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The public are deeply indebted to the Registrar-General for publishing
year by year and quarter by quarter, and in London week by week, the
returns of deaths ; while in the very fatal and severe epidemics of cholera,
the returns were published day by day together with some valuable remarks
respecting the deaths in each locality. By pursuing such inquiries, year
after year, not only many of the causes that induce sickness and destroy
life have been discovered, but observations of the same kind have shown
that their removal has been followed by health and longer life, and the
economic value of the population of several towns has been increased by
sanitary measures. The Registrar-General further remarks that " the
mean life-time by the English life-table is 40.86 years; by the healthy
life-table it is 49.0 years, which is attainable in every well organized state.
It is fair to assume, that if a fifth part be added to the mean life-time, at
least a fifth part will be added to the worth of a living and labouring
population. For further information on the subject of a diminished deathrate
following the carrying out of sanitary improvements, I refer the reader
to pages 19, 20 and 21 of my Quarterly Report for March, 1877.
In my evidence given before the Royal Commission, which was
appointed in 1864 for inquiring into the state of large towns and populous
districts, a table is printed, showing that the average age at death in the
Whitechapel District in the year 1839 was, including children, 26 years, and
the proportionate number of deaths to population was 1 in 31. In my
report for December, 1877, the number of deaths to population was 1 in 39.0.
If the laws of health were well known and universally followed, it is highly
probable that nearly all the causes of death which are now annually registered
might be prevented, and that the only cause of death which our
mortality tables would show would be "old age," or "decay of nature;"
and instead of the numerous early deaths which now occur, the words of
the prophet might be literally fiulfilled—"The child shall die a hundred
years old (the meaning of which probably is men shall die at the age of a
hundred years); there shall be no more untimely deaths seen." Whether
or not such an event, circumstanced as society is at present, would add to
the sum of human happiness or would advance the welfare of the community,
is one which I have no inclination to discuss; but I may draw
your attention to the fact recorded at page 65 of the Registrar-General's
Report for 1876, where a table is given of the deaths of 69 persons (16
males and 53 females), returned as aged 100 years and upwards in
England and Wales during the year 1874, six of which deaths are stated to
have occurred at the advanced age of 104. In this District several persons
have died whose ages have been upwards of 100. One of these deaths was
that of the widow of a labourer, whose death at 102 years was registered