View report page

9
amongst the inhabitants of Hackney in 1871-80 was 965, of
which I was able to ascertain the addresses of 912. Of these,
651 occurred amongst a mean population of 37,000 poor persons,
and 261 amongst 119,400 of the better class inhabitants.
The former residents lived in small houses, chiefly occupied
by more than one family belonging to the working classes,
most of them decidedly poor; whilst the majority of the
population lived in better class houses and belonged, at any
rate the largest number, to persons possessing all the
necessary comforts of life. The contrast between the death
rates amongst the two classes, is very striking, especially as
the deaths of servants and of employes living at linendrapers
and other large establishments, are included amongst
those occurring amongst the better class population. On
being calculated out, we find that the mortality per annum
from small pox for these years was 0.58 per 1,000 for the
whole population, or 0.64 when corrected for the deaths of
those whose place of abode was unknown, and 1.76 for the
poorer population, showing that even when servants and
employes living in their employers' houses, were included
amongst the better classes, the mortality was three times as
great amongst the poor as amongst their more fortunate
brethren. This of course might have been expected to some
extent, as the poor before 1874 were not properly vaccinated
in the same proportion as others; have not the means of
isolation in their homes; visit one another indiscriminately;
and do not avoid infected houses and persons like the better
classes. But these could not account for anything like the
whole difference, so that a further sub-division was made
with the following results:—a circle of a quarter of a mile
radius was struck around the Hospital, taking the middle of
the Hospital as the centre, and as the houses and population
at the sides and in the front had remained with little alteration
during the 10 years, whilst a large number of new houses
had been built in the rear of the Fever Hospital, which is
placed behind the Small Pox Hospital, the houses first