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48
Now the inevitable mortality of a town district, deduced from various considerations,
is 17 per 1,000, and it is believed to be within the power of sanitary
science to reduce all the above death-rates to this number. It will be seen,' indeed,
hereafter, that Bloomsbury is scarcely in excess of this death-rate, and St. Pancras
approaches it moderately closely. Hence the standard of 17 per 1,000 is no ideal
summit of excellence, but one which we should strive after, and should not be satisfied
till we attain.
In the above table, it will be seen that the St. Giles district has the greatest
excess above the normal necessary death-rate of all the localities with which it is
compared, and the sad significance of the figures will be apparent on an instant's
consideration.
If the death-rate of London, in 1857, had been the 17 per 1,000 of a healthy
town, there would have been saved 14,780 lives out of the 60,000 that was lost. On
the other hand, if the death-rate of London, in 1857, had been that of St. Giles,
there would have been lost 16,170 lives in addition to the actual 60,000 Hence it
makes a difference of 30,950 lives to London yearly, whether it shall have a deathrate
the same as Lewisham, the 17 per 1,000, or the same as St. Giles, 38.6 per
1,000.
Now, although London is made up of localities which have much fewer natural
advantages than St. Giles, as well as of others that are more highly favoured than
it, it is certain that years and years must elapse before the mortality in St. Giles can
be reduced to the average of London, for some generations must pass before the
simplest laws of health will be received and practiced among the ignorant poor of the
district,
The death-rate of St. Giles, however, is not alone higher than that of the
Metropolis, it is very materially higher than in the Strand, than in Holborn, than in
St. Martins, districts which, in almost all main features, agree with St. Giles.
Holborn, for example, situated on a lower level, with houses as crowded
together, and as poor as St. Giles, with almost as many Irish among its residents,
comprising in its boundaries the hopeless maze of courts and alleys about Gray's Inn
Lane—this district of Holborn, in every respect so similar to our own, had only 240
deaths last year, where St. Giles had 286. It is to this point, established by the
foregoing comparison, that I wish to draw most especial attention; this is the
lamentable truth, which must be received and pondered over by those to whom the
health and wealth of the district is entrusted.
(5) The last aspect under wh ch I would present the total mortality of St.
Giles, in 1857, is under the experience of former years. It may be true that the
district is less healthy than the rest of the town, or than any of its five immediate
neighbours; but may there not be some consolation in an examination of the past?
Though it is still far from us, are we not progressing slowly towards a proper
standard of health ?
The figures of Table V., in the Appendix, will answer the question:—
Eighteen-fifty-seven was not an unhealthy year in London, although its mortality
was decidedly larger than of 1856. The death-rate of 1857 for the Metropolis,