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31
MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
have arranged the statistics of certain other localities
side by side with our own.
In the fourth* (to which I have already especially
referred) is contained an enumeration, according to
the several Wards of the City, of those deaths, during
the last two years, which have arisen in consequence
of acute disease partially or entirely preventable.
In tables of this nature perfection is at present
impossible; partly because of trifling changes in
the population which often occur, but rarely can be
estimated; partly because of the slovenly manner
in which deaths are occasionally recorded. While,
however, I would not consider myself responsible
for their absolute and infinitesimal accuracy (consisting
as they do of so many and so various details)
I may assure your Honourable Court that all
proper pains have been taken, to render them for
every useful purpose correct and trustworthy; and
that I believe them, in all essential particulars,
truthfully to represent whatsoever I have sought to
embody in them.
The annual ratio of deaths within your district,
the local differences of that ratio, the proportion of
infantile mortality, the amount of preventable disease,
and a comparison in all these respects of
parts of the City with each other, and of the whole
City with other inhabited districts,—these are the
materials on which your judgment must be formed
as to the necessity of sanitary measures, whether
* Appendix No. V.