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14
No typhus. No measles. One death from scarlatina, and two young
children in Castle's Buildings, Russell Street, from small pox.
Hooping cough is still prevalent, and four deaths have been registered
as originating from that complaint. Four persons above the
age of 70 have, during the elapsed month, paid the debt of nature;
their ages were respectively 72, 75, 82, and 93. The last two
being female inmates of Rotherhithe Workhouse, which has long
acquired considerable notoriety for the longevity of its inmates.
The whole number of deaths during the last quarter, has been
the average number, exactly one hundred and ten, not one more or
less. Thirty-two in January, thirty-nine in February, and thirtynine
in March—fifty-six males and fifty-four females. There have
been registered in Rotherhithe one hundred and ninety-eight births,
viz., ninety-four males and one hundred and four females. Eightyeight
more births than deaths, leaving a large balance in favour of
the living and increasing population. Now one hundred and ten
deaths per quarter make four hundred and forty in the year, and
if we estimate the inhabitants of the parish at nineteen thousand, we
die at the rate of about twenty-three and a fraction annually. To
diminish this mortality and prolong the life of man as far as human
means can conduce to that desirable end, is the object of the Act of
Parliament under which you are now here sitting, and if we find
that from your exertions, carried effectually out by your officers,
the average mortality of Rotherhithe some years hence has positively
diminished, a great object will have been attained, and it
will be a comfort and a satisfaction to all therein concerned, that
our labours for the benefit of our fellow-men have not been in vain.
Yours respectfully,
April ls£, 1856. W. MURDOCH.
FOURTH REPORT.
To the Vestry of the Parish of Saint Mary, Rotherhithe.
Gentlemen,
Since the last Report which I had the honour of addressing you,
the time that I have spent in your service has been principally employed
in examining cesspools in the eastern and western districts of
Rotherhithe. I started with the principle that every cesspool is a
nuisance injurious to health; more or less so according to its proximity
to the dwellings of the inhabitants and to the walls or buildings
surrounding it, and hindering the free diffusion of its gases. The
concentration of these gases renders them far more fatal to man
than they otherwise would be if allowed freely to diffuse themselves
through the atmosphere. It has been said of other parts of the
metropolis, and we may safely apply the dictum to our own parish,
that they consist of two cities, the one above ground, in which the
inhabitants exist and breathe, the other under ground, a subterranean