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"Workhouse or some Hospital to be treated for diseases which prove fatal. This
source of fallacy applies more to the poor districts than to those occupied by
persons in easy circumstances.
In Pancras-square, a block of buildings occupied by 110 families, erected
by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Condition of the Labouring
Classes, the death-rate in 1865 was only 9.2 per thousand, the mean annual
death-rate in ten years was 18 per thousand.
This square is occupied by a large number of families with young children,
and is consequently liable to the inroads of infectious diseases, such as scarlet
fever, hooping cough, measles, and others; the mortality is likely to be higher
than it is amongst a population consisting of more adults.
It is satisfactory to see, that, on the average of ten years, the mortality
was only 18 per thousand. It was considerably raised by an epidemic of scarlet
fever and diphtheria, which carried off 12 children in the year 1863. These
numbers afford a good illustration of the benefit of suitable dwellings for the
working classes, even when they are compelled to live together on a very small
area. Each family has its own water-supply, its own water closet, scullery, and
shoot for dust. The arrangements are not perfect, but they are vastly superior
to what is usually supplied to persons paying the same rents.
VIOLENT DEATHS.
On Table VI. are given all the deaths from violence registered in the Parish.
The total number was 198; of these 166 were from accident or negligence.
Twelvo were run over or injured by railway trains; fifteen were run over on the
public roads ; five were from falls from vans, cabs, or carts.
There were seventeen deaths from burns, two of which were ascribed to
the use of crinoline. There were six children scalded to death.
Three persons were accidently poisoned; one by spirits of ammonia, one
by aqua fortis, and one by an overdose of laudanum.
There were seven deaths from accidental drowning, of which four were in
the Regent's Canal.
There were 25 children suffocated in bed, and nine others from negligence
of various kinds.
Two children died from want of nourishment, and three from exposure to cold.
There were 16 deaths by suicide; of which four were by poison, two by
drowning, three by hanging, three by cutting their throats, two by stabbing, one
by gunshot, and one by throwing himself from a window. The poisons used
were, in two oases, oxalic acid, once prussic acid, and once oil of vitriol.
There were 14 cases of infanticide, beside many others of such culpable
negligence as to be properly described by that name.
MORTALITY FROM ZYMOTIC DISEASES.
Small Pox was fatal in 26 cases, besides 9 in the Small Pox Hospital;
Measles, in 108 ; Scarlatina, in 133; Diphtheria, in 35; Hooping Cough, in 225;
Diarrhoea, English Cholera, and Dysentery, in 282 cases.
From Typhus and Typhoid Fevers, there were 134 deaths, besides 28 persons
from St. Pancras, who died in the London Fever Hospital.