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18 MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
steps had been less successful than the first. In all
these matters, and especially in analyzing the details
of a death-registry, it is requisite (as I have already
stated) to deal with cycles of many years. Periods
of pestilence are habitually followed by periods of
diminished mortality: partly because population is
diminished, and especially that share of the population
which suffers most from obviable causes of
disease; partly because the great alarm of death
has induced vigilance and precaution, public and
private, against the occasions and beginnings of illness.
And, beyond both these circumstances, there
are others which we cannot analyze or explain,
though we have scientific certainty of their operation
; circumstances which seem to ensure a comparative
quiescence of the ordinary causes of disease
during those periods which next succeed the prevalence
of certain fatal epidemics.
Nevertheless, that the sanitary condition of the
City has undergone considerable improvement within
the last two years, is a fact which no one can
gainsay; and that a considerable share of the mitigation
in mortality arises from this improvement
cannot reasonably be questioned. If even a third of
the mitigation in question, if a reduction of ten per
cent. on the preventable mortality of the City, may
be inferred from the materials which I lay before
you, it is indeed matter for the utmost congratulation
; and a continuance of the same reduction year
by year, perpetuated (as doubtlessly it may be) by a