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temper only 21, 58 for the two months, while the
extreme cold of November and December at once
increased the number of deaths to 121.
In regard to zymotic or epidemic diseases, one distinguishing
feature of the year was the outbreak of
small-pox, which prevailed extensively over the metropolis
for several months. We had only 3 deaths from
this cause. The children in all the schools were
carefully examined, and all those who were found to
be unprotected by vaccination were subjected to itp
influence. A very few parents objected at first to the
operation, but by persuasion all were induced to have
their children vaccinated, and the ravages of smallpox
were thus limited. From measles and scarlatina the
deaths were about the average; whooping cough and
diarrhoea much below it; the latter exemption being
due to the absence of our usual summer heat; fever
was also much below the average; diseases of the lungs
exceeded the average, from the great prevalence ot
cold and wet weather. In the workhouse the deaths
were above the average, 81, while in 1859 they were
only 59. Extreme cold carrying off many old people
who had been suffering for years from asthma and
other diseases of the organs of respiration.
The large proportion of deaths in children under 5
years is nearly the same in each of the four years, being
about 35 per cent., or mora than one-third of the whole
number of deaths. This large mortality among children
is a constant subject of lamentation, but we might,
with perhaps some hope of doing good, carry our speculations
beyond the surface, and trace the causes of the
great mortality of infants to the large number of improvident
marriages contracted by parties who have neither
the means nor the knowledge to take proper care of children.
A vast number of children are born, who from
the circumstances of their parents are necessarily
doomed to early deaths. The greater part of this large
mortality iu children, occurs in the poorest neighbour-