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19
The Return discloses that the length of the New Sewers
amounted to 60,643 feet; the Houses Inspected to 4822 ; the
Cesspools filled-up to 3197; those emptied to 561; the Houses
newly drained to 4904; the Traps to Drains to 2728; the
Drains improved to 725; the New Water Closets to 249;
those improved to 3085 ; the New Dust Bins to 1044; and
the several Nuisances to 5305.
During these five years the Paving Works alone cost
upwards of £11,760.
The preceding paragraphs testify to the progress of Bethnal
Green. As we have advanced our defences, so are we
reaping our reward. The harvest, in fact, has already begun.
In laying before you the Vital Statistics of 1861, it has afforded
me much gratification to say that in contrast with London and
its East Districts, Bethnal Green attained a higher measure
of health and suffered less from Epidemic Deaths :—And
further, that the lifetime of those we lost was higher than in
any of the periods on which I have previously had to report.
Consumption moreover declined, and our liability to die
was less.
" Wherever the absolute mortality is low, the number of
deaths in the Epidemic Class is less than the number in the
Pulmonary Class ; and, on the contrary, wherever the deaths
in the first class exceed or equal those in the third, [now the
sixth, with the addition of Consumption] it may be affirmed
that the absolute mortality is high." By the above rule of
Dr. Parr, the classification of Table 2, shows that our absolute
mortality ranked low last year.
But as all sanitary evils fall with greatest force " upon
those who are unable to quit the scene of their misery, or to
provide the means for its alleviation," and as " nothing but
the adaptation of the present houses to the necessities of
healthy existence and the demolition of those houses that are
unfit for human habitation" can contribute so much to life