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26
The following striking figures are extracted from a report furnished
by the Medical Officer of Bethnal Green. The deaths registered and
relating to that part of the area situated in Bethnal Green being
nineteen -twentieths of the total area, give tho following rates of
mortality. Those in Bethnal Green, as a whole, are also stated fur
purposes of comparison—
Bethnal Green Represented area Represented area
(1886-88). (1888-88). (1889 only).
General mortality 22.8 per 1,000 40.0 per 1,000 40.13 per 1,000
Deaths from zymotic diseases 3.7 ,, 7.9 ,, 10.71 „
Low typo 4 tubercular diseases 3.9 „ 8.6 ,, 7.26 ,,
It is therefore evident that about twice as many persons die in this
area each year as would die if the mortality wore the same as in
Bethnal Green as a whole.
Your Committee have made further inquiry as to the rate of
infant mortality in the area as affording yet more precise evidence,
and find that while in the four years, 1886—89, in Bethnal Green as a
whole, an average of 159 deaths occurred annually among children
under one year of ago to every 1,000 births; in this particular part of
Bethnal Green the average annual number of deaths of such children
was during that period 252 to every 1,000 births, being in the
proportion of throe deaths to live deaths.
It will bo scon that, whether judged by the general death rate or
by the death rates from those classes of disease, which are especially
associated with unwholesome conditions, this area is pre-eminently one
that demands a comprehensive scheme.
The density of the population alone show that some me radical
re-arrangement is necessary, as in this area, consisting almost entirely
of two-storey houses, there are living 373 persons per acre, whereas
over Bethnal Green generally, by the last census, the population is
108 per acre.
As to the important point of cost:
The Valuer's estimate of the gross cost of the scheme is £371,000,
from which must bo deducted the estimated rocoupment of £106,000.
There must bo added the Engineer's estimate of the cost of the now
and widened streets, a sum of £35,000, bringing the total estimated
net cost of the scheme to £300,000, which, reckoning on a loan for 60
years, becomes a burden to the ratepayers (including interest) of
£14,000 for the first year, a charge which will diminish each subsequent
year.
The great cost of the scheme has been carefully considered by your
Committee, but they are of opinion that the large saving of life which