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House, and at other smaller "public institutions," which are
retained in our vital statistics by way of compensation for the deaths
of parishioners at public institutions and elsewhere outside the
parish. It also includes the deaths of parishioners at the Fever
and Small pox Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylum District.
The death-rate was 18 per 1,000 persons living, or 1.1
below the rate in 1879, and the decennial average. The Metropolitan
rate was 22.2 per 1000, and 0.8 per 1000 below the mean
rate in the previous ten years. The rate in all England and Wales
was 20.6 per 1,000.
The subjoined table shews the death-rate in Kensington for the
last 8 years as compared with that of the whole Metropolis, and
of the several divisions thereof as mapped out by the RegistrarGeneral,
and of England and Wales.
Death-rate. 1880. 1879. 1878. 1877. 1876. 1875. 1874. 1873.
Kensington 18.0 19.1 20.3 17.3 19'5 19.4 19.5 18.3perl,000
London 22.2 23.3 23.5 21.9 22.3 23.7 22.5 22.5 „
W. Districts l9.9 22.4 21.6 19.1 21.0 22.1 20.9 20.5 „
North „ 21.2 22.7 22.3 21.8 21.4 22.3 21.8 21.2 „
Central „ 23.2 25.2 24.9 24.1 24.0 26.0 25.6 25.0 „
East „ 24.3 25.8 24.9 24.4 24.0 25.5 25.4 25.2 „
South „ 22.8 24.2 24.2 21.3 22.1 25.0 21.5 22.0 „
England Wales20.6 10.8 21.7 20.4 21.0 22.8 22.3 21.1,,
The Registrar-General, referring in his Annual Summary for
1880 to the Metropolis generally, states, that "only on five other
occasions within the last forty years has so low a death-rate (as
22.2 per 1,000) been recorded, viz.: in 1850, 1856, 1872, 1876,
and 1877; and it will be noted that of these six years of low
mortality, no less than four occurred in the last decennium." He
adds that "the decennium which closed with the year 1880 was
one of lower mortality in London than any of the preceeding
decennial periods, for which trustworthy data are forthcoming."
The second half of the decennium also had a lower mortality than
the first. "These facts," he says, are "strong evidence that the
sanitary efforts of recent years have not been unfruitful," evidence
strengthened by the fact that'' the saving of life was almost entirely
due to diminished mortality from causes whose destructive activity
is especially amenable to sanitary interference, namely, the socalled
zymotic diseases."