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however, are the localities of the poor, where other
influences, besides dirt and over-crowding, are at
work; for, in spite of all our sanitary efforts, they
still show—as well in the sickness as the mortality
returns—an undue proportion of those unwholesome
influences which act so severely on a city
life; but this will be better seen when we
examine the death-rate of the young, and the
nature of the diseases which have caused it.
In the course of the year the mortality of chil
dren under 15 years of age, has been greater than
usual:—it has risen from a general average of
1,351 to 1,408; and the increase has been chiefly
among children of less than "five years of age.
These indeed have died to the number of 1,230,
instead of 1,182. Altogether it amounts to a little
more than 42 per cent. of all the deaths. In the
Metropolis generally, the proportion is somewhat
less than 41 per cent.; and in all England, where
the proportion of infants is much larger than in
the City, it is but 42. I have no means of determining
very accurately the death-rate of children
in the City, for I have no knowledge of the number
living; but if we take the number (13,663) which
was given at the last census, and which is rather
more than a tenth of the whole population, it will
appear that the death-rate of children under five
years of age has been a little more than 90 in the