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MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
15
Once, convince me that the immense fatality recorded
under this head is, to a very great extent, due to
obviable causes.
To bring this matter distinctly before you, I must
take, as a standard of comparison, some district
where the general death-rate is sufficiently low to
distinguish it as eminently healthy; and in such an
one you will notice a marked diminution, not only
(of course) in the number of infant deaths, but
likewise in their proportion to the total mortality.
Such a district is that of the combined parishes
of Glendale, Bellingham and Haltwhistle, in the
county of Northumberland. In it the general
death-rate is 14; in the East and West London
Unions of the City of London, the general deathrate
is 26.73. In the former district, children
under five constituting more than an eighth of the
population 1/7.6, their death form about a quarter
of the whole mortality; while in the latter district,
where the children are in smaller proportion—
namely about 1/9 of the population, their deaths are
not much less than half 1/2.24 of the whole mortality.
Thus, in the healthier district they die at
less than double the average rate for all ages; in
the unhealthier, at more than four times that
average.
A still better method of district comparison, is to
arrange in a series the death-rates prevailing in
several localities for persons over Jive years of age,
and, side by side with this column, another for the