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excess, viz., diphtheria, cancer, premature birth, and diseases
of the circulatory organs. These headings had shewn similar
excess in each of the preceding six years, and as they shew it
again in 1890, in 1891, and in 1892, they would appear to
be persistently increasing. Similarly with regard to the
diseases which shew diminished mortalities: here, also, most
of the changes were not peculiar to the last four years, but
were parts of a change that had been going on for a considerable
time; for there was also a diminution in each of the five
preceding years, in respect of scarlet fever, the varieties of
"fever," diseases of the nervous system, diseases of the
respiratory system, and the aggregate of "other causes."
"This persistency of decrease," as the Registrar-General
stated, in his Summary for 1888, "affords good grounds
for believing that the diminution under, at any rate,
some of these headings will be permanently maintained."
It will have been observed that the diminution in respect of all
the causes named was maintained in 1892 (as in.1890-91 also),
with the single exception of the diseases of the respiratory
system, which, in place of a diminution of 4,376, as in 1889,
shew an excess of 2,143 in 1890, of 4,103 in 1891 and of 392 in
1892, due doubtless to the prevalence in these years of
epidemic influenza.
The death-rate in "Greater London," which is co-extensive
with the Metropolitan and City Police Districts, the population,
in 1892, numbering 5,752,204, was 19.3 per 1000, the
rate in the preceding three years having been successively, 17.3,
20.1, and 19.8, and the average for the three years 19.1. The
deaths properly belonging to the Outer Ring, as distinguished
from Inner or Registration London, were equivalent to a rate
of only 15.6 per 1000, the rate in the Inner Ring, as already
shewn, having been 20.6. The death-rate from the principal
zymotic diseases in Inner London, was 2.82 per 1000; in the
Outer Ring2.14 only; the rate for Greater London, as a whole,
being 2.64 per 1000. Compared with the rates in the preceding