In the fourth[46] (to which I have already especially referred) is contained an enumeration, according to the several Wards of the City, of those deaths, during the last two years, which have arisen in consequence of acute disease partially or entirely preventable. [46] Page 167. In tables of this nature perfection is at present impossible; partly because of trifling changes in the population which often occur, but rarely can be estimated; partly because of the slovenly manner in which deaths are occasionally recorded. While, therefore, I would not consider myself responsible for their absolute and infinitesimal accuracy (consisting as they do of so many and so various details) I may assure your Hon. Court that all proper pains have been taken to render them for every useful purpose correct and trustworthy: and that I believe them, in all essential particulars, truthfully to represent whatsoever I have sought to embody in them. The annual ratio of deaths within your district; the local differences of that ratio; the proportion of infantile mortality; the amount of preventable disease; and, in all these respects, a comparison of parts of the City with each other, and of the whole City with other inhabited districts,--these are the materials on which your judgment must be formed as to the necessity of sanitary measures, whether for the entire City, or for its component parts: and as a main object of the appointment which I have the honour to hold is that I should furnish you with materials for forming that judgment, so I may probably stand excused for troubling you with these considerations at such great length. II. THE CAUSES AND THE PREVENTION OF ENDEMIC DISEASE. According to the method adopted in my last Annual Report, I now proceed to offer you such observations as another year’s experience may justify, on those physical influences which prevail against life within the City of London, and on such remedial measures as seem aptest to remove them. _Sub-soil Drainage, House-Drainage, and Sewerage._