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from measles, scarlet-fever, whooping-cough, and other
largely preventible diseases, which it cannot be said we
have made any serious endeavour to prevent, so long
as the compulsory registration of such diseases, and
the compulsory isolation of them, are not enforced.
Whilst it is true that at my suggestion the Sanitary
Committee obtained the consent of the Vestry to
provide hospital treatment, at the expense of the
parish, for persons above the pauper-class who were
suffering from small-pox or scarlet-fever, by sending
the one to the Small-Pox Hospital at Highgate, and
the other to the London Fever Hospital in the Liverpool
Road; it is nevertheless certain that cases of
scarlet-fever, and probably also of small-pox, occurred
in the parish, of which the Sanitary Department received
no information whatever, or was not apprized until
after their recovery, or their names had appeared in
the death-returns ; and that such cases, whilst under
treatment and during their convalescence, were sources
and centres of contagion to those around them. Such
a state of matters, with the annual huge mortality
consequent thereon, will continue until an educated
people, conscious of its duties and jealous of its rights,
demands from a tardy executive the intervention of
the legislature to prevent it.
The annexed Tables succinctly show the causes
and the extent of the mortality in the parish during
the past year, and at the same time afford, in relation
to such matters, the opportunity of comparison with
former years.