The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-12 00:00:00

seventeen hundred infants are offered up every three
years as victims to an unsated and unsatiable monster
of pestilence. The sacrifice to the anticnt Minotaur
was mere child's play to this modern slaughter.
We are not throwing dark shades into a picture
fur the sake of effect. We are merely translating
or rather transcribing Mr. 81110N.15 ghastly report
to the City authorities in language that all may
understand. Let us first quote the words of the re-

port itself :
.1
You will notice that in 3.469 instances. nearly 3-Stlnt of 1
the whole deaths have befallen children under five years old. i
Children at this age constitute about a tenth part of the
population of the City. They, accordingly, die at about ,
four times the rate which would fall to them as cereal par-
ticipators in the average mortality of the district. • • •
In the silth, seventh, and eighth columns stand deaths
raking in the chief acute diseases of infancy, those to which
the disproportionate mortality of infants is mainly due.
Many careful statistical observations, as will as personal
i ezperience convince me that the immense fatality recorded
tinier this .head is to a very great extent due to obviable
causes.
rn bring the matter distinctly before you, I must take as a
I standard of comparison some district where the general
death-rate is sufficiently low to distinguish it as Milli ntly
healthy ; and in such an one you will notic.f a marked dim-
notion, not only (of course) in the number of infant deaths,
but likewise in their proportion to the total mortality.
Such a district is that of the combines' parishes Of Glen-
dale, Bellingham, and Ilaltwhistle, in the county of North-
umberland. In it the arisen' death-rate is II [per thou-
sand]; in the East and West Loudon Unions of the City of
London, the general death-rate is 24.713. In the former
district, children under five constituting more than an
eighth of the population (1-7.26), their deaths form about
agnate:. of the whole mortality. While in the latter dis-
trict, where the children are in smaller proportion, namely,
about one-ninth of the population, their deaths arc nut
much less than hall (1.2.21) of the whole mortality. Thus,
in the healthier district they die at less than double the
average rate for all ages; in the unhealthier, at more than
. flow (toys that ammo.
Nothing can be clearer or more forcible than this
' striking statement. To present truth, however, in
r every possible sltape, is the duty of the journalist ;
, and we proceed to make use of these calculations to
, show the dire nature of the facts under a different

aspect
fhe whole number of infant deaths during the last
three y cars in the City is 3;169. The whole number
of deaths, 9,176. 'the infanta am to the rest of the
population as 1 to 10. About 25 out of every
thousand of all ages die during the year. Of these,
about 9 will be infants, and 16 of every other age.
Carrying out the calculation, we find that 1,735
infants arc sacriliesslyearly to the Minotaur of miasma,
malaria, and ignorance.
Is not tuis a fact to be painted up in all vestries in
the city ; to be recited at every common council; to be
shouted out every time the toast-master, at a City
la. r, calls upon the guests in a stentorian voice to
drink " Prosperity to the City of London." Seven-
teen hundred infants who might have inscribed on
their tombstones, " Murdered by miasma."
Suppose for u moment that a portion of the city
where this proportion obtains, could be transported
to Northumberland, and placed side by side with
the combined wishes of Glendale, Bellingham, and
Ilaltwhistle. Allow this portion to possess, at its
transit, as many inhabitants as arc living in the said
parishes, and that the two neighbouring districts re-
tamed their respective rates of mortality. How
would the astonished rustics stand aghast at the
black peals ever issuing from the church tower of
their new neighbours! They would imagine, and
they would be right, that some fearful pestilence was
raging in the midst of their adjoining parish. They
would hel inclined to draw a cordon sunitaire round
their own more favoured settlement. Visitors front the
dreaded spot would report that every house seemed
• house of mourning, and that infants more especially
were born under sonic fatal star, that shed awful
influences on them from their cradle upwards. Fur
every child dead in the healthy parish, you would
count four in its pestilential neighbour. Ever it
would seem would the voice be heard of sonic
Itsottl. weeping for her children. We might
go on to notice the whole or the greater part
of th;is remarkable report, but WO were arrested
on the threshold of our undertaking by the startling
nature of the theta to which we have drawn atten-
tion. Three eighths of the mortality of the city of
London consists in a premature extinction of
infant life. That the, mortality is humanly
speaking premature, there can be nu doubt :
Nothing, (says Mr. SimuN) can be more conclusive
than the evidence afforded by statistics as to the depend-
ence of high infautine mortality on the general cAllst, of
endemic unhealthiness. My own observation within the
City gives complete confirmation to this view, showilyg me
that the diseases specified in my table (diarrhea 1, bronchitis
and pneumonia, hooping cough, croup, and measles, hydros
t,Plialus, and convulsion.), hoarser various an their nature
they may seem, and however apt you may be to dissociate
their occurrence from the thought of local causation, yet
unquestionably multiply their victims in proportion to the
otherwise demonstrable unhealthiness of a place, owe most
of their fatality to local causcs, and may, therelure, be to •
great extent disarmed of their malignity.
Is it possible that after thin anything can be
needed in the way of spurring on those on whom
this heat, responsibility is laid, to the adoption of
measures having a tendency to diminish and in the
end utterly abolish the deadly causes that are daily
thinning the infant population of the City? Re
should hope not—and trust that the adoption of Mr.
Smuts's report will be followed by measures showing
the authorities to be in earnest in their efforts for
improvement.