The deaths of children under one year of age per 1,000 births is a
safe criterion of the health conditions of a locality. This figure for
the ten years 1881-90 was, for the whole of England and Wales, 142. In
London, we find that in five districts (Hampstead 117, Lewisham 121,
Woolwich 124, Hackney 137, and Wandsworth 141) this mortality was below
the average of the whole country, while in the remaining twenty-five
districts it was above the average.
In Paddington, Islington, Camberwell, Lambeth, Greenwich, Mile End,
Poplar, and Marylebone, it was above 142 and under 150. In St.
Pancras, Kensington, St. George's (Hanover Square), St. Giles's,
Bethnal Green, and St. Olave's, it was above 150 and under 160; in
Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster, Holborn, Shoreditch, and St. Saviour's,
it was over 160 and under 170. The City was 171, Whitechapel 173, St.
George's-in-the-East 182, Stepney 196, the Strand 226.
To show what this figure of 226—the infant mortality of the
Strand—means, I will give the infant mortality of some of the worst
towns in Lancashire: in Liverpool 219, Wigan 161, Bolton 163, Salford
183, Manchester 193, Ashton-under-Lyne 173, Oldham 169, Rochdale 145,
Burnley 184, Blackburn 178, Preston 203. On the other hand, one may
say that the infant mortality of Andover, which has just adopted a
great part of the London Building Act, with the approval of the Local
Government Board, was (for the ten years 1881-90) 91, or 23 per cent.
less than the best of the London districts, and nearly 60 per cent.
better than the Strand.
Glancing at the other Hampshire districts, one may note that in the
New Forest the infant mortality was as low as 80, and that it was
only in Portsea Island (139), Alverstoke (123), and Southampton (135)
that even the lowest of the metropolitan figures were approached. It
is interesting to note that even the worst districts in Hampshire
are below the average of the whole kingdom in the matter of infant
mortality.
THE STRAND
I have previously alluded to the high mortality of the Strand
registration district, and my remarks on one occasion were
contemptuously dismissed, with the criticism that it was unfair to
judge of the state of London by the health of the slums.
It becomes necessary therefore to say that the Strand registration
district includes the Temple, St. Clement Danes, the Precinct of the
Savoy, St. Mary-le-Strand, St. Paul, Covent Garden, and St. Martin's in
the Fields.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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