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To the Chairman and Members of the
Urban District Council of Teddington.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit for your consideration my
17th Annual Report upon the health of the Urban District
of Teddington, together with the vital statistics.
In accordance with the requirements of the Ministry
of Health, this Report will be something in the nature of a
resume of the last five years, and will therefore be rather
longer than usual; but as I am not in the habit of omitting
any of the principal statistical tables, these will appear
unchanged.
The Sanitary condition of the district is, on the whole,
very satisfactory.
The Birth Rate for 1925, still on the downward trend,
is 17.7 per 1,000; and the highest for the last five years is
21.4 per 1,000 in 1921. All over the country the Birth Rate
is declining steadily, and there is no doubt that by far the
greatest proportion of the decrease is amongst the middle
classes. Now this is a grave situation for a nation which,
in order to meet the demands of a perpetually advancing
civilisation, has to find an ever larger number of men and
women of good education to fill those posts which require
mental capacity and balance, knowledge, and foresight,
both in the home country and in the Empire at large.
Without in the least disparaging or under-estimating the
fact that intellectually well-equipped people now come from
all classes of the community, it still remains true that
England must look to the middle classes in the future,
as in the past, to supply a large quote of the persons needed
and qualified to hold its responsible and skilled posts. And
yet it is particularly in the middle classes that the decrease
in the Birth Rate is most noticeable. It would seem to
be because these people are bearing "the burden and heat
of the day" in the shape of expensive living and high taxation
and only small relief from the State in respect of
children. Moreover, school fees are high, and scholarships
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