View report page

36
statistics of the mortality of our Workhouses have
also been greatly interfered with by changes in local
administration and the erection of common hospitals
and infirmaries for the various parishes of London.
At any rate, the inference we may draw from the
above table is, that there has been a gradual diminution
of deaths in the Workhouse since 1864, and
that there was less death amongst the Saint James's
paupers in 1871, than any year during the last ten
years. The curious part is the equality of the
number of deaths of paupers for Saint Anne's, Soho,
during the three years of which they have been
inmates of Saint James's Workhouse.
Zymotic Diseases in 1871.
I have always regarded the prevalance or absence
of these diseases as one of the great tests of the
salubrity of a situation or a season. At the same
time, a district in a town is not always capable of
defending itself from the attack of these insidious
complaints, on account of the carelessness or dirtiness
of their neighbours. It has been one of the great
faults of our sanitary arrangement and legislation
for London, that the metropolis has not been
regarded as a whole, and that, through the ignorance
or carelessness of one district or local board, the
whole of the others may be put in peril. At the
same time, defective as are our laws, displaying
alike ignorance of the nature of Zymotic diseases,
and the means of preventing them, much good may be