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that it is in the combination of circumstances above specified—
increase of population and of births, and prevalence of the
diseases which have been enumerated—that the explanation of
the augmented death-rate of the year lies.
Other zymotic diseases have not largely prevailed ; and from
small pox not a single death was recorded.
Although the number of deaths has been unusually large, the
mortuary tables of Camberwell compare favourably with those of
London, and of the five groups of districts into which the
Registrar General divides the Metropolis. Thus he calculates
that the rate of mortality for the whole of London was 2.349.
per cent; for the northern districts 2.196; for the western
2.221; for the southern 2.261; for the central 2.578; and for
the eastern 2.592. Now the per-centage of deaths which I
deduce for Camberwell, without even allowing for increase of
population (which would have diminished the per-centage),
amounts to 2.17 only, a number indicating a lower degree of
mortality than any given in the above quotation. We are
fairly justified therefore in continuing to claim for ourselves a
pre-eminence of healthiness among the Metropolitan Parishes.
The death-rate of the several sub-districts of Camberwell varied
as usual. But as I have before explained, we become exposed to
so many falacies when we endeavour to compare from the statistics
of death alone, comparatively small populations, that the deathrate
of these sub-districts must be regarded as a very suspicious
test of their relative salubrity. There is however so marked a
difference in this respect between Dulwich and Peckham, and
this difference has been so invariable, that as between these
two sub-districts the death-rate may be regarded as not an
unfaithful index. In Dulwich the deaths were 1.45 percent, in
Peckham 2.086 ; or in other words, 14 persons died out of every
thousand in Dulwich, while in Peckham 21 persons out of every