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12 MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON
(after including a due proportion of deaths which
had occurred in the union-workhouse at Mile-end)
the mortality stood only at 15 in the thousand;
one in which, if those extra-mural deaths had been
excluded, the local death-rate for the year would
have been only 13.32.
For an illustration of low and enviable deathrates,
I need then no longer appeal to Northumberland,
or to our south-eastern counties, (though, no
doubt, their septennial periods of low mortality are
valuable corroborations of any inference which could
be drawn from our more restricted experience ;)
but I may point to the last year's death-rate in the
north-west sub-district of the City of London Union
as one of rare excellence, and may content myself
with wishing that that partial rate might become
universal for the City, and might be the permanent
expression of its average mortality.
A detailed consideration of our sickness and mortality
during the last year suggests to me a few
other remarks, which may, I think, be of practical
utility to your Honourable Court.
First, as regards the ages at which death occurs;
the respective proportions of timely and untimely
deaths may, generally speaking, be inferred from
the local death-rates. In general terms, we know
a high death-rate indicates that many die before
their time—indicates that a proportion of the
population, more or less considerable, instead of
reaching old age, becomes prematurely blighted