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persons who had previously resided in another sanitary district have
been excluded from the total deaths in the district in which the
institution is situated, and credited to the districts from which they
came. By this means alone can reliable data be secured upon which
to calculate trustworthy rates of mortality.
"The births registered in London during the year 1886 were 133,690,
equal to an annual rate of 32.3 per 1,000 of the population, estimated
at 4,149,533 persons. The London birth-rate, which was 35.9 per
1,000 in 1876, has since steadily declined, and was lower during the
year under notice than in any year since 1860, when it did not exceed
32.0 per 1,000. In the various sanitary districts the birth-rates
shewed the usual wide variations, owing to the differences in the age
and sex distributions of their populations. In those districts containing
an undue proportion of unmarried females, chiefly domestic
servants, such as St. James, Westminster, Kensington, St. George,
Hanover Square, and Hampstead, the birth-rates are exceptionally
low; while in Shoreditch, St. Luke's, St. George-in-the-East, and.
Bethnal Green, where the population consists largely of young married
persons, the birth-rates show a marked excess.
"The 81,189 deaths registered in London during the year under
notice were equal to an annual rate of 19.6 per 1,000 of the estimated
population, which, with the single exception of 1885, when the rate
was 19.5, was lower than in any year since the present system of civil
registration was established, in 1837. This marked decline in the
death-rate of London is to some extent due to the decline in the birthrate,
which naturally diminishes the proportion of young children in
the population. Had the birth-rate in the last five years been equal
to that which prevailed in the ten years, 1871-80, there would have
been about 50,000 more children living in London in 1886; and, as
the mortality in this early life-period is high, the general death-rate
would have been higher than that actually recorded. The lowest
rates of mortality among the thirty-nine sanitary districts during
1886 were 14.4 in Hampstead, 14.9 in Kensington, 15.3 inPlumstead,
16.4 in Hackney, and 16.7 in Lewisham. In the other districts the
rates ranged upwards to 25.4 in St. Olave, Southwark, 25.6 in St.
Giles, 27.3 in St. George, Southwark, 27.8 in Holborn, and 29.8 in
St. George-in-the-East. During the year under notice 11,076 deaths
were referred to the principal zymotic diseases in London; of these,
3,941 resulted from diarrhoea, 2,834 from whooping-cough, 2,077
from measles, 830 from diphtheria, 689 from different forms of fever
(including 606 from typhoid fever, 70 from ill-defined forms of
continued fever, and 13 from typhus), 685 from scarlet fever, and 20