The lowest suburban mortality recorded in the fifth volume of the Registrar-General’s Reports, for the year then under estimation, gave a rate of 11 in the thousand; and we might perhaps be justified in adopting that rate as a _minimum_ for the purpose of sanitary comparison. According to this standard (undoubtedly a very superior one) it would appear that, during the last year, death has prevailed in the City of London with nearly three times its recognised _minimum_ of severity. But, to avoid all sources of fallacy, I will allow a very ample margin to this estimate; I will take 15 per thousand as a fair standard of mortality, and will assume that last year’s deaths in the City have amounted to only double their normal proportion. Probably no one contends that the lower rate of mortality, as illustrated at Dulwich or Sydenham, indicates an over-healthy condition of the locality to which it refers. Probably no one argues that human life, in those healthier districts, is prolonged beyond enviable limits. Surely, on the contrary, every one who can measure the large amount of misery and destitution which results from a high rate of mortality, will think it most desirable that, by every means within the scope of sanitary science, exertion should be made to reduce the higher rate to the level of the lower. Therefore, Gentlemen, I venture to assure myself, that I shall but have anticipated the wishes of this Hon. Court, in preparing for your consideration a statement of those circumstances, which apparently conspire to determine the larger mortality of the City of London. * * * * * In order to prevent any misapprehension of my remarks, I think it well to observe that, in commenting on this mortality, I purposely avoid instituting any comparison between it and the mortality of those urban districts which immediately adjoin us: for the object of my comparison is not to illustrate how, by similar or worse circumstances, an equally great mortality may have been procured elsewhere; but rather to suggest how, by other and better sanitary arrangements here, our present high mortality may be diminished. Indeed, while I speak of the causes of that high mortality which distinguishes the City of London from the healthier sub-districts I have cited, it will be obvious that many of my observations do not apply to the City of London exclusively, but admit of equal application to various other central districts of the metropolis;--relating, in fact, generally to the characteristic evils of all urban residences.