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48
WARD DISTRIBUTION OF DEATHS.
It will be seen from Table No. 18 that the death rates in
the different wards vary within considerable limits. The North
Kilburn Ward in all respects exhibits the most satisfactory vital
statistics, but Kensal and Willesden Green are not far behind,
and all may be described as eminently satisfactory. Harlesden
and Church End form an intermediate group between the wards
with very low and the wards with unsatisfactorily high mortality
figures. Mid and South Kilburn run each other hard for the
lowest place. These two wards largely constitute the older part
of the district, and much insanitary property exists in each of
these wards. It is hoped gradually to bring them more into line
with modern sanitary requirements, and with this there is
considerable prospect of reducing their high mortality.
Nothing could better illustrate the effect of modern
sanitation upon the lives and health of people than this contrast
in the mortality figures persistently maintained in wards which
vary almost in direct proportion in respect of their comparative
insanitariness.
Arrayed against sanitary reform, and opposed to every
effort made to secure the rudimentary conditions of a healthy
home are the threatened interests of property. Less strenuous
it is certain would be this opposition were it not that monetary
interest or ignorance too often blinds to the evils—the cost in
human life which the continuance of the insanitary conditions
entails.
The social, the educative, the economic conditions of the
people count largely without doubt. Sunk in an abyss of
brutality, ignorance, dirt, squalor and incompetence a submerged
considerable fraction of our population will be helped but little
by the mere provision of sanitary dwellings. But the ward
statistics show that insanitary houses still bulk largely as factors
in the production of high mortality rates.