the
census of 1851, the population under 5 years was about 12.5 per cent. of the
gross population in St. Pancras. If the proportion of children to the entire
population was about the same in 1861 as in 1851, the rate of mortality
amongst children under 5 years of age was between 85 and 86 out of every
thousand living at that age. Now, as there were, at the census, 49,844
families, it appears that, on an average, one family in every 24 lost one infant
under the age of 5 years during the year 1861.
The deaths under 1 year numbered 1065, and the number under that age,
living in the Parish during the year, was about 6661.* It may be stated, that
at that age the death-rate was over 16 per cent. per annum, about 7 times as
as great as the rate at all ages combined.
The rate of infantile mortality in some streets was much higher than this,
as I have ascertained from the enumeration books of the late census, together
with the tables of mortality, to both of which I have had access by the
kindness of the Registrar General. Thus, in Ilenry Street, Hampstead Road,
out of a population of 967, of whom 139 were children under 5 years of age,
no less than 20 children died in 1861, and 21 in 1860 below that age—a rate
of mortality equal to 21 per thousand of the whole population, and of 143 per
thousand of those living at that age. In Tottenham Place, with a gross
population of 754, and 84 children under 5 years of age, there were 8 deaths
under 5 years of age in 1861, and 7 in 1860, giving a mean mortality of 10
per thousand of the whole, or 89 per thousand of those living at that age.
In Southampton Court, of 24 children under 5 years of age, in 1860 2 died,
and in 1861 5 died, giving a mean infantile mortality of 24 per thousand of
the whole population, or 146 per thousand of those at that age, the rate of
mortality in 1861 reaching as high as 208 per thousand of those living at that
* The number of children living in the Pari-h under one year of age may be taken as the
mean of the numbers born in 1860 and 1861. This estimate makes no allowance for tbe number
of children brought into the Parish otherwise than by birth, or of those removed otherwise than
by death. But these numbers would very slightly affect the total.