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age. In Draper's Place the deaths of children under 5 years of age were in
proportion to the numbers of all ages living there on the average of two years,
as 16.1 to 1000. In Gresse Street they were as 12.6 to 1000, or about 1 in 80.
In James Street, Wellington Square, there were 14 deaths under 5 years of
age in the year 1861, out of a gross population of 294, or in the proportion of
47.6 to the thousand; the deaths under 5 years of age in this year amounted to
330 per thousand of the number living at that age. The number of deaths at all
ages amounted to 16, which gives the enormously high death rate of 54 per
thousand; the average annual death-rate in the six years, 1856-61, was 33 per
thousand. In this street there are underground kitchens occupied as dwelling
rooms imperfectly drained, owing to a sewer of insufficient depth; each room
is occupied by a family, and in some of the houses the tops of the staircases
are not supplied with the means of ventilation; the inhabitants are poor, and
some of them intemperate. The evils existing here will be but very partially
remedied by evacuating the cellars, and ventilating the staircases. The sewers
might be deepened with great advantage to the health of the inhabitants.
In Wellington Square, close to James Street, 'where there has been nearly as
high a mortality, the same evils exist; both the paving and draining of this square
call for improvement. The infant mortality in Wellington Square in 1860 was
34 per cent of the number living at that age; in 1861 it fell to 6½ per cent.
Poplar Place is another place exhibiting a high rate of mortality—34 in the
thousand as the average annual rate in six years. This is a place occupied by
the Irish, whose habits are dirty, and their mode of living most irregular.
The houses are built with privies under the staircases, and the effluvia from
them pervades the dwelling. This Place and Compton Place might very
advantageously be pulled down, and a very good site could thus be obtained
for the erection of dwellings on an improved model; the existing houses are
much dilapidated, and the sanitary arrangements are, from the very construction
of the houses, most defective.
It has been estimated that the amount of sickness prevalent in a place bears
a tolerably constant proportion to the mortality.* The law of the proportion
is found to be "that the numbers constantly suffering from acute sickness at any
year of age (from 15 years and upwards) will amount to double the number of
yearly deaths, and the number of invalids or permanent sufferers from past
sickness will be equal to the number of annual deaths." Consequently, as the
deaths in St. Pancras during 1861, at the age of 15 years and upwards,
numbered 2227, we may conclude that there were, on an average, constantly on
the sick list, unable to work, dependent on past savings, or on the assistance of
friends, or compelled to throw themselves on the Parish, 6681 adult persons,
of whom one-third were permanently disabled, so that they will never again
be able to work for their maintenance. The adult population, that is, the
population above 15 years of age, was, in 1851, about 68 per cent. of the
whole; if the same proportion existed in 1861, the number living above 15
years of age at the census would be 135,176, so that we should have one
person out of every 20 constantly sick, and of these, one-third, or one of every
60 persons in the population, permanently disabled. A large proportion of
these was amongst the poor, many of whom were thus brought on to the rates,
for there is no cause of pauperism so prolific as sickness.
The numbers above bear no reference to the sickness of children, but it must
* "On the Statistics of Health," by T. R. Edmonds, Esq., B A , Appendix to Report of the
Proceedings of the Fourth Session of the International Statistical Congress, page 450.