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11
DEATHS.
The number of deaths registered during the year
1878 has been 2951, against 2886 last year, but out of
this number 164 were strangers; that is to say, that
though dying either in the Park Hospital, the Workhouse,
or the Bethnall House Asylum, they were nonresidents
who had been removed for treatment into
these institutions from other parts of the country; they
are, therefore, deducted from the total number of deaths.
But as all over London there are numerous Hospitals
in which, undoubtedly, inhabitants of Bethnal Green
die, we must ascertain our share of these deaths and
add them on. Now, it would be almost impossible, each
year, to search the books of the various metropolitan
public institutions for the purpose of ascertaining the
previous residence of every person dyiug within their
walls; but we know, from published returns, that in
the year 1878 15,381 persons did die in the hospitals
of London, and this gives an hospital death rate
of 4.2 per thousand population, at which rate
our proportion would be 554. As only 301
inhabitants of Bethnal Green died in the Hospitals
within our boundaries, 253, the difference between
this number and 554, may be fairly added on to our
deaths, raising the total to 3040, against 2981 in the
previous year; the births during the like period were
5195 against 5169 in 1877—the excess of the births
over the deaths being 25 less in 1878 than it was in