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12
The deaths of illegitimate children under five years of
age, 101, 87 and 118 in the three preceding years respectively,
were 119 (males 58, and females 61) of which 113 were
registered in the Town sub-district—and were equal to 57'4
per cent. on births registered as illegitimate. Of these 119
children, only 17 outlived their first year, 9 dying in the
second, and 7 in the third year of life. The causes of death,
as registered, were atrophy, debility, and inanition, 37;
premature birth, 5; atelectasis, 1; tubercular diseases, 6;
zymotic diseases, 20 (viz., diarrhœa, and whooping-cough, 9
each, scarlet fever and measles, 1 each); syphilis, 7;
lung diseases, 24; convulsions, 9; diseases of the digestive
organs, 7; violence (accidental suffocation), 1; erysipelas
and tumour of neck, 1 each. Illegitimate children are
commonly brought up by hand, under the charge of strangers.
The evidence of improper feeding, and of the lack of maternal
care, is apparent enough in the above list of the causes of
death.
SENILE MORTALITY.
At sixty years of age and upwards, there were 957 deaths
being equivalent to 31.2 per cent. on total deaths, the equivalent
percentage in London as a whole being 26.0.