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15
PROCEEDINGS THAT HAVE BEEN CARRIED INTO EFFECT BY
THE VESTRY, FOR THE REMOVAL OF NUISANCES, AND
THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SANITARY CONDITION OF
THE PARISH.
THE MEDICAL OFFICER REPORTS AS FOLLOWS,—
The annexed Tables represent the Sickness and Death-movements
during the year which terminated on the last day of 1861, and during
the quarter terminated on the 29th March, 1862.
During the year 1861, 3177 deaths and 4864 births were registered. The
aggregate deaths of the preceding six years are expressed in the following
series: 2998, 2719, 2955, 3180, 2922, 2970. If allowance be made
for a gradually and rapidly increasing population, these figures, which
in themselves vary but little, represent a considerable yearly fall in the
rate of mortality. Assuming the population of Shoreditch to have been
for the whole year 1861, what it was ascertained to be on the 8th April,
the date of the Census, the death-rate would be nearly 1 in 40, or 24.8
per 1000, or a little less than 2.5 per centum. The mortality throughout
the metropolis was 2.32 per centum. This comparison would indicate
that the mortality in Shoreditch exceeded the general metropolitan rate.
It would be no discredit to a district comprising far beyond the average
proportion of the poorer classes, were this excess real; but it is in great
part at least, apparent only. Within the Shoreditch Registration-District
are comprised an unusual number of Alms-houses, the last refuge of aged
persons, before they drop into the grave. The district also contains the
Parish Workhouse, with its Infirmary and Fever-Hospital. In this institution
the aged-poor are lodged, whilst the young children, who form the
healthy residue that has survived the perils of infancy, are drafted off to
Brentwood. The population is thus charged with an undue proportion
of persons at the two extremes of age when the expectation of life is least.
In addition to these disadvantages, the district includes the Parish Workhouse
of St. Luke's, which burdens the Shoreditch-mortality with an element
altogether foreign. If this latter element be subtracted, the mortality
is reduced to 2.3 per centum, in fact to the metropolitan rate. But the