View report page

8
The diseases shewing excessive mortality over the whole
Metropolitan area were Diphtheria, Diseases of the Circulatory
System, Cancer, Diseases of the Urinary System, Diseases of the
Nervous system, and Premature Birth.
The Registrar General is of opinion that these several excesses
appear not to be due merely to temporary influences, but to
indicate the operation of some permanent causes; for if the
corresponding tables in the last five annual summaries be examined,
it will be found that, in each of the last five years, 1883 to 1887,
there are similar excesses.
Similarly, under the headings under which there has been a
diminished mortality in 1888, there are 10 in which there was
also a diminution in each of the preceding five years, namely
Scarlet Fever, Typhus, Simple and Ill-defined Fever, Enteric Fever,
Diseases of the Nervous System, Accident and Murder, and one
or two others.
MARRIAGES.
In this parish there are 14 churches, 15 chapels, and one
registry office licensed for marriages: of these there were in the
First Quarter 417
Second Quarter 567
Third Quarter 587
Fourth Quarter 711
Total 2282
This total indicates a marriage rate of 17.49 to every thousand
persons; or, as in each marriage there are two contracting parties,
34.68 per thousand of our population entered the bonds of
matrimony.
Fifty-five of these weddings were purely civil contraots, and
required the presence of the Registrar to legalize them; 28 of
them took place in the Registrar's office and the remainder
in chapels. The rate for London was 16.1 persons married to
one thousand of the population. This, the lowest marriage rate as
yet recorded in the Metropolis, was 18.5 per thousand lower than
that of Bethnal Green.
DEATHS OF INFANTS.
Twenty-six per cent of the deaths from all causes were those of
infants aged less than 12 months; for out of 4936 children born
alive, 770 died before reaching the age of one year, leaving only
4166 who attained that age; this gives a death rate, calculated
upon the births, of 156 per thousand. The corresponding rate for
the whole of London was 146; the diseases most fatal to infants