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6
if possible the reason for the disproportionate death
rates from these diseases between the two divisions of
the Hamlet; this is apparently a difficult problem to
solve, from the fact that the mortality has been greater
inversely to density of population. We are all aware of
the crowded condition of the West Ward and some
other portions of the Western Registration District.
An approximate explanation may be found in the probability
that the population is more fixed than that in the
worst portions of the Eastern division, and as such the
people take more interest in the sanitary condition of
their dwellings ; another point is, and one which I think
contributes much to the favorable comparison, that there
aro many common lodging-houses in the West Ward ;
these houses are under the vigilant surveillance of the
police, some officers being specially allotted to the duty.
The houses are consequently rigidly kept in constantly
good sanitary condition ; otherwise, from the class of
peoplo occupying them they would be overcrowded,
dirty, and out of repair, and would add considerably to
the mortality of those diseases which are generated and
fostered by such conditions.
Again, many of the new houses in the Eastern Division
have been built upon ground entirely unprepared
previously for the foundations and erection of dwellings,
much of this ground having been probably for years tho
depository for refuse of all kinds, in addition to the
organic decay and malaria within itself; from such a
foundation pestilent emanations must ariso into the
warmed air inside the superstructure. This latter may
also be constructed of materials pregnant with danger
to health, and even containing the active germs of disease
in building materials from old infected houses, all
of which the law has hitherto recognized, or at least
not attempted to prevent.
I have before referred to the fact of newly-inhabited
lacalities, even in apparently the most favored