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32
breast ; and in the case of these two, it was admitted that the supply
was scanty and difficult. All the others were fed with farinaceous
food of various kinds, cows' milk or condensed milk. Two or three
had the breast occasionally.
29. There was no "overcrowding," in the legal sense in any
instance, and in all the houses the supply of water was good, with
the exception of one, where there was an underground tank.
30. Seven of the children were illegitimate, which is about three
times more than the due proportion. Four were twins.
31. The evidence makes it clear that these deaths occurred among
debilitated, ill-fed, and probably ill-cared-for children. Infants
brought up by hand, with scanty and indigestible food, fall easily into
a state of debility, which disables them from resisting the injurious
influence of high temperature and close fetid rooms.
Typhus Fever.
32. At the commencement of September, I was informed of the
occurrence of six cases of Typhus Fever—four of these in Lincoln
Court, and two in Great Wild Street. This outbreak was so unexpected
that further inquiries were immediately instituted, with
the view to ascertain the cause. The localisation of the fever led me
to believe that the disturbance of old deposits of filth in the
basements of three houses that had been destroyed by fire in Lincoln
Court—a disturbance caused by the removal of the old foundations
preparatory to rebuilding—had set free poisonous gases which
generated the fever. All the sufferers in Lincoln Court lived in close
proximity to the ruins of these houses.
33. These cases were soon followed by others in the same month,
fourteen of them in the same locality, and four others in various parts
of the District.
34. The fever continued to prevail to about the middle of the
following month, when it declined.
35. The annexed table exhibits the mortality during the entire
year, with the sex and age of the sufferers.