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13
From this it will be remarked that there is great
uniformity in the proportions of births and deaths
in the several quarters—winter being the season
when both occur in the largest proportion, and next
to this is autumn, while the smallest number of
births and deaths occurs in the summer season.
The distribution of the deaths according to age is
shewn in the fourth Table of the Appendix. As I
have already said, the largest mortality occurs
among children of less than five years of age. In
the East London Union the number of deaths at
this period of life amounted to 42 per cent, of all
the deaths; in the West London Union to rather less
than 36 per cent; and in the City Union to only 26
per cent.—the mortality in the whole City being
from 34 to 35 of all the deaths. The comparatively
low mortality of children in the central district is
evidently due to the small proportion of births in
that district; for if we estimate the infant mortality
according to the number of births in the three City
Unions, it will be found that for every 100 children
born in the Eastern and Western districts nearly 19
die before they are a year old, and in the Central
division of the City 16. In all England the average
death-rate of infants at this age is a little less than
16 per cent., whereas during the last ten years it
has been just 17 per cent, in the City.