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19
This I think is quite correct judging from the local circumstances
and the general character of the population.
The death-rates of all the Wards are very low ones and show an
improvement on previous years, the rates given having been based on
yearly populations assumed from local knowledge and not upon that of
the Registrar-General.
The higher death-rates of St. James Street and Wood Street Wards
as compared with the other portions of your district are confirmatory of
the generally accepted views that mortality figures are largely a reflex of
the housing and social conditions of a people.
In St. James Street and Wood Street Wards are to be found most of
the older badly constructed houses put up at a time when Walthamstow
began to change its rural character to become a dormitory for London's
workers.
As the district grew, the better class artisans and city clerk moved
farther away from the older areas in the vicinity of railway stations, and
their places were taken by a poorer, more ignorant, and less thrifty
population, and gradually the houses originally built for one came to be
occupied by two families, with consequent deterioration of property and
its surroundings.
These factors, joined to the Wards' unfavourable geographical conditions,
largely account for the recorded differences.
Contrasting two Wards with equal populations but differing greatly
in their economic conditions, it is found that the deaths from Tuberculosis
and other diseases of the lungs, are twice as many in St. James
Street as in Hoe Street, and that Wood Street with 26 per cent, less
people has actually more deaths from these diseases than its more
favourably conditioned neighbour.
Deaths from diseases from the lungs, whether associated with Measles,
Whooping Cough or Tubercle, are always more numerous among the
poor than among the well-to-do, and the increase is largely the result of
ignorance and the bad conditions under which they live, and it is
difficult to say that the excessive mortality among the poor and
struggling workers can be reduced by measures short of betterment in
their economic conditions.
As the latter is not within the scope of a sanitary authority, a vigorous
administration of Sections 14 and 15 of the Housing and Town Planning
Act, 1909, in association with the teaching in our schools of
Hygiene, and the value of fresh air and cleanliness within the home are
measures upon which we must largely rely.
The following table shows the mortality in the four quarters of the
year for the various Wards:—