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12
If, as before, we divide the districts into two classes, we find
that the mean annual death-rate is 208 per 10,000 in those
districts which have the largest proportions of servants, whilst
the average for the other 14 districts is as high as 249 per
10,000 inhabitants. Further, there are only 3 districts amongst
the 14 having most servants, in which the mean annual mortality
exceeds the average of the whole, viz., 228 per 10,000, and on
the other hand, amongst the 14 districts in which there are
fewest servants, there are no less than 8 which have a death-rate
in excess of the average.
We should have expected, in merely glancing at the column
and seeing that the proportion of servants to total number of
residents varied between, 107 per 1000 in St. George's, Hanover
Square, 96 in Hampstead, 79 in Kensington, 64 in Hackney, and
only 22 in Shoreditch, 22 in St. Olave's, and 19 per 1000 in
Bethnal Green, that the death-rate would vary. The variation
however, like that observed in the most densely crowded districts,
does not precisely correspond with the number of servants; and
it is only when we include in one column the districts having the
least overcrowding and the most servants, and in another the
greatest overcrowding and fewest servants, that the effect of the
combined influences can be appreciated. Thus in the 9 districts
which contain the smallest proportion of persons to an acre and
the largest number of servants, the mean annual death-rate was
as low as 195 per 10,000 residents; in the other group of greatest
density of population and fewest servants, the annual rate was as
high as 257 per 10,000 persons. I mention these matters that
you may see the importance of suppressing overcrowding in your
district, and be prevented from supposing that the healthiness
or unhealthiness of a district is to be judged of by its death-rate
alone.
It is however quite certain, that the small death-rate of
Hackney does not entirely arise from the comparative absence of
overcrowding and the large number of servants, as it is seventh as