The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-12 00:00:00

TIIE PUBLIC HEALTH.

(I'roia the Registrar-Gtaerd's Return.)

General Register-office, Somerset-house,
Sept. 10.
In the week that ended on Saturday, Sept. 8, the
births registered in London'and 12 other large towns
of the United Kingdom were 3,884 ; the deaths re-

gistered 3,075. The annual rate of mortality was
26 per 1,000 persons living.
In London the births of 967 boys and 938 girls,
in • all 1,905 children, were registered in the week.
In the corresponding weeks of ten years, 1856-65,
the average number, corrected for increase of popu-

lation, was 1,925.
The deaths registered in London during the week
were 1,335. It was the 36th week of the year; and
the average number of deaths for that week is, with
a correction for increase of population, 1,245. The
deaths in the present return exceed the estimated
number by 90.
The weekly deaths by cholera have fallen progres-
sively. from 1,053, 781, 455, 265, and 198, to 157 ;
by cholera and diarrhoea frozn 1,407, 1,045, 649,
394, and 326 to 289. In the East districts the
weekly deaths by cholera have fallen from 916 to 74;
in the South districts from 47 to 39 ; in the rest of
London from 90 to 44. The rate of mortality by
cholera and diarrhoea in East London is rather more
than double the mortality by those diseases in the
whole of the metropolis. Of the deaths in the South
districts an undue proportion is still observed ; last
week 7 deaths by cholera, 5 by diarrhoea were regis-
tered in Deptford; 7 by cholera and 4 by diarrhcea in
Woolwich, where the rector states that precautions

are taken by the Health Committee. The efficiency
of the measures in both these districts on the banks
of the Thames should be closely watched. Last
week the deaths by cholera in the Poplar district
were 7, in Greenwich Union, including Deptford
and Woolwich, 17.

Dr. Frankland has related a remarkable case in
which boiling did not deprive cesspool stuff of its
poisonous qualities. The experiment is decisive as
it goes, and shows the absolute exclusion of sewage
from water for domestic use. Boiling the water is
a useful precaution, but Dr. Frankland prefers fil-
tration through animal charcoal, or the use of the
permanganate of potash.
Sporadic cases of cholera have been observed from
the cause to which Dr. Franklank refers ; in the
dead of the winter of 1838, between the 7th of
January and the sth of February, 55 persons died
of cholera in the Coventry House of Industry, evi-
dently from common polluted water, as cholera was
not at the time epidemic. In the Union Workhouse
of Epping cholera suddenly broke out on the sth of
August, 1854, and by the 14th destroyed 23 lives ;
" the well of the workhouse was close to the main
sewer," and to this "dreadful state of drainage" the
fatality of cholera was traced.* In this year epi-
demic cholera prevailed.
The annual rate of mortality last week was 23
per 1,000 in London, 24 in Edinburgh, and 30 in
Dublin ;21 in Bristol,-21 in Birmingham, 53 in
Liverpool, 28 in Manchester, 26 in Salford, 22 in
Sheffield, 29 in Leeds, 21 in Hull, 34 in Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, and 23 in Glasgow. The rate in Vienna
was 35 per 1,000 during the week ending the Ist
inst., when the temperature was 5.6 deg. Fahren-
heit higher than in the same week in London, where
the rate was 24 per 1,000. The 374 deaths in this
city included 64 from cholera.

At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the mean
height of the barometer in the week was 29.475 in.
The barometrical reading decreased from 29.74 in.
on Monday to 29.21 in. on Wednesday. The
mean temperature of the air in the week was 58.5
deg., which is 0.4 deg. above the average of the
same week in 50 years (as determined by Mr.
Glaisher). The highest day temperature was 69.3
deg., on Wednesday and Friday. The lowest night
temperature was 45.8 deg., on Monday. The entire
range of temperature in the week was, therefore,
23.5 deg. The mean of the highest temperatures
of the water of the Thames was 61.1 deg. ; that of
the lowest was 60.7 deg. The difference between
the mean dew-point temperature and air tempera-
ture was 4.7 deg. The mean degree of humidity of
the air was 85, complete saturation being repre-
sented by 100. Rain fell to the amount of 1.91 in.,
of which 0.90 in. fell on Sunday. The blue mist
was observed on Sunday, Monday, Friday, and Sa-
turday. On Saturday all traces of the blue mist
were oblitered by a grayish mist.
SUPPLEMENT TO THE WEEKLY RETURN, No. 36,
WEST HAM.

The registration distrizt of West Ham properly
belongs to London, with which it is intimately as-
sociated. Its four sub-districts are Walthamstow,
Leyton, Stratford, and West Ham proper ; at the
north-east angle of London, it lies between Epping
Forest and the Thames, the river Lea and the
Roding at Barking, without touching Barking
Creek. It has docks as well as manufactures; and
at New Stratford are the extensive works of the
Great Eastern Railway. West Ham has been by
error left out of London, and in consequence sends
down its ample sewage by an independent channel
across the northern outfall sewer of the Metropolitan
Board to an arm of the river Lea, which Mr. Beard-
more, C.E., says, " has the disadvantage of being
tidal below Old Ford, and is therefore liable to the
inflow of impurity from the Thames, and from the
sewage of Stratford and West Ham, turned into
the Bow Creek arm of the Lea without deodoriza-
tion." By this unhappy arrangement the tide car-
ries the sewage of West Ham up and down the river
Lea, close to the reservoirs from which Stratford
and West Ham proper get water.
The population of West Ham was 50,319 in 1861,
and has since increased rapidly ; at the rates of
1851 and 1861 it will be 81,718 in the year 1866.

Walthamstow to the north is supplied with water
from a deep well, from springs, and in part from
the Lea-bridge reservoirs of the East London Water-
works Company ; Leyton is supplied partly in the
same manner. The deaths from cholera in these
two sub-districts were only 11 in the eight weeks
ending September 1.

Far otherwise was it at Stratford and West Ham
proper, where the mortality in the last week of July
was appalling enough ; in one week 45 persons were
killed in Stratford, 76 in West Ham, by cholera
alone, exclusive of deaths by diarrhoea. The deaths
by cholera to 10,000 living were 78 in Stratford and
49 in West Ham proper during the eight weeks
ending September 1. The particulars of each case
are printed in the supplement, and the mortality
should be compared with the mortality by cholera
in each of the London districts.

Both Stratford and West Ham are detached?rom
the main drainage system, and have a system of
drainage of their own. They are both supplied with
water from the Old Ford reservoirs of the East
London Company.