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During the year there were no uncertified deaths returned
for Croydon and Hornsey, only one for Tottenham, and three for
Walthamstow.
The causes to which the nine uncertified deaths in Willesden
were ascribed are as follows:—Phthisis, one; influenza, one;
bronchial catarrh, one; convulsions, two; syncope, one; heart
disease, one; premature birth, one; and insufficient vitality at
birth, one.
No firm employing a large number of hands would accept the
assurance of a layman that the alleged illness of an employe was
sufficient excuse for abstention from work; but the State is content
upon such evidence to register the cause of death, and to grant a
certificate of burial where no medical man has seen the deceased
whether alive or dead.
INQUESTS.
There were 94 inquests held in the District during the year,
as compared with 101 last year. In 4G the deaths were ascribed
to natural causes, 10 to suicide, 28 to accidents, one to murder, and
nine to other causes. Of those dying by suicide, five were
returned as due to taking poison (three oxalic acid, one chloroform,
one spirits of salts), one to cut throat, one to hanging, one felo de
se, one on the railway, and one to fractured skull.
It is nowhere truer than of suicide that the sight of means
to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done—hence the preponderence of
suicides by poisons most easily procurable.