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12
Of the 15,597 persons who have died within your
jurisdiction, not an eighth part had reached the
traditional “three score years and ten;” while nearly
three-eighths died in the first five years of life. In
proportion as facts like these appear in the deathtables
of a particular district, in the same proportion
we can trace the local prevalence of particular
diseases, to explain the abridgment of life; and
passing from such a locality to other districts, where
the natural term of existence is more nearly attained,
invariably we find that these diseases have
fallen into comparative inertness. Finally, in
grouping the fatal results of such diseases in their
proportionate geographical allotment, invariably we
find that their prevalence or non-prevalence, here
or there, has been associated with demonstrable
physical differences; that life has not capriciously
been long in one place and short in another, but
that, where short, it has been shortened; that its
untimely extinction has depended on the direct
operation of local and preventable causes.
In this recognition of cause and effect, which the
experience of late years has rendered vivid and
precise ; and in that higher appreciation of human
life, which belongs to civilised nations in peaceful
times ; and in that deeper sympathy for the suffering
poor, which should be at the heart of every
Christian government, sanitary legislation had its
origin in this country; and it has been the good
fortune of the City of London (in respect of your