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districts, the deaths under 5 being 55 out of a total mortality of 71, which is at the rate of 77.4
per cent. The births in this sub-district were 91. It therefore appears that 60 per cent. of those
born in this sub-district, perished before they reached the age of 5 years. This disproportionate
mortality of children in the Whitechapel North sub-district is very startling, it is certainly unnatural,
and it therefore demands our most serious attention. Although the neglect of the
ordinary sanitary laws proves especially fatal to the young, yet, other agents are most probably
in operation to produce this excessive mortality. The great death rate of young children,
which is observed in all our large towns and populous districts, is owing to other causes besides
the non-observance of the rules of ordinary Hygeine; among which may be mentioned, the immorality,
dissipation, and improvidence of the parents, maternal neglect, want of proper food,
the undue exposure of children to the cold and wet without protecting them with sufficient
clothing, a spectacle frequently to be seen in our public streets, the leaving of children of
tender age in the charge of other children who are totally incapable of taking care of them;
the administration of narcotic drugs, and the delay in not procuring medical advice in the first
stage of disease. Notwithstanding that every possible facility of obtaining the best medical
advice is afforded to the poor of this district, as is shown by the large returns of the Medical
Officers of the Union, and by those of the other medical charities in the district, yet, it must
be apparent, that whilst mothers are obliged to devote all their time to that occupation by
which they are alone enabled to obtain food, &c., for themselves and families, they are
apt to neglect the first symptoms of disease in their children, and do not apply for medical
advice until it is too late to be of any benefit to them. Every medical man practising in poor
neighbourhoods can bear testimony to the fact of children being brought to his surgery for
advice, when the sufferer is just at the point of death, and the next time that the medical man
sees the parent of the sick child, he is asked for a certificate of the cause of its death, the
child having in the interim died. It must be apparent to every one who has devoted any
attention to the eircumstauces of the poor, and has observed the difficulties which surround
them in their struggles to obtain the means of subsistence, that they are to be pitied rather
than blamed for the neglect of their offspring, whereby so much suffering and early death
result; and it must be equally apparent to such observer that these calamities will not be
mitigated to any extent until means are devised for the more profitable employment of the
labouring population, and by diffusing among them an extended system of elementary and
practical knowledge.
From the annual return of the number of cases Taccinated by the public vaccinators
in the Union, prepared by Mr. Farr, it appears that the number of children under 1 year of
age succesfully vaccinated, during the year ending 29th September, was 2004. This number is
751 less than the registered births. In the preceding year, the cases of successful vaccination of
children under 1 year of age were 2197 or 632 less than the births registered in the same
period; and in 1858 the ca6es were 1599, or 1184 less than the registered births. Vaccination
is therefore becoming more extended.
It will be seen on referring to the tables setting forth the sanitary improvements that
have been effected during the quarter that the inspectors have visited, in a systematic manner,