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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
I have much pleasure in laying before you my Report on
the Vital Statistics for the fifty-three weeks included in the registration
year 1879, which terminated on the 2nd day of January, 1880.
The Statistical Tables in the Appendix are, as usual, prepared upon
the forms recommended by the Society of Medical Officers of Health,
and are as complete as the information at my command can render
them, no pains having been spared to prevent errors. As is well
known, nothing is more difficult to print than tabular statements of
this kind, and I cannot refrain from taking this opportunity of
recording my obligations to Messrs. Forsaith for the great care and
accuracy shewn by them in printing the figures in this and my past
Reports.
INQUESTS.
During the year 1879 two hundred and one inquests were held by
the Coroner, being a per centage of six and a half upon the total
number of deaths during the year. The proportion for the whole of
London was 6.4. Of the total number of inquest cases 72 were
violent deaths; in the remainder the cause of death was either so
obscure, or in some way involved in such suspicious circumstances as
to render an enquiry imperative.
POPULATION AND DENSITY.
There is great difficulty in correctly estimating the increase in the
population of a parish like Bethnal Green, and for these reasons:
most of the available ground is, and has been for some time, fully
built over, the Great Eastern Railway Company, the School Board
for London, and the Metropolitan Board of Works are largely
demolishing small house property,* the Companies for providing
* If this sort of thing goes on much longer, it looks very much as though London in a few years
would become a huge agglomeration of Board Schools, intersected by railways and new streets.