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the large Poor-Law Union of Edmonton, and these inmates, of course, do not
enter into our vital statistics. In March, 1914, the estimated population of
Edmonton Unior. was 472, 205; rateable value, £2,489,264. Amongst a total
of forty Guardians, Edmonton District proper has only four representatives.
The Strand workhouse was closed on June 30th, 1914, and the School on
the 31st July, 1913. This closure followed the amalgamation of three Unions,
namely : Strand, Westminster and St. George's, Hanover Square, into one
union known as- the City of Westminster.
The workhouse was taken over by the Metropolitan Asylums Board on
the 15th August as a place for mentally deficient children, but that and the
school were subsequently occupied by Belgian refugees on the 7th September
and the 13th October respectively.
Dr. Leslie Gordon was the medical superintendent at the workhouse
until December 19th, when Mr. S. Pallin succeeded him. Dr. Beels (late of
Antwerp) is superintendent at the school, Millfield House.
A table showing the number of inmates of both the Strand and Edmonton
Institutions, and the births and deaths that have taken place there, will be
found in Table IIa.
At the Edmonton Infirmary and Workhouse the general death rate is over
508 per thousand inmates, and the infantile mortality rate is over 575 per
thousand births taking place there. The similar rates for the district generally
(excluding foreigners) are nearly 11 per thousand inhabitants and slightly over
85 per thousand births.
©PEN SPH6ES.
The County Council has power to contribute to the cost of acquiring open
spaces by (a) County Council of Middlesex Acts 1898 and 1908; (b) The Open
Spaces Act 1906. It can assist any urban or district council, or any combination
of these bodies. Under the latter Act the County Council may itself
acquire open spaces and undertake the management of them—but they have
not yet done so.
Pymmes Park (53 acres) was purchased in 1899 for £36,000, towards which
the Middlesex County Council contributed £9,000. A garden has been laid out
after the old English style within one of the walled enclosures adjoining the
old Elizabethan mansion. The artificial lake provides scope for boating or
skating ; a large deposit of mud washed down from the watercourses is being
removed by the work of unemployed clients of the Distress Committee. As, in