View report page

30
when the mortality was highest, since we commenced
sanitary proceedings, the death was then less than
the average before sanitary proceedings were adopted.
But taking the death rate ten years previous to 1856,
and ten years after 1856, it will be found that whilst
the death date of the first ten years is 775, the
death rate of the second ten years is 730, or, on an
average, 45 less every year. This would be farther
diminished by adding the deaths of the last two years
which are only 707 and 669, thus showing that we
may claim in the score of health operations not
much less than fifty lives a year, or in thirteen years,
650 lives. I need not say how large a saving this
has been to the whole community. It has been a
saving of sorrow, anxiety, and human trouble and
grief which no sum of money could possibly represent.
That it has been a saving of money both to
the Parish and individuals there can be no doubt;
amongst the 650 saved there must be men and
women winning bread and saving money for their
families; amongst them are children who since their
lives have been saved have become the artisans and
domestics of our teeming population. The doctor's
fees have been saved, the undertaker's bills have
been spared in 650 cases of death. But where one
life is saved twenty cases of illness are prevented;
this illness would have entailed loss of wages in the
case of adults, and in the case of children, it would